Movies: Toronto International Film Festival (and any other Film Fest for that matter)

[Arizonan God]

Thinking of dipping my toes in TiFF for the first time this year. I didn't buy a package, so I'm only going to see a couple weekday daytime screenings ($10 because I'm under 25). Will tickets be rather hard to get by the time they go on general sale?

Want to see If Beale Street Could Talk, but not sure if that's realistic?

Definitely want to check out Burning, The Man with The Gun, Outlaw King, Mid90's, and Roma as well.

 

[BonMorrison]

Thinking of dipping my toes in TiFF for the first time this year. I didn't buy a package, so I'm only going to see a couple weekday daytime screenings ($10 because I'm under 25). Will tickets be rather hard to get by the time they go on general sale?

Want to see If Beale Street Could Talk, but not sure if that's realistic?

Definitely want to check out Burning, The Man with The Gun, Outlaw King, Mid90's, and Roma as well.

I haven't done single tickets in a while but back when I used to do it, it definitely was a bit harder to get tickets especially for films that have lots of hype like Beale Street. My suggestion is be online right when tickets go on sale and have a pre-set list of things you want to grab.

 

[kihei]

I haven't done single tickets in a while but back when I used to do it, it definitely was a bit harder to get tickets especially for films that have lots of hype like Beale Street. My suggestion is be online right when tickets go on sale and have a pre-set list of things you want to grab.

People should also keep in mind that if worse comes to worse you can get into almost anything if you are willing to stand in the rush line long enough. In rush lines for exclusive movies I think my career record is something like 48 out of 50 doing rush lines.

 

[Arizonan God]

People should also keep in mind that if worse comes to worse you can get into almost anything if you are willing to stand in the rush line long enough. In rush lines for exclusive movies I think my career record is something like 48 out of 50 doing rush lines.

Thanks for the heads up, I might end up doing that for Beale Street. I reeeeally wanna catch that one.

 

[kihei]

My window of twenty tickets opened this morning and here are the results:

Dogman--Matteo Garrone
Kursk--Thomas Vinterberg
Capernaum--Nadine Labaki
Everybody Knows--Asghar Farhadi
Fausto
Climax--Gaspar Noe
El Angel
Shadow--Zhang Yimou
Donbass--Sergei Loznitsa
The Wild Pear Tree--Nuri Bilge Ceylan
ROMA--Alphonso Cuaron
The Image Book--Jean Luc Godard
Hotel by the River--Hong Sang-soo
Cold War--Pawel Pawlikowski
Ash Is the Purest White--Jia Zhang-ke
Museo
Diamantino
In My Room
Wavelengths 1 (has an Apichatpong Weerasethakul short in the package)
Wavelengths 4 (has a Hu Bo short in the package)

Only one that I didn't get was Burning, but I can likely pick that up when single tickets go on sale. I might rush seat Shoplifters and Xavier Dolan's The Death and Life of John F Donovan (I'm a big fan of his but this movie looks awful), but both are coming to Toronto in a couple of months anyway.

 

[BonMorrison]

Only got 5 movies, gonna try to grab some more when singles go out.

Climax, Burning, Shadow, Wildlife, and Mid90s.

Was very bummed that I couldn't get Shoplifter or If Beale Street Could Talk.

@kihei - what screening of Climax and Shadow did you get? I have the midnight one for Climax and the Sept 13 one for Shadow.

 

[kihei]

Only got 5 movies, gonna try to grab some more when singles go out.

Climax, Burning, Shadow, Wildlife, and Mid90s.

Was very bummed that I couldn't get Shoplifter or If Beale Street Could Talk.

@kihei - what screening of Climax and Shadow did you get? I have the midnight one for Climax and the Sept 13 one for Shadow.

I have the midnight screening for Climax on Sunday, September 9, too. See you in line.

Don't be too bummed out. Both films will open in Toronto soon-ish. I think Shoplifters is due to open on December 7. Plus that 9:00 AM screening of Shoplifters on Saturday, September 15 is low hanging fruit as rush seats go. Who wakes up to get on a subway at 6:00 AM on a Saturday to stand in line? Well, me, for instance.

Still hope to get a ticket to Burning when single tickets go on sale.

 

[kihei]

This page indicates all the films that are currently off-line. There are several already.

TIFF 2018 Off-sale Screenings ~ TIFF Talk

 

[Arizonan God]

Shooting for these films for my first TIFF, most on weekdays and attempting to buy singles:

Outlaw King
If Beale Street Could Talk (probably going to have to try the rush line)
Burning
The Old Man And The Gun
ROMA
Mid90s

Also possibly Cold War and Wildlife if I can manage the time right.

 

[kihei]

Completed my picks today with tickets to Long Day's Journey into Night and Burning. Started by trying to buy ticket on TIFF's website at noon, but it was an absolute horror show. It took thirty minutes to get the technology up and running (while everybody was on wait) and then the site would lose people's tickets, not allow people to check out, of just return everybody to step one. Happens every year and the dingbats that pass as technical support staff make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Finally went down to TIFF Bell Lightbox and picked them up there on the spot. The movies are great but, man, the purchasing of tickets is the absolute pits.

 

[Arizonan God]

Well, I learned my lesson. No going out the night before tickets go on sale. Woke up at noon and missed out on quite a bit I wanted to see, but got
Wildlife
The Old Man and the Gun
Non-Fiction
Hold The Dark
Mid90's

Also going to try and rush line ROMA on the 15th. kihei, how long before the showing do you reckon I should show up to have a decent shot at a ticket?

