Miffed because of TIFF

The Toronto International Film Festival is in town. You know, I'm not even sure why I linked to the website - it's horrible!

You see, I don't really know much about how the Festival works, I just know that it's getting more and more popular, celebs show up for the event and lotsa good movies are played.

After finally trying to go onto the website and looking into the ticketing procedures, and then trying to sort through all of the different movies to see which ones I was interested in (I have to admit, my starting point was the selections of other reviewers and then narrowing down the field from there) I thought I understood the format well enough to prepare a list of movies that I was interested in seeing.

I was still a little confused about the prices of the tickets ($20 for a movie is pretty steep and then there's a whole "Premium" ticket thing that I didn't really understand) but was excited to see that once the tickets were released to the public, most of the shows still had tickets available (except Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution"...darn it). Hearing that there's an extra surcharge on tickets bought on the net, I decided to head down to the Manulife Centre and pick up tickets in person.

Apparently the line of 20ish people was considered short, but before I could join it, I looked at the "availability" board. And then everything went wrong.

ALL of the movies that I wanted to see were unavailable. On the plus side, I guess that means that I picked good movies. Movies that a lot of other people thought were worth paying money to see too. Sigh.

So why did they show up fine on the internet? A representative said that they were having some technical difficulties with their website. I was told that very rarely would new tickets become available and that they would also become available if anyone decided to return their tickets. I asked about the "Premium" tickets. Apparently, at Gala performances, there are chats with the director or another important person to do with the movie...so this I would understand needing to pay more for. The other type of expensive ticket goes for movies that are being shown at the Visa Screening Room at the Elgin Theatre. The theatre is a little nicer than other venues, but the only reason that the representative gave as to why the tickets were so expensive (pretty much twice the price of the already expensive regular priced ticket) was that usually stars went to watch movies at this location. So, pretty much you're paying to sit in the same, albeit dark (so you can't really see them) room as someone famous. Right.

So pretty much, my chance to being part of the TIFF is next to nothing. Boo-urns.

The representative did state that waiting in line for rush seats often turns out well. Now, I don't know how early in advance the queue starts up, but letting in approx 20 people's not bad in my eyes. Maybe I'll do that. I'll just go downtown, and walk by the theatre to see what's up and hopefully snag a seat so that I can say that I was part of TIFF.

FYI, here's a couple of the movies I was hoping to see (in case by some weird stroke of luck, by posting names my measly blog gets people to return their tickets exactly at the moment that I walk into the Manulife):
*Blind*Breakfast with Scot*Buddha Collapsed out of Shame*Chacun son Cinema*My Kid Could Paint That*Secret Sunshine*Unfinished Stories*

I can never spot them, but I still love thinking that I'm hanging out with celebs and doing super cool things like being an amateur film critic. And I'm in Toronto. I said that I wanted to make the most out of everything that It had to offer right?

I wonder how I can start networking so that I can attend a Fashion Week somewhere. Did that comment come out from left field? The segue made complete sense in my mind.

Speaking of celebs, Sassafraz is still not open. The scaffolding is gone, but it's obvious that the hot-spot is nowhere near completion. I guess their goal of being open in time for the festival didn't work out. I gotta get to Lobby somehow. I still remember when it first opened...but I still haven't gone.

- picture courtesy of www.tiff07.ca