#TIFF2018: Skipping the lineups
Movies: #TIFF18, Toronto International Film Festival
Our correspondent finds ways to see all the Donald Trump-themed films he wants, and with no waiting required
By Jay Stone
(September 8, 2018) TORONTO — Today we invoked another Toronto film festival rule for the retired critic, which is that we don’t stand in line for anything. This is partly because life is too short, and partly because you might not get in anyway and so you’ve used up some of your precious remaining minutes idly shifting from one leg to the other, indulging in the futile hope of getting a seat that will probably be in the front row, and standing behind people who talk in bored nasal voices about their film festival experiences. One tries not to listen, but one is human, after all, and one is in danger of grinding away all the remaining enamel on one’s teeth.
The downside of this guideline is that one doesn’t get to see a lot of movies that everyone else is dying to see, which is perhaps not ...
TIFF 2018: Wandering in and out of this and that
Movies: #TIFF18, Toronto International Film Festival
In which our retired film critic decides at the last minute what he wants to see and discovers he's chosen an eight-hour epic.
By Jay Stone
(September 7, 2018) TORONTO — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, or, in the case of the Toronto film festival, ceaselessly into the next lineup.
People who come to film festivals to scout movies for other festivals, or who own theatres and are looking for something to show in them, move through Toronto’s cinemas like sharks, dipping their fins, as it were, into this auditorium and that. In a few minutes they can decide whether what they’re watching is worth the acquisition. Then it’s off to feed in the next hunting ground.
Film critics, on the other hand, are expected to do some research, make a schedule, and head off to the likely movies. You stick it out because you might be interviewing the stars, or the director, and they might ...
BlacKkKlansman gets under the all-white hood
Movie Review: BlacKkKlansman
Spike Lee's movie, based on the true story of a black policeman who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, focuses on America’s enduring cultural history of racism.
Phantom Thread Pushes the Needle
Movie Review: Phantom Thread
In what might be his final movie, Daniel Day-Lewis fully inhabits another of his difficult characters, this time a fashion designer who demands praise and silence.