Thumbs down for TIFF

I don't know how controversial this is, but I am so unimpressed by what TIFF has become.  A large proportion of the films will be getting mainstream release in North America, many within a few months.  In fact, some critic (granted for a free daily) said that of the 12 films to watch, every one of them had a major movie star and thus will get wider release.  Unbelievably lame.  And the fact that so many people seem to basically lose their mind just to see some of these Hollywood stars?  That would never happen in New York and not even at the Chicago International Film Fest, which is much more pleasant.  I would actually rank the Vancouver International Film Fest as better than TIFF, both in the scope of international films, particularly by obscure directors, and certainly in the ease of getting tickets and actually watching films.

I happened to go over to Metro Hall, which has more or less been taken over by TIFF.  While it is kind of nice for King Street to be free of cars, this is causing a lot of traffic havoc downtown, given all the other construction.  It has definitely led to a lot of encroachment on the bike lanes on Adelaide!  That wasn't my main problem, but the fact that I had legitimate business in Metro Hall (going to The Source, Rexall Drugs and the food court) and they hassled me, assuming I was trying to cut into the ridiculously long box office lines.  So that put me in a pretty bad mood.  Then on the way out, I took a look at the board and roughly 90% of the films (and the couple of ones I was vaguely interested in) were all sold out.  How crazy to make people stand in line for probably an hour when there is essentially nothing left.  Everything about this leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I think I will just boycott on principle from now on.  I will admit that the rest of the year, TIFF Lightbox is really nice, even a bit nicer than the Ebert Film Center on State Street in Chicago.  But I am just going to completely avoid the Lightbox and TIFF more generally over these two weeks.  It's just a shame I work so close that I am negatively impacted by TIFF, even if I choose to pretend it doesn't exist.