TIFFTY!

TIFF (The Toronto International Film Festival) turned 50 this year.

I’d love to just get into the film roster that we took in this year, but with this TIFF being incredibly special, the Golden Anniversary, I wanted to write a little bit about my cinema and TIFF Journey.

I started working at 12 years old, and did various jobs from hustling chocolate bars to families in well-to-do neighbourhoods to working 20-hour weekends in an Indian Restaurant in Toronto’s Little India (Gerrard and Ashdale) to helping prep cars to paint in an autobody shop at Greenwood and Queen in as a highschooler.

My first proper job outside of those odd-jobs, per se, was being hired at the Showcase Cinema (now the CAA Theatre) on Yonge Street as an usher in November 1987.

The cinema was jammed as it was the only place to see “The Last Emperor” by Bernardo Bertolucci, which cleaned up at the Oscars in ’88.

The film was only being shown in three cities in North America at the time, L.A, NYC, and my home city – and it was only being presented in 70mm (which is a real treat, for those of you who know).

Funny story – the projection booth at The Showcase was isolated on the roof of the building, so the projectionists (one in particular, who’s last name was Dougherty, and the staff used to call him Doughboy for obvious reasons) would come down to the lobby to socialize with the staff – which was a big no-no, because if something happened to the film … I’m sure you can see where this is going … well, that could be catastrophic.

One day I went to work and I noticed that the picture was different. It just didn’t look the same and I didn’t quite get it. One of the staff told me that Doughboy was schmoozing with one of the candy girls and the film started splitting down the middle. Well, by the time Doughboy waddled upstairs, too much of the glorious 70mm print was damaged, so they had to get the distributor to provide us with a 35mm Scope print. This is a 35mm print that is made to emulate 70mm, but it’s just not the same.

As “The Last Emperor” wound down in the summer of ’88, talk of something called “The Festival Of Festivals” started percolating with the staff.

“Mr. Cole wants to know who wants to go work some shifts at the Festival … “

I’m pretty sure that I did, but I just don’t remember which films were playing.

That summer another event took place. I moved over to The Carlton Cinema just down the street from The Showcase at Carlton and Yonge. Cineplex wanted a premier art house, and The Carlton was it.

Ken Naz ran the Carlton. I spent countless weekends as a child watching Indian films at his father’s cinema, The Naaz Theatre, in Little India. So, I thought it was kind of cool that I was on his team.

He was a very tough boss, but I listened and learned from him, and very soon I was head usher at The Carlton. He taught me to re-enlist the times tables studies Indian parents push onto their kids when doing simple math and to ditch the calculator when we were auditing the stock room.

I can remember my first weekend working there. Nine theatres between 40 and 100 seats each.

Behind me on my left was “Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown” by Almodóvar (notice a very young Antonio Banderas in the trailer).

In front of me was “Track 29” starring Gary Oldman, behind me on my right was “Babette’s Feast” and further down the hall was Willem Dafoe starring in “The Last Temptation Of Christ,” Max Von Sydow in “Pelle The Conquerer,” and Daniel Day Lewis, Lena Olin, and Juliette Binoche in “The Unbearable Lightness Of Being.”

I was surrounded by greatness … I just didn’t know it at the time.

So, I started going to watch these weird, mostly foreign films as a youth. We got to watch free movies, so that was a great perk of working for Cineplex.

My career expanded at Cineplex as my desire to become a school teacher waned. I was working as an Assistant Manager by 18 years old, and running cinemas by the time I was 20.

Between 1991 and ’94, the regional leadership would ask me to go run the Varsity during the Festival – it was 10 days straight – 12 hours per day – they paid me an extra week’s salary – and I would go to one or two Festival parties every night.

I remember Ango-Indian films were starting to become a thing back then, specifically Canadian versions (the British had done some great Anglo-Indian films in the 80’s) – so seeing Deepa Metha and Srinavas Krishna get up and speak about their films was important for me as a young Canadian Indian.

And that’s really how my fascination with fine cinema started and my love for attending the Toronto International Film Festival quite religiously over the 35+ years.

Which brings us to “TIFFTY!”

One of the funny trailers at TIFF this year was of one of the volunteers aiming to call the Festival TIFFTY, much to the chagrin of her colleagues. It elicited a few chuckles every time I watched it.

