Ok folks, sorry in advance if posts are more scarce than I’d promised. The place we rented is great – awesome location, really cute little basement apartment, but one thing is missing: the ad said there’d be Internet Access. Sadly, that seems not to be the case. There’s an Ethernet jack, so the place is wired. There’s just no internet juice. I’m going to talk to the owner tomorrow, hopefully there’s just something that needs to be hooked up.
The drive down was alright – nothing particularly notable – other than this useless bit of information: it’s exactly 222kms from the Parkdale Sunoco to the sign on the 401 that says it’s 222kms from Toronto. Weird, huh?
So day one is done, and so far we’ve been having a blast. First celeb sighting happened at 3:00pm on Bloor Street – I saw a chick from The ‘L’ Word – I don’t know anyone who watches that show, but if you do, it’s the one that wants to become a man. I can’t remember her name. If I had internet, I’d look it up…
The movies so far have been great – here’s the rundown:
The Pervert’s Guide to the Cinema – by Sophie Fiennes
What a great way to start off a filmfest! Slavoj Zizek, a philosopher and psychoanalyst takes us on a tour through his favourite films, breaking each apart into their psychoanalytical concepts and themes. Hitchcock, David Lynch, The Matrix, Alien, Star Wars, The Exorcist, and more, all get a dose of his special brand of analysis, helping us to deepen our understanding and appreciation of them. Sophie Fiennes films Zizek on meticulously recreated sets from the films he discusses – providing at times humour, and at others, perhaps a sense of authority, for what better vantage to discuss a film than from within the film itself? The runtime on this was a bit long, but it is intended to air in three parts.
Fido – by Andrew Currie
This movie was so much more than I’d hoped for. And I didn’t have low expectations. I read it described somewhere as a cross between Shaun of the Dead and Pleasantville. That’s pretty much bang on. The dead have returned to life, and after the Great Zombie War, science found a way curb the undead desire for human flesh and domesticate them, putting them to work delivering newspapers, doing yard work, and as family pets. Setting the film in an idyllic suburban 50’s-era neighbourhood, director Andrew Currie manages to turn the zombie genre on its head and gives us some stuff to think about in the process. And hey, who wouldn’t want a zombie Billy Connolly for a pet?
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane – by Jonathan Levine
Our first Midnight Madness flick this year (and hopefully not our last), this movie was delicious. The film was beautifully shot and crafted by the very talented, and the very young, as we found out when he got up to introduce the film, Jonathan Levine. This is slasher flick meets music video direction. But not in a bad way. This film is smart and its characters are much more grounded in reality than your typical slasher flick. The gore is gory, the girls are hot, and the boys are horny, all par for the course in slasher flick land, but the film still manages some surprises too.