Yet another beautiful, sunny day in Toronto. We both slept in, got some breakfast and then made for the ticket pickup line at Yonge & Dundas. It was a monster, going all the way around two sides of the block and halfway down the third. We stayed in line for about half an hour before Nellie sent me home to work on…um, work. She was in line for more than an hour after that, giving me time to finish off at least some of what needed to be done.
A note about lineups: few things bother me more than when random strangers stop and ask why people are lining up. Not festival-goers asking if they’re in the correct TIFF line, mind you; that’s common, and quite necessary. No, I mean the people who are appalled at the very idea of not being in the know about some kind of organizing function on Yonge Street, and who demand to know what it is, perhaps so they can join in, perhaps so they can assuage their fragile ego that no, that’s not something they wish to attend, so they don’t have to go home and weep gently at not having been invited. Wankers.
Anyway. Once she got home we went back out to enjoy some more of the day (standing in the shadows of Toronto Life square waiting for an envelope does not a nice summer day make) and walked down to HTO park. It’s hell ass balls hot outside, so after walking all the way down there we decided to stop at Smokeless Joe on the way home, for shade & beer & and food. We got all three, and it was very very good.
Back to TIFF: I’m happy to see that one of the films I’ll be seeing — Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle — is generating good buzz at Telluride. Hopefully it’ll offset the less flattering reviews I’ve heard about Rian Johnson’s latest The Brothers Bloom.
[tags]tiff, tiff08, hto park, telluride, slumdog millionaire, the brothers bloom[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 
What less flattering reviews? i heard very little about Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom.
I don’t understand why you’re bothered about people asking what a crowd is queuing for. Everyone does this. What’s so harmful about casual curiousity?
@Sam: I saw two this weekend but didn’t star them, so they got lost in my river of news feeds. Twitchfilm gave it an ok review though.
@Tim: When people stop dead in the middle of a crowded sidewalk and block pedestrians so they can ask what the lineup’s for, that’s annoying. When a guy stops his pickup truck in the middle of Yonge Street so he can bellow his question to the line, blocking mid-day traffic, that’s just dumb. Inconsiderate traffic-blocking aside, the questions don’t strike me as curious, they strike me as needy. And needy bugs me.