Sunday mornings in Hogtown aren’t that bad. It’s still fairly quiet and with the co-operative weather we’ve been having it’s been quite nice. Nice enough for a pancake breakfast on a patio served by an older, surly European waitress at a pretty sweet diner on the Danforth called New York Cafe. A quick time check shows that I’m late to meet up with friends in line for my first film, but staring at the maple syrup covered pancakes makes me forget that I have any friends other than the flapjacks in front of me. Suck on that line-standers.

I get down to the subway and notice that I have syrup all over my Sam Roberts t-shirt. Suck on that Sam Roberts. Whatever. I’m not here to impress anyone.

My first film is Up in the Air. It’s directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking) and I have to say that this kid is pretty talented. It was quite funny and had a great cast of George Clooney, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Zach Galifianakis and Danny McBride. Clooney plays a man who gets hired by corporations to do their firing. He spends over 300 days on the road, hates going home and considers himself happiest while travelling. I’d do a full on review, but we’ll be talking about it on the FIlmjunk podcast which I know you’ll all be listening to. Needless to say, I really liked this movie.

After the movie, I grab a cup of coffee and a bite with Sean and we are served by a girl named Moriah who seemed to have some personality to her. We needed the check and she walked past and I tapped her on the back of her shoulder. She instinctively looked up. Why? I have no idea. I was sitting and she was standing. Very strange. I pointed it out to her and chuckled about it which flustered her to the point that she dropped her money pouch and all of the coins went all over the floor. Whoops.

We take a small trek down to the TIFF box office, which is this bullshit outdoor tent in Nathan Philips Square which is a little inconvenient compared to where all of the movies are screening. There’s a lot of shit going on in this town. A roller derby exhibition with the stars of Whip It and the mighty Toronto Roller Derby. That’s a lot of bad ass chicks. There was also some biker gang and what looked to be a big biker gang funeral or wedding. Add to that some gladiators, a samurai, and some Jesus freaks out in the street, handing tickets out for God. Odd day.

Sean has a ticket to a screening of the film adaption of Cormac McCarthy’s the Road. A story about a man and his son surviving on a post apocalyptic Earth. I do not have a ticket, so I hit the rush line again, but am treated to some free vitamin water from Aquafina and a sampling of Lindor chocolates from a girl in a chef’s costume. I get in to this one and sit down in time for the director and a couple of the actors from the movie, including Robert Duvall and a flag waving Viggo Mortenson. What kind of flag? A flag of les Glorieux, le bleu, blanc et rouge, yes…a flag of his favourite hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens. Viggo Mortenson is now my all time favourite actor. What a great moment. By the way, I’ll be surprised if this film doesn’t win the People’s Choice Award for favourite film here at TIFF. It was pretty awesome. You can hear our full review on the Filmjunk podcast next week. I know you’ll be listening.

I have a free day Monday, but I will venture back to St. Catharines for my beach volleyball championship game. Back on Tuesday for a screening of Atom Egoyan’s new film Chloe and WWE Smackdown live!

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