A week-long hiatus in the middle of TIFF has made it feel like the festival s barely happening. I’d almost have forgotten if my news feeds hadn’t been filled with exact details of celebrities ambling down carpeted sidewalks.

Last night we kicked off our lone festival-y weekend by seeing Hal Hartley’s closer to the Henry Fool–Fay Grim trilogy, Ned Rifle (imdb | rotten tomatoes | tiff). We saw Fay Grim at the festival eight years ago and expected more of the same. While it lacked the off-kilter camera shots it certainly had the same wry humour and subtle film-long wink to the audience. Parker Posey played a much smaller role here than in her character’s namesake movie, but she was replaced by a equally-if-differently disturbed Aubrey Plaza. Who I’m slowly becoming infatuated with, by the way.

The only things which marred the experience were outside of the movie itself: first, we picked some odd seats at the Winter Garden, such that I sat on a slope which became weirdly uncomfortable after a while. Second, the two women sitting behind us were the kind of people who feel the need to “OH!” loudly at every other scene, or simply say aloud whatever is happening on the screen. “Oh, she’s going to follow him.” “Oh, there’s no more bullets.” “Oh, that’s his uncle.” Ladies, some advice: stay home and watch movies where no one cares about your soundtrack. Or just shut the fucking fuck up. Either way.

.:.

Cover photo from the TIFF website