Hating on TIFF

I really do have a love-hate relationship with TIFF, both the international festival and then the TIFF Lightbox where foreign films play the rest of the year (and way more hate than love...).  I've seen a few cool things there, but more often than not, the movies I want to see are in a smaller theatre and are sold out.  That happened to me several times last year.  I probably should get a membership, which would cut down on some of this frustration.  However, I really don't feel I can "reward" them with any membership fees when I am so totally opposed to the TIFF board asking the city every year to reroute streetcars away from their precious festival.  In fact, I will boycott the TIFF festival itself until the day that they stop making this request.  This will be an "interesting" year, since the streetcars would have to be sent up from King to Dundas.  I am hoping that the city will finally have the balls to say no.  Not exactly holding my breath though...

But even beyond that, I think I just wish TIFF Lightbox was better.  It is amazing to me how cruddy their website is.  How hard would it actually be to have a true on-line calendar with everything in one place, instead of having to scroll down a huge list of movies?  I'm particularly peeved because the entire building including the box office was closed last Sunday for some private event.  This just reminds me of how ridiculously elitist TIFF is (and so unconcerned with regular folks like those on the King streetcar!)  So I tried to buy an advance ticket or two, but the backend of their website sends you to Ticketmaster!  Completely unacceptable at every level.

I think at the end of the day I don't think TIFF Lightbox is quite as adventurous with the small foreign movies compared to Facets in Chicago, and I think it certainly doesn't really do enough retrospective series compared to the Siskel Film Center (also in Chicago) or Film Forum in NYC.  Basically, I just wish TIFF was better than it actually was, or conversely I wish that more of the Fellini, Truffaut, Tati, Varda, etc. retrospectives played in other theatres.  (The Paradise up on Bloor is slowly getting there, but it seems to only show a few great movies mixed in with concerts and other odd things to try to pay the bills.)  But TIFF is more or less the only game in town, so I'll probably keep going back.

Update: So I swung by after work.  There was a sign saying the box office was open but there was no one working, and in fact the ground floor was completely empty (even the gift shop was closed).  I waited close to ten minutes and was getting ready to call (probably just to go straight to voicemail) when someone finally showed up.  Of the three movies I wanted to see, two were sold out.  Sadly, this is so typical of TIFF.  She did say that some of the Japanese films would be getting second screenings.  Hopefully this included Spirited Away.  The extra screenings will be announced Wed. and go on sale to the general public on Friday.  So frustrating dealing with TIFF.

Update 2: I ran over to TIFF today right after a lunchtime concert at St. Andrews.  I managed to get a ticket to an extra showing of Tokyo Drifter and then one to The Wind Rises, but the new screening of Spirited Away was already completely sold out!  This was the film I wanted to see the most.  Sigh...  As part of the Ghibli Fest, Spirited Away will be screening at the very tail end of Oct. (perhaps appropriately quite close to Halloween), so I will certainly try to go then but also sign up at Cinemaclock to see if it screens anywhere else locally before then.  Kiki's Delivery Service should be up next in mid-June, and I'll try not to miss that.