Useful Information for Moviegoers About Town

For those who are new to my blog, you might not be aware that I actually have two blogs, the other is a travel blog (http://in-foreign-lands.blogspot.ca/).  In my travels, I have attended film festivals outside of Toronto over the years and I think your enjoyment of a festival can be enhanced by a greater familiarity with the city there's in.  For example, I wish someone had told me the late night food options in Tribeca were not so good, so I would've known to settle for popcorn at the theatre.

Whether you're flying in from another city to attend the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time, or a regular who just doesn't know the downtown core very well, here are some random things I've learned from over a decade of living and TIFF-ing downtown...

1. Bring a light jacket/hoodie/caridgan.  - This is no great secret, but important to keep in mind if you've never been to Toronto nor the festival.  TIFF-time weather usually features daytime highs in low to mid 20C's (or 70F's), the sun can make it feel warmer, but you'll find it significantly cooler in the early mornings and evenings.  Also many of the theatres have some pretty powerful air-conditioning going on.
2. Free WiFi available at TIFF Bell Lightbox. -  Check your email while you're waiting for your movie to start at Lightbox, it's free!  If you need to save on your data charges while out for a day at the movies, you can also try ducking into a McDonalds or Tim Horton's.  Please add in the comments or tweet me if you know of other spots in festival village that offer free WiFi!
3. Electrical outlets at MetroCentre, 10 Dundas East Building and Ryerson. - So you've drained your phone battery taking advantage of free WiFi, duck into the MetroCentre (which houses the Festival Box Office) basement food court, on the pillars are a few easily accessible outlets where you can plug in your charger (it goes without saying that you should always bring your mobile phone's charger right?  I guarantee you your phone battery will die at an inconvenient time at least once during each festival).  Same thing if you're close to the Cineplex Odeon 24 at Yonge and Dundas (which is housed in the 10 Dundas East Building), their food court is one level down from the cinemas.  If you're over by the Ryerson Theatre, the campus building just west of the theatre is called Jorgensen Hall (main entrance that stays unlocked later is actually closer to Gould St.), it's flooded with students in the daytime and still possible to gain entry in the evening.  The outlets might take a little bit of effort to seek out, but they'll won't give you grief for a quick phone charge (or even a nap in the daytime, they're a bit more wary at night). I've also found a couple outlets at the Atrium on Bay (on Dundas St between Yonge St and Bay St.) but the security guards will walk by and look at you weird.
4. Water fountain in TIFF Bell Lightbox - There is a water fountain outside of the 3rd floor washrooms but NOT the 2nd floor of TIFF Bell Lightbox.  So go up one more floor if you're thirsty.  BYO watter bottle to refill as well.
5. 24 Hour Drugstore at Yonge and Carlton - This would be the Shoppers Drug Mart at the northeast corner of the intersection, just a couple blocks from the Ryerson Theatre...In case the Midnight Madness movie does make you physically sick ;)
6. Unused lockers at Ryerson are good for temporary storage. - This tip is courtesy of TIFF Midnight Madness Blogger Sachin Hingoo.  I live downtown and run home whenever I have to, but Sachin will often be down here in the morning and not get home until 4am.  Lotta hours, inevitably means a lotta stuff, so he recommends bringing a lock and stashing anything you might not want with you as you go to movies at the Ryerson and nearby theatres in one of the unused lockers.
7. Best Place to Power Nap is in the Sheraton Hotel main foyer. - Festival time is no time to be shy about closing your eyes and letting your head droop a little in public.  Through TIFF and indie filmmaking, I have slept in parks, on the sidewalk outside the Art Gallery of Ontario, rolled up in a Persian rug in front of a courthouse, and on Yonge St. to name a few (I only wish I were kidding about some of those spots).  The Sheraton Hotel at Queen St and York St. has a main foyer with a number of high back chairs, the best ones are next to a large window looking out at a waterfall fountain, facing away the people traffic. (There are a couple of chairs on the 2nd floor as well I believe).  On any given weekday, it's quite common to find business people sitting in those chairs at lunchtime napping away.  Provided you're not dressed like a homeless person, staff will not bother you if you sit there for an hour and nod off.  Obviously you should tuck your valuables away, but otherwise it is a safe and clean place to sleep, just make sure you wake up in time for your next film!

