TIFF 2011: The best (and the rest) of the fest

Peace out: Bill Nighy closes TIFF.

PopGoesTheNews.com It had hundreds of films, dozens of stars and more red carpets than the waiting room of an Irish gynecology clinic. The Toronto International Film Festival has wrapped for another year and now that the velvet ropes are rolled up and the curbside puke at party venues is washed away, it's time to look at some of the highlights — and lowlights — of TIFF 2011.

Best Programming Decision • With one recent exception (2009's Creation) TIFF has given the opening night honor to a Canadian film that no one will likely ever pay to see after the fest (oh really, you went to see Water?). Sure, it showcased a taxpayer-funded flick at a taxpayer-funded fest but it didn't generate global buzz because of a red carpet filled with homegrown actors in their Winners-best who took the subway to RTH. This year, TIFF wisely kicked things off with a documentary about U2 that brought out Bono and The Edge (not to mention the director's wife, actress Elisabeth Shue). For the first time in a long time, TIFF made Friday morning's headlines.

Biggest Losers • One of the easiest news stories this year was the impact TIFF's new home on King Street had on the tony Yorkville neighborhood. Most business owners interviewed put on a brave face and downplayed the effects. "Yorkville is still the place where beautifully fashionable people come to see and be seen," Park Hyatt general manager Paul Verciglio told The Toronto Star. Zoran Kocovski of Sassafraz added defensively: "Why do we need to look at it with one area versus another?" Clearly neither man spent any time during TIFF on King St. from University to Spadina, which was packed with people, or outside the Ritz-Carlton on Wellington and Intercontinental on Front St. Meanwhile outside the Park Hyatt and Sassafraz crowds were as scarce as a black guy on an episode of Frasier. Next year, the luxury Shangri-La hotel and Trump Hotel will be open just blocks from TIFF's headquarters, sucking even more stars away from Yorkville.


Get A Life • To everyone who took time off work or school to stand outside TIFF venues hoping to get an autograph or a picture with a celebrity: It's time to take a deeper look at your life. Years from now you will look back and understand how none of it means anything. Lining a red carpet: Cool. Hanging out in an alley or at the airport: Sad. And if you're an adult male trying to get close to 14-year-old Chloe Moretz, you need to turn yourself in to the nearest police station.

Hottest Name • It ranked as only the 30th most common name for girls born in the U.S. last year, but "Sarah" was easily No. 1 at TIFF this year. There were directors Sarah Polley and Sarah Goodman as well as actresses Sarah Gadon, Sarah Paulson, Sarah Silverman and Sarah Bolger — and a documentary called Sarah Palin: You Betcha!.

Why Pay More? • We live in a world with plenty of people who feel that paying $100 for a ticket to a musical stage production like Dirty Dancing or Legally Blonde sure beats renting the movie on Netflix. So it's no wonder people lined up at the TIFF box office and forked over their hard-earned cash to see movies they can soon see at home. For example, the festival's opening night film, From The Sky Down, is airing on U.S. cable channel Showtime on Oct. 29 (a Canadian broadcast is still to come) and its closing night film Page Eight is a BBC production that airs on PBS on Nov. 6. Similarly, flicks like Drive and Killer Elite were screened at TIFF just days or weeks before opening in cinemas, where tickets are cheaper and the line-ups are shorter.

We Missed You • Several celebrities on the official guest list bailed out of TIFF for a variety of reasons, including Jane Fonda (illness), Sir Anthony Hopkins (illness), and Michelle Williams (scheduling). Blake Lively didn't bother showing up for Hick and Carey Mulligan skipped both Shame and Drive. Michael Fassbender missed his first movie, A Dangerous Method, but showed up for Shame. And Jennifer Hudson pooh-poohed the idea of showing up for Winnie.

Thanks For Coming! • Some stars lingered at TIFF for days (we're talking to you, Geoffrey Rush) while others spent only a few hours in Toronto. The award for shortest TIFF visit goes to both Robert DeNiro and Madonna. He flew in to support the Sept. 10 screening of Killer Elite and then flew back to NYC in time for the 10th anniversary of 9/11; she came in to promote W.E. and then took off because, well, she's Madonna.

Forget Madge, Let's Talk Vadge • It's not the first time TIFF has served up a generous portion of naughty bits on screen — who can forget the explicit sex scenes in 2005's Lie With Me or 2001's Y tu mama también — but this year's festival was decidedly horny. Take This Waltz has threesomes and a full-frontal shower scene and movies like W.E., 360, Sleeping Beauty, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Damsels in Distress, Melancholia and Killer Joe all show plenty of naked flesh. And although male masturbation was de rigueur (with Matthew Goode firing up his wick in Burning Man and Michael Fassbender proudly whacking off in Shame) most of the nudity was of the female kind.

