9-16-2004

Today I raced the rain.

And lost.

It was me against a big, dark, water-logged cloud as I hoofed through the Toronto streets en route to the Paramount. I saw it moving towards the theater, as I was, and I suspected it would unleash its floodgates before I could make it safely inside. I was right. Not more than half a block from the refuge of the Paramount lobby, the cloud opened up and it POURED. I’d like to extend a special thank you to the traffic light that turned red on me just as the enormous raindrops began pounding the city.

So, I had to watch my third film of the day with pants that were wet from mid-thigh down. Keep that in mind when you get to that paragraph.

First up, though, was Stage Beauty, a comedy-drama set in 17th-century England, where London’s most famous actor (Billy Crudup) is revered for his ability to play a woman onstage (since women performing in public was against the law). He suddenly loses his ranking and superstar status when an actual woman (Claire Danes), who performs in secret, becomes a phenomenon and the laws are changed to allow a new breed of performer called “actresses.” The film was entertaining enough throughout, and had some deliciously clever dialogue, but it has a fantastic final 20 minutes that made me sit up in my seat.

I’m also delighted to report that Claire Danes gets the TIFF Participaction Award for showing up (!) to the 9:30am screening for a pre-film introduction. She was only there for maybe four minutes, but still. It counts! Thanks for putting in some effort, Claire, when so many of your comrades skip the daytime stuff altogether.

While waiting in line for my next movie, the 1930s-set comedy A Good Woman, I learned the perils of making friends with one’s linemates. See, when you strike up a conversation with a perfect stranger, you never really know what you’re going to get. Most of the time, you find yourself chatting about which movies you’ve seen and the festival in general. Maybe some comments on something funny that happened at a screening, or the box number you got in the ticket lottery. But then, occasionally, you get trapped in The Conversation From Hell. That happened to me today, when a brief exchange about movies turned into this overly perky woman telling me ALL about her life, her job, her boss, her former bosses, her administrative strategies, her colleagues, their administrative strategies (or lack thereof), her friends, her part-time job as a babysitter, her neighbors, her cat, her cat’s surgery…and it just went on and on and ON. After about the fifth minute, my eyes glazed over and I prayed for rescue. (Thank you to Lee sisters #2 and #3 for saving me!) The most hilarious thing is that once I was out of harm’s way, this woman turned to someone else in line and started the whole spiel over again, almost word for word!

AND she was at my third screening (the one with the wet pants) doing it again! I tried not to laugh out loud, and wanted to suggest that she work on some (shorter) new material.

A Good Woman follows a promiscuous American (Helen Hunt…wait, Helen Hunt?!) known for affairs with wealthy married men, who treks to Italy to find fortune anew once she’s essentially driven out of the States by some seriously pissed off high-society wives. Once in Italy, she gets involved in the lives of a newlywed couple (Scarlett Johansson, Mark Umbers) and finds herself being wooed by an older gent (Tom Wilkinson). The movie was kind of meh overall, but a decent enough way to spend 90 minutes. Scarlett Johansson didn’t irritate me onscreen as much as she normally does, which was refreshing.

Anyway, clad in damp trou, I next sat down for a dark Canadian comedy called Siblings, which is about a quartet of step-siblings who kill their wealthy but entirely repulsive parents (Sonja Smits, Nicholas Campbell). Ubiquitous Canuck Sarah Polley co-stars as a neighbor who gets involved in the subsequent cover-up. The movie was good, but not amazing, and the lame-ass people running the show at the Paramount messed up again. This time, the lights came up and the picture went dark (but the audio stayed on) during a final, end-of-credits scene. So we could hear it, we just couldn’t see it. Thanks, geniuses.

After a SUPER healthy dinner of a Frappuccino and a bag of McDonald’s cookies (yum!), I queued up for the last movie of the day, the German gay-boys-at-camp movie, Summer Storm. It’s the story of two best friends, Tobi (Robert Stadlover) and Achim (Kostja Ullmann), who go to a rowing camp where Tobi comes to terms with his homosexuality and affection for Achim, who’s straight. It’s a cute movie, very much along the lines of films like Get Real and Beautiful Thing, and it features a German actress named Alicja Bachleda-Curus, who’s a dead-ringer for Keira Knightley. It was freaky! Seriously, if Keira put on maybe 15 pounds, the two of them would be twins. F-r-e-a-k-y.

This screening was one where my personal-hygiene rule (from the film-fest DOs and DON’Ts list) was not, it seems, obeyed by many of the men who turned up for the film. While in line beforehand, I was sandwiched between two guys who neglected to “freshen up.” There was the distinct aroma of B.O. in the air, and the guy in front of me had that so-greasy-it’s-matted hair thing happening. ICK.

But even worse was after the film, when we all had to trek into another theater for the Q&A. When I opened the door to theater #2, which was apparently packed to the rafters with audience members, I was hit with a wall of humid, B.O.-scented air. I felt like I was walking into a locker room. It was NASTY! I stayed for all of two minutes before scurrying out in search of fresher air. I mean, come on people, deodorant was invented for occasions such as this.

I am hoping for decidedly cleaner filmgoers tomorrow.

Roger Ebert Sightings: Dear Lord. Will this be the first year in 14 years (!!!!) that I don’t see Roger?!?!? I’m breaking out in a cold sweat as I type this…

Celebrity Sightings: Claire Danes, as mentioned, and legendary blues singer Ruth Brown, who I actually saw yesterday but only identified today (I knew she was someone famous, I just didn’t know who!).

Line Buzz: More thumbs up for Hotel Rwanda, starring Don Cheadle and Nick Nolte, and frenzied anticipation for Quill, a Japanese drama about a seeing-eye dog. I fear the dog (or its elderly owner) will die at the end of the movie, so I'm not seeing it because I've had enough of movies making me cry. So there.

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