TIFF Talk: The Iceman and Other TIFF Preparations

 

Parts were filmed in Detroit

I reviewed the tiff 2012 film schedule once more to see if I could squeeze in Detroit Unleaded, but it's not going to work out well. Allow me to preface that the two films that I'm most eager to see are The Iceman and London - Modern Babylon, and coincidentally, these two films are in direct conflict with Detroit Unleaded. The only way I could see Detroit Unleaded is if I move the Tuesday noon viewing of The Iceman to the Monday 10pm screening. But the dilemma that develops is that London/Babylon is playing at Scotiabank from 7pm to 9:38pm. I would have to leave there before the ending of the film to RUN over to the Princess of Wales Theater to catch Iceman from 10pm to 12:15am. If I do this, Monday would be a crazy long day, but it would free up the 2pm time slot to watch Detroit Unleaded on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I'll just leave my schedule as is because to change it would create new anxieties and make me committed to a film that I am very excited to see, but very late on a long day. I'll be exhausted and there's no fun in watching a film damn tired. The other viewing of Unleaded is on a Sunday night, but Byzantium (my annual mandatory vampire film) is playing and that film's second viewing is at a time I cannot watch it. So I'm totally back at square one, so I'm just going to chill out.

It would be fantastic to watch The Iceman on the Monday evening screening as surely, Michael Shannon, who is starring as mafia hitman killer, Richard Kuklinski, will be there, I really enjoy him as an actor. However, the next screening of the film that I'm going to, will be at the Ryerson and sometimes the actors and directors show up there for the second screening. The reason why I'm interested in this film is because I've known about Kuklinski when he was still alive and in prison for murdering over 200 people (he died in 2006 of "natural causes"), and his HBO special from the 90s was fascinating and scary. Basically, he was just a pure bad ass who enjoyed killing men for the mob, and for just pissing him off.

My love for London, England is tried and tested due to my visiting the city eight times since 1994, so that is why I want to see the documentary, London - Modern Babylon. I also make an effort to watch documentaries at tiff, and not just Oscar bait, and cool indies, so London is one of two documentaries I'll see this year, the other is Halocaust themed, 'The Gatekeepers'.  So as it stands, I won't have to deal with the Single Ticket Sale day, thank God, and I can enjoy my Sunday of this Labor Day holiday weekend.

On Friday, I bought my train ticket to travel to Toronto. On most of my past trips to tiff, I took the train, but I did drive there a few times. I drove there in my first year back in 2004, and the last time was in 2009. I have also driven to Toronto on a separate occasion for non-tiff business back in early 2009 for an event at the Zen Buddhist Temple, the sister sangha of my Ann Arbor temple. I love driving long distances for trips, and the drive in Canada is cool for the most part, but after four hours of uneventful driving, then BAM!!!... I hit Toronto traffic an hour outside of town and it goes from blissville to suckville in 10 seconds. Soooo, I enjoy the train. And the VIA Rail services is very clean, quiet, comfortable, and very affordable. My roundtrip ticket cost only $124. I'll be loaded down this year with luggage and accessories, and I'll be bringing my books from my Fall classes to read on the train because classes actually start while I'm in Toronto and I need to stay on top. Waste not. I'm not going to feel guilty about being at tiff while missing the first class session of both of my classes. I worked my ass off this summer here at work and at my summer class (which btw, I got an A to maintain my 4.0 GPA!!), so it's really a great treat for me to do this last fun hurrah before a very tough and demanding Fall semester.