TIFF's, um, Biggest Star • Michael Fassbender aside, we have no way of knowing how well endowed every male celebrity at TIFF is, of course, but after peeing at an adjacent urinal we can tell you with certainty that The Hunter's Willem Dafoe is a big star. Certainly makes up for having to live with a face like that.

Youngest TIFF Guests • Oh sure, Butter's Yara Shahidi is adorable and Hick's Chloe Moretz is a darling — but they weren't the youngest ones to walk the red carpet at TIFF. That honor goes to the fetuses inside Jennifer Garner and Bryce Dallas Howard, who both brought bulging bellies to the fest.

Oh No You Didn't! • At the TIFF press conferences there were the usual assortment of inane questions and a handful of reporters who made pathetic attempts to insert themselves into the coverage (at the W.E. press conference, Cineplex magazine's Mathieu Chantelois brought up hydrangeas in front of Madonna. Crickets.) But a few journos managed to create memorable moments. During the presser for The Ides of March, George Clooney shot down People reporter Paul Chi, who asked him about the pressure of dating in the spotlight. "I knew someone would do it," Clooney replied. "I’m a little disappointed that it’s you. Honestly. I think it’s tremendous you asked the question. Go back and tell your editor you asked the question." And someone at the Trespass gathering got Nicolas Cage to reveal that he was once the victim of a bizarre home invasion involving a naked man and a Fudgesicle.

Most Epic Fail • You would think when TIFF designed and built its new year-round headquarters it would take into consideration the needs of its biggest annual event: the festival. You would be wrong. The sparkling new TIFF Bell Lightbox proved to be simply not able to properly accommodate TIFF. Only two tiny elevators (in which, inexplicably, a security guard used up precious space) shuttled hundreds of media personnel and their equipment to a tiny room on the sixth floor for the daily press conferences. Throw in TIFF staffers trying to access other floors and the result was gridlock, especially on the second day of the fest when only one elevator was in service. (Never mind the tales of media being herded like sheep, barred from stairwells and chased out of washrooms.) TIFF is infamous for its palpable disdain of the media (indeed, it has no trouble getting coverage) and there are more than a handful of obnoxious self-important journalists — but it needs to show a little more respect for the practical needs of the media when planning the festival. Press conferences on a floor serviced by only two small elevators? Just plain stupid.

Who Needs an Electrical Outlet When We've Got Churros? • The night before TIFF opened, the CBC hosted the Gemini Awards in its headquarters on Wellington St. and provided journalists covering the event with a spacious media room that was air-conditioned and filled with lines of tables equipped with power bars. "Too bad TIFF can't see how a proper media room is set-up," one journalist said to a crowd of nodding heads. Sure enough, this year's TIFF did nothing but set-up a small room on the third floor as the "Shangri-La media lounge" — a room not planned by anyone with any knowledge of the basic needs of the media. Journalists wishing to plug in their laptops or recharge mobile devices had to fight for one of three available power outlets (while four outlets in the tiny room were being used to power TVs showing black-and-white movies with no sound). Then there was the cheesy lounge music that made it difficult for journalists to make phone calls or transcribe interviews, as did the well-intentioned servers who constantly interrupted with offers of food and drink (all of it delicious and free). And what genius decided it made sense to set-up the food table at the opposite end of the room from where the food was being brought in? Here's hoping the Shangri-La is better at running a hotel.

Love Was In The Air • Jennifer Garner didn't bring hubby Ben Affleck and Emily Blunt left John Krasinski at home but some stars got support from their famous significant others at TIFF. Brad Pitt was joined on the red carpet by his spousal equivalent Angelina Jolie, his Moneyball co-star Chris Pratt brought wife Anna Faris, From The Sky Down director Davis Guggenheim brought wife Elisabeth Shue, Jay Baruchel was joined by fiancée Alison Pill, and George Clooney brought Stacy Keibler.

Oh, They're Exes •  It's always fun to hope that famous ex-lovers will run into each other at TIFF — and it happens more often than we probably know (those Hollywood sluts!). What if Sean Penn showed up and made things awkward! for ex-wives Robin Wright and Madonna? This year, the closest Brad Pitt got to Jennifer Aniston was at the press conference for Moneyball, where he sat behind a bottle of SmartWater (for which Aniston is spokesmodel). Funnyman Jimmy Kimmel was in town shooting segments for his late night show but no one's sure if he ran into his ex Sarah Silverman, here for Take This Waltz. Toronto resident Rachel McAdams flew out of town during TIFF, thereby dashing our hopes of a reunion with ex Ryan Gosling. And Hick's Eddie Redmayne was likely pleased that ex Carey Mulligan was a no-show.

Photo by Dominic Chan/DominicChan.ca.

Check out our TIFF coverage at StarsInCanada.com!