Goodbye giant robots, hello TIFF
Ah, September! The giant robots fold themselves up and go wherever giant robots go when the battle is over. The pirates stash their loot and head off to winter at their villas in the south of France. The apes punch their time cards, exhausted after so much mayhem. The talking cars back themselves into cartoon garages. The teenage wizards drop their wands off at the prop department and catch the next plane south. The panda settles into his hammock until the franchise boss calls again. Captain America and Thor swagger to the nearest Comic-Con to soak up the adulation. And me? I breathe a deep sigh of relief that the 2011 summer blockbuster movie season is over.
Hey, don't get me wrong. I've got no problem with movies that are inspired by kids’ toys, kids’ comics, kids’ books, or movie ideas as recycled as the cool air that beckoned me into the theatre on those extreme heat alert days in the Big Smoke.
I’m just saying I’m glad September is here, because September is a golden season for movie lovers in this city. The Toronto International Film Festival kicks off September 8th and runs to September 18th. Founded in 1976, TIFF has evolved to become one of the most important film festivals in the world. Hundreds of movies from all over the world will be screened, with cinematic styles and subjects so varied you won't know where to start.
Here is a small sampling of what TIFF has on tap:
A Bollywood dance number on a Toronto hockey rink (Breakaway); footage of the G20 riots in Toronto integrated into the science fiction movie (We Ate the Children Last), based on a short story by Canadian writer Yann Martel; the volatile relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud (A Dangerous Method); Glen Close masquerading as a male butler in 19th century Ireland (The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs); a troubled clown (Issues); a jealous golden retriever (Good Boy); musicians moonlighting as cooks in a high-security asylum; (The Incident); and, my personal favourite, a misfit who is "thrown into the hostile, high-stakes world of competitive butter carving" (Butter)
Take that, giant robots.
If you're a cinephile who'd like something to read between screenings, North York Central Library has a wide range of material on films and film making. We have biographies of actors and directors, best movies lists, worst movie lists, serious essays on film, collections of movie criticism by legendary film critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert, and more. And if you'd like to try your hand at making your own movie, we have books on movie editing, script writing, costume design, acting, and the motion picture industry. If you're browsing our film collection on a Friday afternoon, come to the auditorium for our free Tea and Entertainment event; we show a movie and serve refresments afterwards. If you don't have time to come to the library, browse the Toronto Public Library Catalogue and reserve the book of your choice. You can have it sent to the library closest to the theatre where you're camping out.
Here are some books you might like:
Just to whet your appetite, here are some quotes from Frankly, My Dear: Quips and Quotes from Hollywood:
"The most important thing in acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made" George Burns
"My acting range? Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised." Roger Moore
"I wrote the script for Rocky in three days. I'm astounded by people who take eighteen years to write something. That's how long it took that guy to write Madame Bovary. And did that ever make the bestseller list?" Sylvester Stallone
"I deny that I ever said actors are cattle; what I said was that actors should be treated like cattle." Alfred Hitchcock
"The Hollywood film version of my play, Design For Living, retained only one line intact: 'Kippers on toast' " Noel Coward
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