 

[discostu]

I picked up tickets to Mid90s. I have some family from out of town that weekend, that were disappointed in not getting into a bigger ticket show (First Man in particular). But, I'm curious to what Jonah Hill does behind the camera, and assuming he's showing up to help promote it would be an interesting guy to hear in a Q&A.

 

[kihei]

Well, I learned my lesson. No going out the night before tickets go on sale. Woke up at noon and missed out on quite a bit I wanted to see, but got
Wildlife
The Old Man and the Gun
Non-Fiction
Hold The Dark
Mid90's

Also going to try and rush line ROMA on the 15th. kihei, how long before the showing do you reckon I should show up to have a decent shot at a ticket?

It's an 8:45 PM start. Usually evening screenings are more competitive, especially on weekends. I'd get there two hours early (could narrow that to an hour and a half, maybe--depends on how badly you want to see the movie) especially as the Lightbox 3 is more on the medium size. Great time to read a book or make new friends in the line up. The time goes by fast when that happens.

 

[kihei]

error

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Off to a good start at TIFF Thursday with Styx, a simple but effective protest film under the guise of an adventure thriller. German doctor sailing her yacht solo to the South Atlantic encounters a boat full of refugees adrift and leaking. Humanity meets hell on the high seas. The expanse of the ocean, its tranquility and its ferocity, probably won't translate well to the laptop screen, so see this on a big screen. And no, "Come Sail Away" is not on the soundtrack. Missed opportunity there.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

complete lineup:

aKasha (Sudan)
Diamantino (Portugal)
Donbass (Ukraine)
Edge of the Knife (Canada)
Fausto (Canada)
In My Room (Germany)
Jinpa (China)
Jirga (Australia)
Manta Ray (Thailand)
Reason (India) doc
Sew The Winter To My Skin (South Africa)
Styx (Germany)
The Elephant Queen (UK/Kenya) doc
The Image Book (Switzerland)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (France, 1928)
The River (Kazahkstan)
The Third Wife (Vietnam)
The Wild Pear Tree (Turkey)
The Wind (USA)
Wavelengths 1: Earth, Wind & Fire (various)

The Elephant Queen looks like a family-oriented documentary in the style of March of the Penguins. Go ahead and laugh, but I'm a sucker for nature and wildlife cinematography, especially on the big screen. Plus I have a full slate of depressing-looking movies so this will be a refresh.

My only beef this year was the lack of variety for the Weekday Flex Pack--lots of choice titles available evenings and weekends only. Would be great if they could extend the window from 5pm to 6.

 

[kihei]

An odd thing: even when everybody in line has a reserved seat, ala Kursk, everybody gets in line an hour early anyway. Strange tribal behaviour.

 

[BonMorrison]

Wow, Burning was absolutely excellent.
Loved every bit of it, what a great way to start the festival for me.

 

[BonMorrison]

Climax was absolutely wild. I think I loved it.

 

[discostu]

Saw Mid90s last night as my only foray into TIFF this year. It was an enjoyable coming of age film. It was very light on plot, but a lot of fun, silly banter between the young actors, who were all engaging.

While the dialogue was fun, I found you could hear Jonah Hill's writing in there and that it sounded like things you'd expect Jonah Hill to say in a movie coming out of different characters, which made those characters feel a little less authentic.

It's good enough, and will likely earn enough acclaim that it will bring Hill back to the directors chair in the future. But, I don't feel the film covers much in the way of new ground that people are going to be compelled to see this.

 

[kihei]

This miserable rainy day in Toronto reminds me of how few times in the past ten years or so that TIFF has run into bad weather. Quite extraordinary, really. One advantage--you can probably rush any movie you want today and be absolutely certain of getting in.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I keep saying I'm going to go one year and I never do.
Next year should be the year.

 

[BonMorrison]

Saw Mid90s last night as my only foray into TIFF this year. It was an enjoyable coming of age film. It was very light on plot, but a lot of fun, silly banter between the young actors, who were all engaging.

While the dialogue was fun, I found you could hear Jonah Hill's writing in there and that it sounded like things you'd expect Jonah Hill to say in a movie coming out of different characters, which made those characters feel a little less authentic.

It's good enough, and will likely earn enough acclaim that it will bring Hill back to the directors chair in the future. But, I don't feel the film covers much in the way of new ground that people are going to be compelled to see this.

You probably walked by me and @kihei as you were on your way out if you walked past the line for the next movie (Climax).

Can't wait to see Mid90s on Friday.

 

[discostu]

You probably walked by me and @kihei as you were on your way out if you walked past the line for the next movie (Climax).

Can't wait to see Mid90s on Friday.

I'd like to say if I'd known, I would have stopped and chatted, but, having to work this morning and still having a lengthy commute home to the suburbs, I was making a beeline back home.

I have trouble finding people to go to TIFF with, so would be happy to try something one year.

I have some out of town guests this week, so took one last night. I've been telling him to comes down and experience TIFF for a few years. I don't think he truly understood the concept though. When we started looking at the schedule for tickets to try for, the only thing that interested him was the bigger names blockbuster films like First Man. It tried telling him that it's next to impossible to land those. I thought getting a film like Mid90s that wasn't too out there and has a big name attached would be a good compromise. He was happy to go along but you can tell that films outside the popcorn spectacles are not his thing.

 

[Arizonan God]

TIFF lesson #2: Bring a damn umbrella when it’s chucking it with rain