Before I begin…let me first say that I made a horrible, horrible error in my last post. I mistakenly referred to the hilarious Fred Willard and the terribly unfunny Fred Ward. Thanks for the correction. I apologize to all the Fred Willard fans who were horrified by my error and to all of the Fred Ward fans who were excited by the fact that he may have a career again. I’m sorry but he does not.

Wednesday September 13th 2006. 1:15pm – 2:00pm. That date and time will forever be known as the Comedy Circus. You have no idea. Better yet….let me give you an idea.

I have a 3pm showing of Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim so I need to jump on the subway. For those of you who have taken the subway on a weekday you know how busy it can get. The station was packed with idiots. First thing I see is a small asian woman doing a face plant on the ground. She hit hard! As my friends Chief and MJV like to say….she ate shit! You’re probably wondering what she tripped over. Get ready for this. A dude in a wheelchair. I shit you not. Tripped over a handicapped man. Amazing. The handicapped man? Completely unhurt. She clipped one of the front small wheels and went down. He then gave her this look of “wow, you’re more handicapped than I am.” As she got up and apologized…he just shook his head at her like she was the dumbest person ever. Unbelievable.

There was a big Pizza Pizza thing going on in the station too. Selling slices for $1. I think money was going to a charity. Anyway, a guy buys his slice and the Pizza Pizza employees are putting the slices on napkins as opposed to those triangular cardboard trays. The guy gets his slices and turns around quickly and his slice goes flying off of the napkin and onto the ground. As it hits the ground an unsuspecting man walks into the slice as it’s on its first hop and boots it onto the subway track. As this happens the guy who bought the slice yells “oh for Fuck’s sake!” Pizza kicking man pays no attention and just keeps right on strolling. Gold.

When you get on the subway, there’s a warning that the doors are about to close. It’s three chimes. “Bing, Bong, Boong.” Great chime! So..when that glorious song plays people run like O.J. from the cops and haul ass to get inside. One dude gets on with his friends but he’s not all the way in and the doors close on his shoulders. They re-open and one of this dudes buddies gives him a shove and he steps off of the train, the doors close and he’s shit out of luck. The rest of his posse start hooting and hollering like they just saw Kobe dunk over Shaq. Train pulls away without shoulder-door guy. Amazing.

That is not the end of fun with subway doors. I have to transfer from the Bloor subway line to the Yonge line. I get on the new train and the chime hits and the doors close. As this happens one guy comes down the stairs to see the doors close. He doesn’t look upset as he probably rides and misses trains all the time like most Torontonians do. Then it happens. For some reason the doors open again and this look goes on his face like he’s just had this enormous fit of glee. Kind of the way I would look if I ever saw a pedestrain get hit by a car. He lunges for the doors as happy as a puppy in a room full of kibble. The doors only open about three quarters of the way and then close again before he gets inside. His face dramatically changes. I get to witness all of this as I am directly on the other side of the door. His face goes from pure happiness to bitter anger in about 1 second just like how soccer fans faces went when they realized that France was not going to beat Italy in the World Cup final. It’s fantastic. Here’s the kicker…he kicks the door. That’s when I start laughing out loud. The guy hears me, looks up and says “Fuck you, asshole” and gives me the finger. Oh, and a what a finger it was. There was a lot of anger in it and to quote Dane Cook ‘the guy had like ten knuckles showing’. It was that monstrous. Brilliant.

Just an amazing 45 minutes of hilarity.

I’m already sore from laughing like an idiot and I haven’t even seen any films yet. I’m almost late for my first film and luckily I run into my old buddy Doug. In high school Doug had this long ponytail and he reminded me of Nuno Bettancourt, the guitarist from the highly underrated 80’s hair metal band Extreme. I’m sure Doug would not be happy to hear that. Now he has a shaved head…like the Blue Man Group. Or Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil. Moving on. Fay Grim stars Parker Posey….sweet, sweet Parker Posey and is directed by Hal Hartley. Hal’s films are an acquired taste as the dialogue is very fast paced and the humour is almost absurd. Parker Posey plays a woman named Fay Grim who gets wrapped up in the espionage battle between terrorists, her husband, the Russian, German and British governments and the CIA. The movie started off great, but at one point it became more serious and it started to drag a bit. On a side note, director John Waters was at the screening three rows in front of me. I guess John Waters likes Hal Hartley films as well.

I have some time before my next flick so I head on over to HMV’s Toronto superstore. HMV is rolling out video games to stores over the next year and I wanted to see their big set up as we don’t have them in my store yet. I guess I was paying too close attention and when I pulled out my phone to take a couple of pics of the racks and merchandising, security was on me in about 10 seconds. I had to verify who I was before they would let me leave. In all honesty, they were doing a great job as I could have easily been taking photos of prices.

I get to my next theatre which is new to the Festival circuit…The Al Green Theatre. I’m not sure if it’s named after the singer/reverend Al Green or not. I’m seeing Election and Election 2. A double feature from action director extraordinaire Johnnie To. This is about the rise to power in the Hong Kong underworld between two men and the sequel just continues where the first one ends. This was good considering that the first film ended in a cliffhanger. These were both good films as I enjoy the directing style and storytelling of many of Hong Kong’s talent. I should mention that just as I was about to enter the theatre a man pushed his way in front of me rather rudely. It was Canadian actor Maury Chaykin. What an ass.

Today, I have a documentary about Kurt Cobain and a third film from Johnnie To: Exiled. This was just screened at the Venice Film Festival to some great reviews.

I remain

G

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