 One of the most important things I haven't covered yet, is eating on the run!  There is no shortage of restaurants in Toronto, the options are endless if you have the time for a full sit-down meal.  Sites like Urban Spoon and BlogTO can provide you with an inexhaustible list of options.  However, when you have a tight turnaround between movies, it's best to have an idea where to dash to for a quick bite, ie. some place enroute to your next theatre.  It can be hard to make recommendations since food tastes vary greatly, but here are some of the places I like to go to during the festival.  Pleaset tweet me with your favs.

1. Naz's Falafel House - around the corner from the Scotiabank theatre and on the way to Lightbox/Princess of Wales/Roy Thomson Hall.  Open late. My fav: the chicken sharwarma wrap.  Avg time it takes to get your food:  10-15mins
2. Pizziaolo - gourmet pizza with locations near Scotiabank Theatre and the Bloor Hot Docs.  Avg time it takes to get your food:  10mins.
3. Canteen - sometimes a little pricier, but it doesn't get any more convenient than onsite at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.  It's gourmet on the go, or you can chose to sit down to eat your meal.  Avg time it takes to get/eat your food:  10-40mins but likely longer during the festival
4. Ginger - cheap hot Vietnamese food served up fast!  There are locations on Queen St (good if you're going from Scotia over to Elgin/Winter Garden or vice versa) and a newly opened location on Yonge St between Cineplex Odeon 24 and Ryerson.  My fav: the chicken pho for $6 and change, brought to your table within 5 mins of ordering!  If I can't stay then I'll get a few shrimp fresh rolls (rice paper rolls) to go, however I should note that they're not particularly fast when it comes to whipping up take-out orders... go figure.  Avg time it takes got get/eat your food:  Eat-in 30mins, take-out 15mins
5. Kenzo - some of the best ramen noodles and octopus balls in the city!  Go during off peak hours as there are often line-ups out the door at dinner time.  Locations on Dundas St. (good if you're headed from Ryerson/Cineplex Odeon 24 to Scotia and vice versa) and on Bloor St close enough to Bloor Hot Docs.  My fav:  the tonkotsu ramen and octopus balls (tho fans of spicy will prefer the King of Kings ramen).  Avg time it takes to order and eat your meal:  30-40mins.
6. Salad King - Originally a salad joint when they bought the business, owners Ernest and Linda kept the name and transformed it into a popular Thai restaurant over the past 2 decades.  Thing I like most about Salad King is that you pick your own level of spiciness for everything you order.  It sits right between Cineplex Odeon 24 and Ryerson.  There is often a wait during peak hours, take-out is a better option if you're in a hurry and you can call ahead to order, takes about 20 mins.  My favs:  The golden tofu curry, Siam fried rice, and pad thai.
7. Springrolls - is the restaurant chain that started the Pan Asian restaurant craze (more like epidemic).  They have locations near Cineplex Odeon 24/Ryerson/Scotiabank Theatre.  They recently revamped their menu with the introduction of sushi and additional dim sum items in an "all you can eat" option.  I have yet to try the AYCE, but in festivals past, the easiest and most delicious thing for me to get on the go from there were the Sexy Summer Rolls, a rice paper roll with shrimp, smoked salmon, greens, and enoki mushrooms with a peanut dipping sauce.  Call ahead, pick up, and take it to the next line up to enjoy.  Avg time it takes to get your food:  10-15mins
8. Food Trucks outside the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema - I am so excited for this!  Gourmet grilled cheese and pulled pork sandwiches are sure to keep me happy while I'm waiting in line.  Don't have too much information on this as it's new this year, you can follow @foodtrucksTO on twitter for updates and details.
9. Hot Dog Stands - There are times when your average "fast food" isn't fast enough, in those moments you'll hear me decalre "street meat it is!"  Two vendors I like are Mike's Hot Dogs at the southeast corner of King St. and John St., and the stand (whose name escapes me now) on the southwest side of the Yonge & Dundas intersection.  Sometimes there's more than one stand there, the one I like has this long white dish thing with three sections, where you can rest your hot dog while you dig for change.  Avg time it takes to get your food:  5mins
10. Paupers - Great multi-floor pub right across from the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, great place to stop for a pint and talk about the movie you just saw.  Also decent grub, especially the weekend brunch.  It's not fast food, but I would make time for it...even during TIFF.
11. Imperial Pub - Perhaps this shouldn't be on the list since they don't actually serve food, it's a pub half a block from the Cineplex Odeon 24 and one of my haunts while I was in film school.  I still try to drop by once every festival, also because they are lacking a kitchen, they are very cool about you bringing in food from elsewhere as a result.  Becareful, the leather sofas upstairs in "The Library" are very comfy, but staff will get annoyed if you fall asleep on them.
12. Loblaws at Maple Leaf Gardens - new this year, just a few blocks from the Ryerson Theatre is the newly converted Loblaws mega supermarket at Church and Carlton.  This place is not merely cans and cartons lining a bunch of shelves, they have many counters serving up ready-made food, hot, cold, sushi, cupcakes, macarons, and a wall of cheese!  There are tables to eat in or take it to go.  Do a healthy salad or have an extra large cream cheese-filled cupcake.  Also a wonderful selection of fruit and a pharmacy.  I'm very excited to have a few meals here.
13. The energy bar in your bag. - Last but not least... that smushed power bar/protein bar/cereal bar that you should always keep in your bag!  For those times when you're running late, arrive at the theatre 10 minutes before the movie starts, and you realize in horror that you went to the wrong theatre (happens to me more than I'd like to admit).  My favs:  Kashi pumpkin pie, Nature Valley Sweet 'n Salty Almond.  Time it takes to get your food:  about 3 seconds.

