Celebs

Another year, another TIFF. It was my ninth year in a row of going to the festival, and my second time covering as Press — but first time where I actually used the pass as it was meant to be used. The less said about the last time, the better.

I watched 5 films before the festival, 44 films during (my own personal record!), attended 2 Press Conferences, 1 Jason Reitman Live Read (for The Breakfast Club no less), and even had some time leftover to skip a whole day to attend the wedding of a dear friend. Through all the smoking and deep, depressing films, I had a total blast and cannot wait for next year. Perhaps I’ll budget my sleeping better so I don’t doze through a good portion of a movie like The Old Man & The Gun? Probably not, but I can at least pretend that I’ll try.

I wrote quite a few words for Mr. Will Wong on a number of the films I had the opportunity to see, so here are the individual links to those reviews and the links to the Press Conferences I covered:

CAPSULE REVIEWS
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Fahrenheit 11/9
First Man
The Front Runner
Halloween
High Life
Hold the Dark
The Kindergarten Teacher
Kingsway
Let Me Fall [Lof mer ad falla]
Life Itself
Mid90s
Monsters and Men
Nekrotronic
The Predator
A Private War
The Public
ROMA
Les Salopes or the Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin [Les salopes ou le sucre naturel de la peau]
A Star is Born [2018]
Wildlife

FULL REVIEW

White Boy Rick

PRESS CONFERENCES

First Man
The Front Runner

So there was a really big learning curve this year taking the whole week off for TIFF: do I see as many movies as I possibly can, or do I only see a select few and spend the rest of the week writing? As you can probably tell, I picked seeing the movies. I have 3 scheduled for today, but the first does not start until 6:45 tonight — and tickets are still available, so I am not anticipating a crowd.

I’ve been running behind on posting photos as well, so here’s a taste of the main cast from Spotlight on stage after the premiere on Monday, along with the real journalists they were portraying:

spotlightcast

So here are a few more things I learned, or have confirmed over the past few days:

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So it’s Day 3, and I’ve already failed at updating daily. I knew that was ambitious…

michaelmoore1

Anyway, so far I’ve only seen one film — Where to Invade Next. It’s Michael Moore’s best work since Bowling for Columbine. Saw it at the World Premiere on Opening Night with filmgoers, press and film buyers. Apparently the film had never been unspooled for anyone at that point, and you could tell Moore was nervous and anxious before and after the film was done. I’ll have a review up shortly with my brief thoughts.

 

weloveyoujakeCelebrity wise, I saw Moore that night, along with Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts on the red carpet for Demolition. I’ve been doing red carpets for six years taking pics (and trying for selfies), but ever since camera phones have caught on, it seems like I get more shots of those than I do the celebrities. Or whatever enterprising idea autograph hounds have for getting their attention and ensuring the autograph turns out. Or whatever attention this girl desperately wanted from Gyllenhaal.

So here are my best efforts. Continue Reading