TIFF50

TIFF (Toronto International Film Fest) is celebrating its 50th this year, and we are here for the 7th time. We got in in the later afternoon Friday, taking the train from the airport which was super easy, then transferring to the subway with our suitcases, which was less easy, because of all the stairs. The train was full of girls in cowboy hats going to see Morgan Wallen that night.

The AirBNB is the kind where the host meets you to get you checked in. We were waiting on one side of the building that had a fob access entry while the host’s employee was waiting in the more open access lobby on the other side of the building, but we got it figured out after a few texts. Still it was a little nervous-making and when we got in, the apartment itself needs a little love. There’s a bit of a lack of furniture – there’s no place, like a sideboard, to throw your stuff when you first walk in, and the only clothing storage is in a small closet with a shoe bag and hard to slide mirrored doors. The door handles to the utility closet where the washer/dryer is are falling off. And there’s just not enough comfort – minimal towels, minimal sheets, thin pillows. But the location is great. There’s a decent coffee place we can get to without going fully outside, by walking through alleys between the high rises.

After we got all checked in we walked to the Whole Foods that’s barely 10 minutes away, and bought some yogurt and fruit and granola for breakfast.

Then we officially started our 7th TIFF with dinner at Tutti Matti, a place we’ve enjoyed several other TIFFs ever since a couple we were waiting in line with told us about it. Maybe because of the disappointment with the AirBNB, I was a little worried at the restaurant, that it didn’t seem all that full for a Friday night and the Chef-owner, Alida Solomon, was cooking, and all the staff except for the maitre d’/bartender were really young. But the food was all great, and the place filled up with big tables of TIFF lanyard people as it got later. Maybe Chef Solomon gets youngsters from local cooking schools to stage at her place.

We followed that with a pasta, long noodles with tomatoes and bread crumbs and more burrata, and a pizza with eggs and sausage on top. We ate almost all the pasta, but we brought home three-fourths of the pizza. I think we’re having it for dinner tonight (Sunday) with a salad from Whole Foods.

Saturday we had two movies scheduled in advance at 2:45 and 6:30 and were able to add a third that started at noon.

Our first movie of TIFF was The Choral, Ralph Fiennes as the hastily hired choir master in a small town in Yorkshire during the first World War, just as the draft is starting in the UK. The movie is filled with seasoned British character actors, but since our seats were way too close it was hard to recognize the younger actors and everyone’s noses looked three feet long. I also started feeling a little queasy by the end.

Next up was Charlie Harper, about a pair of struggling millennials. They move to New Orleans together but can’t keep their relationship going as Harper becomes more successful as a chef and Charlie doesn’t seem to have any ambition and descends into alcoholism and drug abuse. Harper’s Tinder date gets the best line in the movie, that a break up is like watching the person you’ve been closest to in the world become a stranger again. 

In between those two films we went to Hot Black, our fave coffee place on Queen Street and had a coffee and a cookie. I didn’t take any pictures but it looked the same as in years past, the same awning over the back outdoor seating. And they still had the good jam cookies and steamed egg sandwiches. Which also helped my queasy stomach.

In between Charlie Harper and our last movie of the day, I felt the need of carbs so we went and got fries and a pulled pork sandwich at the food trucks by the TIFF sign on King Street.

There were pro-Palestinian demonstrators draping white bags with red paint for blood and signs on the TIFF sign. One woman TIFF-attendee loudly proclaimed that someone should “move that shit” so she could take her picture. I just took my pics anyway and we went and ate our sandwich and fries at a picnic table with an older woman Toronto resident who said she wasn’t seeing any movies this year but came down to King Street for the festival scene. We talked about tariffs and the cost of cars and Trump’s culture wars. She said in Canada they’re just quietly protesting. Good for them.

Our last movie Saturday was called Carolina Caroline with Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner as a modern Bonnie & Clyde, or more properly, some indeterminate time in the 20th century Bonnie & Clyde, probably the 1990s, when there’re no cell phones, pay phones still exist, and people pay cash. It had an all-county soundtrack that I liked but recognized hardly anything except I think Patsy Cline & Dolly Parton were in there, and the almost last song was Tecumseh Valley by Townes Van Zandt, about a Caroline. All the descriptions of the movie say the title is from the Jonathan Edwards song of the same name, but I don’t even remember hearing it in the movie. There was a Q&A with the director, Adam Carter Rehmeier, after the show, so we couldn’t stay to see the song credits – they bring the stage lights up and the credits get washed out. Same thing happened after The Choral.

Sunday we couldn’t get any additional movies booked between our first at 10:00AM and our second at 10:00PM (well 9:45, but 10:00’s close enough. The early movie was Roof Man, funny and good and based on a true story, but again we were a bit too close and were seeing things from a slightly odd angle.

One of Al’s friends is a chef and has lived in Toronto, although Al says he’s opening a new restaurant in DC right now. Anyways we got a nice list of restaurants from Chef Zach and tried one of them, alouette, for brunch after the movie. I had avocado toast with poached eggs and Mark had the Eggs Blackstone which was basically a Benedict with tomato & bacon. It was all really tasty, and they thought of everything. The drinks came with metal straws and metal picks and they brought a ramekin for the fruit peels. We got the strawberry sundae for dessert and it came with a special metal dish to put under the sundae glass to catch the drips you’d inevitably create as you dug in your spoon.

And we’re pretty sure that Ethan Hawke was in the booth right behind us. Celebrity sighting one.

Now we’re waiting at the AirBNB until it’s time to leave for movie 5, Poetic License, at 9:00ish, to be there in time for the 9:45 start. I’ll tell you about that one tomorrow.