Needless to say, I'm now starving after writing all this.  Let this be a lesson, never blog about food on an empty stomach.  So I'm going to end it here for now.  I promise my next blog entry will have some film titles!

Pick Your Tix - A Few Tips To Help Get That TIFF 12 Movie List Together

First off, thanks to everyone who's tweeted me, facebooked, texted, emailed, and stopped me outside of Tim Horton's to ask me about my film picks for TIFF12.  Every year as soon as the full film schedule is released I get very anxious to not only read the film synopsis, but to get a tentative schedule together ASAP, tho some years require me to submit picks earlier than others I always wonder "what's my hurry?  There's at least a week to pick."  Then the messages start pouring in and I remember it's because you guys are actually interested in what I see, which is pretty awesome I gotta say.

I'm sorry to report that I don't have my short list together yet, but it's coming soon!  Aside from the film list, the other thing I've been putting off is blogging.  Tonight I got caught in a torrential downpour and didn't walk through my front door until 10pm, I wasn't exactly inspired to write, but upon realizing the alternative was to wade through a sea of 300+ film synopsis and narrow it down to 30... well, I was suddenly inspired to blog!

What I'd like to do tonight is throw out a few general tips that will hopefully help you to pick your films and get your tickets...

1) I'll start with a tweet of mine from earlier today

from @palindr0me (yep, that's me)
"Very useful info for TIFF-goers RT@bombippy Sold out or off sale films for TIFF 2012 as of 2pm, Aug 27. http://tinyurl.com/9huarcw  #TIFF2012"

This is not the first year I've seen this guy's list (I presume it's the same guy), every year he seems to have the scoop on what's available and what's not.  Where from?  I don't know...which sparks some questions like this one:

"How do you know this person is telling the truth?  I know, sounds silly but maybe that's the person's wish list?"

Well...I don't, but I think this guy's on the level. In previous years, with all the exchanges going on, I never paid much heed to what was on or off sale, having one or two tickets suddenly appear in the system for show was a common enough occurrence.  So regardless I would always try to request a ticket even if I'd heard the screening had gone off sale a week ago.  This year there's been some changes to the ticketing system which may make my methods less effective, however when doing your ticket package picks the availability will be updated live.  As you're in the system making your picks, you will be able to see in real time what's available and what's not.  Therefore reference this handy list, why not?  If you really want a show, try for it, however if you see it on the off sale list, you might want to consider having a few back-up choices...which brings me to

