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TIFF 2011 ROUNDUP

Plus Bonus Blog Content Grab Bag 2011

It's almost time to close the book on another year of glitz and glamour at the Toronto International Film Festival. 78 days of films, parties, stars and submarine shawarmas (Holt Renfrew TIFF Food Mansion favourite), has left this reporter with little to no sleep and a vow to never wear heels again!

Now I'm going to go to sleep for like, ten days, and hopefully eat something other than popcorn and champagne. My favourite movie was the one that I heard about that had a mystery, and the best party was the Levi's Presents a Nabisco Production: Lights, Camera? Acting? sponsored by Perrier's Sparkling Water for Liberia International Celebrating 50 Years featuring DJ Human Cheese, hosted by the cast of Paramount Pictures' presents a Fox Searchlight film, The Big Cop with an exclusive Midnight set from Naughty Marge brought to you by Fruit of the Loom, Ages 18 and up free admission with TIFF Nabob VIP wrist chains. I got TONS of great gift bags, but the best one was so creative! It was like one of those airline sick bags, but instead of vomit, it was full of USB sticks. When you put them in your computer there were tons of high quality HD videos of people barfing. Great. Idea. Kudos to the folks at Sauce and Juice Digital Interactive for putting a great package together.

But it wasn't all fun and games. I worked with the folks at Gallop Polls to get an idea of what TIFF patrons are all about. I did some quick, street-level polling and got some great info that should help the festival gauge its audience and help steer its programming in future years:

CURRENT RANKING OF FUNNIEST NATURAL HUMAN NOISES

1. Farts
2. Burps
3. Crying
4. Sneezes
5. screams
6. talking (a lot of people elaborated on this one "lisps" and "Chinese" were popular)

That wasn't really me talking, that was a character who's a girl and who works in PR or journalism or something. Trust me, she's smoking hot and doesn't mind when her boyfriends go out with their buddies. I didn't really need to preface that with "Trust me", but when you have a gun to your head and have to type 600 coherent words in 10 minutes or else you get pencils up your nose, you don't tend to consider these things.

That wasn't real either. I really want to see that new Ryan Gosling movie called "Drive". The reviews are good, and I have to admit, that guy is a pretty good actor who, with this film, should be able to crossover from Actor Who Women Want To Rub Their Boobs Upon to Actor Who Women Want To Rub Their Boobs Upon and Men Think is Pretty Alright All Things Considered And Probably Wouldn't Mind Their Wives Rubbing Him.

January Jones had a baby and I'm pretty sure it's the spawn of Satan since she's been so close lipped on the daddy and because she looks like she likes evil men, or at least regular men whom she seduces, has her way with, then devours.

MEGA RIBS

First off, I'd like to draw your attention to my new personal website, glennmacaulay.com. With the addition of this website to human life, I will probably become very powerful within two months, so if you were planning on getting to know me personally, you'd better do it quick because soon I'll only be friends with royalty and international superstars of stage and screen. Until then I'll remain humble and instruct you to visit the site on your lunch breaks and coffee dates to stay abreast of the silly things I do outside of the bedroom.

The good news (?) is that this blog will remain up and running until I make my first million! How could I possibly stop, I mean this blog is responsible for 15 of the top 30 pop culture moments of the decade as chosen by the readers of SHRIMP Magazine. Let's keep making history!!

The Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing right now and film's heaviest and prettiest are in town to make money and have sex with one another. Actually, I'm not sure about that last one, but from what I know about actors, "sex with each other" is as much a part of the biz as flawless breasts and well trimmed beards.

I saw the premiere of FUBAR 2, and it was just a great little time, from hanging out in the alcohol and throw-up drenched line with some pals to watching the ACTUAL movie with Terry and Deaner in attendance. It wasn't as good as FUBAR 1, which isn't anyone's fault but the filmmakers and stars themselves. I had nothing to do with it.

Then, on Friday I went to see the Hottest Band in the World -- KISS for the fourth time during my illustrious career. Now, I know what you're thinking, "I want Spaghetti tonight", well so do I, and KISS put on a great show. Here is what some of us looked like:

I was wearing this new 1989 Joker shirt I got and I was going to team up my face with my shirt and just be the Joker but my beard and moustache hair kind of got in the way and I ended up looking more like John Wayne Gacy, so I added the star and became Paul Stanley. That was a long sentence. Let me summarize:

Joker shirt, joker looks like KISS, I thought it'd be funny, didn't work out, Paul Stanley instead.

On Saturday I went to visit my friends the Polands for a night of retro video games and snacks. Not retro snacks, current snacks, like pizzas and ruffled chips. It was VERY fun and we learned that Super Tennis for Super Nintendo is a very good game and that Little Caesar's Hot and Ready format is truly fantastic.

I could paste these activities into an old LiveJournal from 1999 and they would be historically accurate! I spent a lot of my teen years watching FUBAR, going to KISS concerts and playing video games. Does that mean that I'm a weirdo? No! It means I'm the closest thing to a time traveller this planet has.

NEXT STOP - PANTY FIELDS

Yesterday marked the opening of the Toronto International Film Festival, which in simple terms is an organized eyeball fest -- people pay bucks to view films with famous beautiful people, then take to the streets to see famous beautiful people who are en route to parties to look at each other while the public goes home to discuss with others what they saw. Before you go watching things I think you should read last year's Regular Man's Guide to TIFF and also pack a jacket because it's getting nipsy out there.