In August, I went through my process of selection with my pal, Carol.

This year, my wife Sara came along and watched most of my picks, and then some of her own.

There are about 250 selections each year – I try and pick my favourite 50 based on the photo and quick synopsis of each film.

This year I saw 14 films – here they are in order of my favourite to least favourite – but to be fair to the reader, my mind changes on everything below the top three as the days pass. You can click on the film to read the synopsis or see a trailer (where available).

As usual, one of my favourite parts of going to TIFF is listening to the Directors and Actors speak about the films. This year, I felt that too many of the moderators were taking up time with their own dialogue with the Directors and Actors, which left little time for the audience to engage.

This was unfortunate, and I hope other attendees provided this feedback to the organizers – and I hope that the organizers read this post!

Easy’s Waltz
- No trailer.
- It was, hand’s down, my favourite film of this year’s festival.
- Vince Vaughan plays a lounge singer (Easy) whose career is on its way down and he meets the booker (Al Pacino) at the Wynn Hotel, who happens to remember a specific performance of Easy’s and wants to help get his career back on track.
- The covers that Easy’s band does are incredible – and Vaughan actually sings from the sounds of it.
- Fantastic story – well shot – well acted – well directed – I just loved it!
Hamlet
- No trailer – but it’s Hamlet, yeah?
- Riz Ahmed is one of my favourite new actors – and he kills it most of the time (I don’t care for the films he acts in that are mainstream – he’s meant to perform in films that are a bit more out there).
- Director Aneil Karia did a great job of putting a British Panjabi twist on Shakespeare – Va reh va!
- Funny side note, when Riz and Aneil were on stage talking about the film, I thought “if I closed my eyes and someone said that Ali G was on the stage talking about the film, I’d have believed him, bruv.”
Tuner
- No trailer – but the synopsis will give you the good run down of the film – click on the title of the film for more!
- Dustin Hoffman and Leo Woodall are excellent!
The Man In The Basement
- Trailer available – click on the title above.
- There’s a lot of mental sparring that happens in this film.
- Willem Dafoe and Corey Hawkins are phenomenal together.
Motor City
- No trailer – but the synopsis will give you what you need – click on the title of the film for more!
- Almost zero dialogue on this film!
- And of course, it’s shot in one of my favourite cities, Detroit!
Wasteman
- No trailer.
- This one is pretty intense – combined with the melange of second-generation immigrant British slang!
Three Goodbyes
- Trailer available – click on the title above!
- Tragic Italian love story.
Normal
- No trailer.
- This is a Midnight Madness feature – but we saw it in the day time.
- Little bit of little America mixed in with some Yakuza madness!
- Bob Odenkirk is fantastic, as usual.
Dead Man’s Wire
- No trailer – but the synopsis will give you what you need – click on the title of the film for more!
- Didn’t think I’d be watching two films in the Festival with Al Pacino – much less both in the same day – it wasn’t planned.
- This one is a true story – fantastic acting by all.
Forestera
- Trailer available – click on the title above!
- Shot in Mallorca – very interesting story about a young lady who appears to have inherited the family matriarch’s embodiment.
Demons (as part of a group of Short Films)
- Trailer available – click on the title above!
- My friend, Sonia Dhillon Tully, stars in this one – it was cool to see on her on the big screen for the first time.
Lucky Lu
- No trailer – but the synopsis will give you what you need – click on the title of the film for more!
- A very tragic story – reminds me of a modern version of The Bicycle Thief.
- I felt the anxiety of the main character from the onset when things started to go bad.
Baby Star
- Trailer available – click on the title above!
- This is one film in which I felt millennials and Gen X would view the message very differently.
- One identifying with it, the other getting the irony of the message.
Amoeba
- Trailer available – click on the title above!
- While it was a little slow moving, I really enjoyed the message of this film!

The photos of the films below are in order per above.

I’m not sure if all of these films will be widely released, as I’m certain they are all hoping that the distributers went out to see their films at TIFF and are getting them out there.

My main goal when I go to TIFF is to perhaps see films that might not get widely released – but sometimes I’m attracted to films that end up winning big at The Oscars – Green Book and Shape Of Water are two examples.

At the end of the day, I hope that you get to see films that make you feel something.