2) HAVE BACK-UP CHOICES!  Whether you're making advance picks online or at the box office buying single tickets in person, know your options and have them ranked in order of preference.  This is important for a few reasons:

• You don't want to be flipping around the Official Film Schedule and the Program Book trying to come up with an alternative on the spot.  It's hard, you might not get it done in the one hour window, and/or you're holding up other folk in the box office line.
• It's hard to decide on the spot which film you'd prefer to see, it might be beneficial to have seen the trailer, read some of the buzz, or have some details about the filmmakers.
• When rushed to decide, you might accidentally schedule a conflict.  A film's running time might be longer than you thought and end after your next film starts, or if you're doing back to back movies you might accidentally pick theatres far away from each other and suddenly find you need to get from the Bloor Cinema to the Winter Garden in 20 mins.

It's best to iron out these kinks beforehand, which will just equal an additional trip back to the box office when problems arise.  You can always opt to get a voucher and come back later, but again...extra trips to the box office equals extra time in the lines.  Plus by the time you go back, the tix might be gone.

3) A little dialogue goes a long way... not sure what to see?  not sure about a movie?  Try asking around to see what people think and get their insight.  Sure, opinions are just that, subjective and often unreliable...but that comes at all levels.  It was thanks to glowing reviews in the media after the Venice Film Festival that I found myself in a screening of Dogtooth, a film that has scarred me and my buddy Jack for life.  A number of friends encouraged me to go see Les amours imaginaires, which is how I wound up being the only person in a theatre who thought Xavier Dolan was the most pretentious Canadian director alive (sorry, but completely unlikable characters in scene after scene of contrived screen compositions and excessive slow motion drove me crazy... and I'm a Wong Kar Wai fan!)  But if everyone's abuzz about a great performance or the film has won the People's Choice Award, there's probably something to it.  Above all else it's knowledge-sharing and hyping each other for 11 days of non-stop movies!  Whether it's my partners in crime in the overnight ticket line (come visit us if you like, we basically talk movies, TIFF or otherwise, until the sun comes up -- literally) or a stranger in a RUSH line, most people are more than willing to impart a nugget of film info (or give you a 20 minute detailed plot description about Lars Von Trier's Dogville)

4) Last and most importantly...SAY NO TO SCALPERS.  Now I don't know if this applies to all scalpers, I've personally never met a particularly kind scalper, but the ones that come to snatch up tickets at TIFF are awful.  Last year they camped at the front of the line the day before single tickets went on sale, they were overall vulgar, ill-mannered, and clearly low class.  Their numbers swelled through the evening and into the night as their friends and family all showed up so that they could each purchase the maximum amount of tickets when the box office opened.  There was a bit of an altercation as one scalper got into a heated argument with a dedicated patron at dawn.  The torment didn't even end as we went in for tickets, as we left the box office they were demanding to know how many tickets we got for high profile screenings such as From The Sky Down and Pearl Jam 20.  Hopefully they won't be back this year, if I can, I'd like to take a photo of each of them and tweet "Do not buy tickets from this person".  So if you get a shot of a scalper, please send it to me.

There is never a need to resort to overpriced scalper tickets for TIFF.  If you get to the box office and your desired show is off sale, there is a long list of alternative methods to get a ticket.  Try the box office again the day of the screening, be in line just before 7am when they open, many tickets are released same day.  Get into the rush line.  Aside from Roy Thomson Hall Galas, I've never been turned away from a show where I arrived 2 hours early to rush.  I can't guarantee this will remain the case year after year, but I'm pretty confident when it comes to my choice of films.  It's not just about getting in when they do the final headcount 5 mins before the show, many people show up at the venue with extra tickets and they are directed to the Rush line if they want to sell that ticket.  These are never sold above face value, often for less, once in a while even given away for free.  With 2-3 screening for every film, your odds are pretty good.

Best of luck to everyone in getting the tickets that you most desire.  I'll get back to my long list of titles tomorrow and will be back soon to post some of my wish list and some trailers, hopefully we can even get a discussion going.  We'll be at Pecault Square overnight once again this Saturday, Sep 1st to 2nd.  Watch for our tweets!  Happy TIFF-ing!