I'm only planning on seeing one film during this year's fest -- a Wayne Gretzky documentary called King's Ransom, directed by Aspen Extreme's Peter Berg. The movie runs 60 minutes but the screening is two hours, so I'm hoping old Wayner will be there in the flesh so I can ask him, "can you think of the toilet you've taken the most dumps in?" My answer is for sure my parents' upstairs toilet. This is a good question to spark conversation because no one will see it coming and they'll have to do a lot of thinking in order to come up with an answer. I hope Wayne answers something like "The Stanley Cup. Next question."

I think by "TOP GUN On The Ski Slopes" they mean this movie is about two dudes who work together and are also best friends. If that's the case then "WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S On The Ski Slopes" would've also sufficed.

In other movie news, I took in a screening of Quentin "Qu Qu Bird" Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds last night. I really liked most of it, especially that rude rude scene in the bar and all the Nazi kills.

This lady beside was eating a Happy Meal or something and she was the loudest scarfer of all time. McDonald's fries are sort of crunchy, but somehow she amplified the crunch to deafening heights beyond scientific explanation. Then she scrunched the bag up a million times and made really dumb comments to the man beside her, like when one of this character's name is flashed in cool letters on the screen because he's a bad ass, she goes "that's sooooooo Tarantino". That's the kind of thing that only a true butt hole would say. Then when one of the good guys died she started cheering, which I suppose means she sides with Nazis. Actually, it's more likely that she had no idea what was going on because we're already under the assumption she's an idiot, right?

Also, I wanted to hate Brad Pitt so bad in that movie, but he was the cat's ass! If there's one acting trait I really appreciate, it's the effective delivery of the word "fuck" and "Bra Pi" nailed every single utterance.

See you later and bring me some treats!

A REGULAR MAN'S GUIDE TO TIFF 08

The title is true this time!

Every September, Toronto hosts a film festival and every year it seems to get bigger and bigger. Sure, this a big thing for people from Hollywood and for idiots and loose women who want to try to party with them, but does this mean for a guy like me? Or a girl like you!? Or that kid beside you who started school on Tuesday and is like "wawawawawa I just want a new cell phone, and a laptop. I hate my teacher Mrs. Mort. AHHHHHH let's have pizza forever, wwawawawa"? Do you really want to know? Of course you do, because you're a great person and everyone likes you.

Here's the guide. Do me a favour okay? Print it out, and go glue it to some car windshields. That's how US Weekly got so popular. Back then, they didn't even have pictures and most of the articles were recipes that were healthy, delicious and ready in 10 minutes.

TIFF '08 - The films

September rolls around and a regular man is in a bad mood because summer's almost over and he remembers that he hasn't gone swimming yet. Back to school frenzy begins and he's happy that all the little dicks have to go back to something most of them hate because he had to work all summer and his job stinks nuts. Local media starts reporting on the upcoming festival and we start to hear about the films, and subsequent stars, that will appear and litter Yorkville with million dollar haircuts, complicated coats and that rare.... fruit....that they always eat. You know? Like, small bananas. He may take a few minutes to check if there's any films he might want to see and may make a small list, because a regular man likes movies and must admit that the festival is kind of exciting. Tickets go on sale and a regular man tries to get them on the Internet. The website is too busy and he doesn't get tickets. He gets mad and says to himself, "fuck this. I'm not going". Then someone says, "just go to the box office." Then he says back, "fuck you. Whatever." Then he goes to see the same movies in the theatre a few months later for half the price.

TIFF '08 - The parties

A regular man notices that when the festival is on, the streets are busy with girls wearing dresses that wouldn't fit a hobbit and dudes that look so stupid that if they got mad at you and wanted to fight you, you know you could outsmart them and make them buy you Burger King somehow. The parties have begun to eclipse the films themselves, with local media and local clubs acting like a dweeb in high school who's parents are going away. This is his time to be cool and invites the most popular people in school who don't give a shit about the dweeb, because all they want to do is party and wreck things and are happy they have a place to do it. A regular man isn't invited to any of these parties and wouldn't dare try getting into one for fear of rejection and standing outside for two hours, when he could be at home baking or putting together cool models of boats or planes. He instead walks the streets en route to his friend's house where they'll play video games and when he gets there he goes on a rant about the morons he saw, like that girl that couldn't walk in her shoes and who's dress almost exposed her bare butt.

TIFF '08 - Conclusion

A regular man doesn't go to any films or any parties and gets mad because he realizes how silly it all is because all these rich people just hang out together and party for free, while journalists and bloggers try to get in and brag to each other and the general public as to how much fun they're having and how many free drinks they've been getting. All the while teachers start work and make barely anything in comparison and the police have to stop solving crimes and instead make sure normal people don't get anywhere near the rich people, while also getting paid a fraction of what the stars, publicists, producers, club owner's etc. get for doing the stupidest stuff.

That got heavy at the end huh? And guess what? The "regular man" is me! I'm regular! I have an idea for a new product called "The Beach Pillow" and if I ever sell it and make a million dollars, and if I get invited to fancy parties, I'll try to stay regular although I'll probably be draped in gold and women wearing snakeskin thingies. I went to a Just for Laughs party once that was fancy and I spent the whole time giggling and trying to find more free mini burgers. I will never change you guys. NEVER. NEVER AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhhAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
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