The 37th annual Toronto International Film Festival is over and now that the red carpets are rolled up, this jaded TIFF veteran presents some of this year’s highs and lows.
SIGN RIGHT HERE, PLEASE
Autograph-seekers – both the fans and the professional vendors – seem to agree that Johnny Depp was the most generous with his Sharpie. The actor rolled down his car window to sign autographs for collectors who staked out the private jet terminal and spent considerable time signing for fans at the screening of West of Memphis.
Halle Berry rewarded fans who waited in the alley outside the TIFF Bell Lightbox and got a round of applause and cheers for doing so. Her Cloud Atlas co-star Tom Hanks got booed when he jumped into the back of a waiting SUV instead. (Hanks was more giving of his signature at his screening – even autographing someone’s Wilson volleyball.)
Which star was named one of the least likely to give an autograph at TIFF this year? Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Kristen, meet Kirsten. Kristin, say hi to Kristen.
Yes, special was the letter K this year at TIFF as Kristen Stewart, Kristen Wiig, Kirsten Dunst and Kristin Scott Thomas all dropped by. Throw in a Kate, a Keira and a Kiefer.
Meanwhile, Joaquin Phoenix’s surname was misspelled as “Pheonix” not once, but twice in a cartoon by Michael de Adder published in the Toronto Star.
IT’S NOT LIKE IT WAS BUILT TO HOST A FILM FESTIVAL
The good: After last year’s debacle of holding the daily press conferences on the top floor of the TIFF Bell Lightbox (accessible by only two elevators that frequently broke down), this year’s gatherings were held in a space on the ground floor.
The bad: On the first day of TIFF, the free WiFi service in the press area went down for several hours. “We’re working on it,” volunteers repeatedly promised reporters.
GIVE PEES A CHANCE
Again this year, many male reporters complained about the washrooms at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, where a row of stylish bowl-shaped urinals attached to the wall offer absolutely no privacy. “It’s like peeing in a sink,” grumbled one. Quipped another: “After a few days at TIFF, I can say with certainty that all men are not, in fact, created equal.”
SHADES OF GREY
Ben Affleck’s movie Argo got a standing ovation at TIFF and is already been mentioned as an Oscar contender – but there’s one small detail the actor/director overlooked.
Affleck cast his good friend, Canadian actor Victor Garber, to portray Ken Taylor, former Canadian ambassador to Iran. Problem is, 63-year-old silver-haired Garber played Taylor as he looks today – even though at the time of the Iran crisis, Taylor was a dark-haired 40-something.
FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT
The “Haven’t I Seen You Somewhere?” award for TIFF 2012 goes to Viggo Mortensen, who was spotted out and about more times than anyone cares to count while at TIFF for Everybody Has a Plan.
The runner-up is David Spade, who certainly got around while at the festival promoting Hotel Transylvania.
HANKS FOR SPEAKING UP
Most TIFF venues have long been criticized for not having world-class red carpets that can properly accommodate the media and fans as well as the stars and their entourages.
This year, one of the nicest guys in Hollywood dared to raise the issue. “Why do you run your celebrities through a pen like we’re bulls on the way to slaughter? It’s like the narrowest kind of entrance to a theater I’ve ever had,” said Tom Hanks, referring to the Princess of Wales Theatre where his film Cloud Atlas was screened. “I thought someone was going to be there on the other side with a prod they were going to put through my head. It was a very, very scary enterprise.”
STOP SINGING! NO REALLY, STOP
At the beginning of the press conference for Cloud Atlas, people in the room sang “Happy Birthday” to Hugh Grant, who turned 52. The actor clearly appreciated the gesture (“The first nice thing the press have ever done for me,” he said) but TIFF organizers probably didn’t. The all-star performance of “Happy Birthday” was streamed online, meaning the festival is on the hook for royalties. That’s right, public performances of the song are prohibited unless a royalty is paid to rights-holder Warner Chappell.
THE REPORTER FROM “CLUELESS WEEKLY” HAS A QUESTION
At the press conference for The Iceman, a foreign journalist inexplicably suggested that Winona Ryder is making a comeback this year.
“It’s been a long time we’ve seen you,” he said. “Now you’re coming out with this movie and Frankenweenie. So two movies in the same year. So now do you feel welcome again in Hollywood?”
Never mind that in the last three years alone, Ryder has appeared in the blockbuster Star Trek, the Oscar-winning Black Swan, and last year’s comedy The Dilemma. She attended TIFF in 2010 to promote Black Swan and, earlier, spent more than a month in the city filming the Emmy-nominated TV movie When Love is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story.
Still, rather than calling out the reporter for his shortcomings as an informed journalist, Ryder gave a polite – and long-winded – response.
WALK A MILE IN THESE NO-SHOWS
Joaquin Phoenix was at TIFF for The Master but chose to skip the press conference for the film on Sept. 8. “He’s too unpredictable,” director Paul Thomas Anderson offered as an explanation.
The documentary Venus and Serena debuted at TIFF on Sept. 11 but its subjects, tennis pros Venus and Serena Williams, were not on the official TIFF guest list that was released in August. The sisters confirmed on Sept. 6 that they would not be at
TIFF (you can read the tweet @GlobalJRK). So it was surprising to see an article in the Sept. 11 edition of the Los Angeles Times claiming the sisters, “in an about-face … have chosen not to attend Tuesday’s Toronto world premiere.”
The newspaper cited “a person familiar with the Williams’ plans who asked not to be identified” as saying “as recently as several days ago” the tennis stars were planning to come to Toronto. (The Toronto Star picked up on the story, reporting that the sisters had “cancelled plans” to attend the doc’s TIFF premiere.)
Finally, Dredd 3D star Karl Urban cancelled a handful of scheduled press events. There was no explanation, but the actor appeared to have fresh injuries on the knuckles of one hand. Just sayin’.
MAKE US FEEL BETTER ABOUT OURSELVES
Visiting stars are repeatedly bombarded by the same questions from Toronto reporters – “How does it feel to be at TIFF?” or “What do you think of Toronto?”
First, most stars fly into Toronto, get chauffeured to their hotels, sit in rooms doing interviews, walk the red carpet, and then attend a party or two. It’s not like they have time to take a double-decker bus tour of the city or line-up to visit the CN Tower. So are reporters actually hoping they’ll get more than a polite response about how pretty the city is or how the celeb loves to come here?
But more importantly, are we so insecure as a city, or a country, that we need to seek the validation of a movie star? What’s that? Joseph Gordon-Levitt likes TIFF because it’s all about the movies? Bruce Willis thinks people in Toronto are friendly? Selena Gomez loves coming to Canada? Phew. Now we can all stop worrying.
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