I'm in Toronto for a couple days for work. I love Toronto but there won't be anytime to hit my favorite spots. Even the hotel is by the airport with this lovely view.
They show respect to Smart Cars in Toronto. Look at these reserved parking spots!
I do get to eat some nice meals while I'm here. I especially liked this Italian restaurant called Terroni.
Mmmm pizza.
It's so nice to have a major city so close to Rochester.
This year it was just the gals at the Toronto Film Festival. There was the usual waiting in line.
And enjoyment of Toronto food.
There was only one Q&A for our movies - The Moth Diaries.
I would have like to asked Scott Speedman about the next Underworld but that seemed out of context.
Other than that Q&A the only other celeb we saw out and about was Geoffrey Rush. We saw more stars on cupcakes than in person this year.
As for the movies we had two great ones, two good ones and one we walked away from confused.
Dark Horse - great acting. great filming. but wha????
The Oranges - some uncomfortable parts (no don't do that!!! awwww!) but charming and great cast (House!)- one of our favs this year
The Moth Diaries - not as scary as we expected but not bad
Like Crazy - good story but shot with shaky camera so I had to stare at the exit sign and watch it out of the corner of my eye so I wouldn't get motion sickness
Butter - so cute and so amazing they made a movie about butter carvers. our other fav this year.
We had some tasty food in Toronto. The highlight was probably the last thing we had before leaving town. We stopped at the Drake for brunch and I spied these scones on the menu. They were so buttery and crumbly. The vanilla cream and gooseberry jam were amazing too.
I love brunch. Not just brunch food but what brunch means. It means you didn't have to get up early for breakfast and you are having a laid back day.
It was such a good brunch.
Blackberry lemonade!
Of course we had to have crepes again.
I think Crepes a Go Go is my favorite restaurant in Toronto.
We tried something new this trip too... we went to a Korean BBQ. I think Tina really enjoyed fiddling around with the grill.
I love taking advantage of photo ops - there was a store in Toronto with a window scene of paparazzi and I had Chuck, Tina and Aaron pose in front of it.
These are a favorite of mine. Is there a word for these cut out thingys that you stick your head in and take a photo?
Another day of standing in line at the Toronto Film Festival. We totally did not plan on all wearing black and grey. Freaky. I did a blog post over on 1000Words about how I got all of us in these photos by the way. Sneaky group photography trick.
The King's Speech was our first movie and most certainly the best movie of the weekend. Possibly the entire festival. It was funny, it was moving, it was charming. It didn't hurt that it had Colin Firth in it either much to Tina's delight. It was really great that both Colin and Geoffrey Rush showed up for Q&A even though we were at the second showing.
We had two midnight madness movies this year - typically good nutty flicks. Our last movie of the weekend was Bunraku. The style of the movie was fantastic but it was a bit slow in places. Again an interesting mix of characters with Woody Harrelson, Josh Harnett and Japanese star Gackt. There were some Japanese girls sitting next to us that went CRAZY when he took the stage.
Afterwards we got a good spot to see the cast come out and sign autographs. I got some good shots of Josh Harnett in an unseasonable knit hat and character glasses.
Here we are at our first day of the Toronto Film Festival doing what we do best. Wait in line. Our first movie was Daydream Nation with Kat Denning and Andie McDowell. There were some funny parts and some cute parts but to be honest I was so stressed out waiting for something bad and unexpected to happen I could enjoy those parts. Maybe if I watched it again. Kat Denning was there but I missed her on the red carpet and they didn't take the stage.
Passion Play had an odd mix of actors, Megan Fox, Mickey Rourke, Kelly Lynch and Bill Murray. The story was... different - but I thought the ending was cheesy even though there is a big twist. We did talk about it quite a bit afterwards though.
Our midnight madness movie came through with the funniest movie of the weekend - Super. Rainn Wilson was very funny during the Q&A after. Ellen Page was great in the movie. Look how tiny she is between Liv Tyler and Rainn Wilson who are both really tall.
Yes, we saw three movies in one day. We literally came out of one movie and walked around to get back in line for the next movie. *whew*
We are heading to Toronto today for the Toronto International Film Festival. It will be our 10th year attending! Here is a blog post from the first year we went - September 2000.
Every year we see a lot of stars and a lot of great movies. Can't wait to see what this year holds.
I know I have mentioned this before on my blog but I still can't get over the fact that the squirrels in Canada are black. How did that happen? How come none of them have migrated down to Rochester?
Of course, they are just as chubby and cute as the ones in our backyard. We stood and took pictures and video of this fella gnawing on a peanut for quite awhile.
Last month we saw billboards around Rochester advertising a King Tut exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Aaron got us tickets for Valentines Day but because of snow we couldn't go until this weekend.
Despite taglines like "King Tut returns to the Art Gallery of Ontario!" King Tut was nowhere to be found. There was lot's of King Tut's stuff, items from the outer chambers of Tut's tomb, like King Tut's bed, King Tut's sandals and statues of King Tut. There were also statues of other pharohs and even an ancient Egyptian toilet seat (no joking) but no King Tut. No Tut mask, no Tut coffin and no Tut mummy.
We heard other couples asking where King Tut was and heard that King Tut is permanently on display in Cairo. I totally understand that, in fact I probably should have realized it, but it really sounded like he would be there and I'm kind of surprised it wasn't more clear and we were pretty disappointed. The exhibit was interesting, I just wish I would have had different expectations. King Tut bummer.
Aaron and I are in Toronto for the weekend so we are hitting up some old favorites like Crepes a Go Go...
and we discovering some new ones like Korean Grill House!
I think this weekend i was most looking forward to seeing Drew Barrymore's new movie, Whip It. There were roller derby girls dressed as the characters at Yonge and Dundas Square.
Then they had a real roller derby right there.
This was the first movie Drew Barrymore directed - and it was great.
I got most of the cast to sign my poster! Heeeeeee!
Another great movie at the Toronto Film Festival - The Joneses, starring David Duchovny and Demi Moore. I can't say too much... I don't want to give it away but it is an interesting concept. Definitely a very unique movie.
Oh and we saw David Duchovny in the lobby. MULDER!
Our first movie to day was the teenage horror flick "Jennifer's Body" written by Diablo Cody. It was actually very funny, well acted and filmed.
Our next movie was "Up in the Air" with... GEORGE CLOONEY! Oh yeah... he took the time to sign autographs and stood six inches away from Tina and I and we weren't able to eek out a Hello or anything. We just stood there like Durrrrr.
I got some nice pictures of him though.
And he signed my movie ticket.
It was a good day.
One of our favorite spots to eat when we go to Toronto is Crepes a Go Go. I even made a little video about it.
We are in Toronto this weekend for the Toronto International Film Festival!
We are back from the film festival. Our celebrity spotting list is...
Terence Howard
J K Simmons (editor in Spiderman)
Michael Cera (kid in SuperBad)
Jim Broadbent
Brad Pitt
Helen Hunt
Marilyn Manson
Evan Rachel Wood
Tommy Lee Jones
Laura Linney
Steven Dorff
Laura Linney
Ryan Gosling
Jake Gyllenhaal
The Jake sighting was across the street and such a glimpse, it hardly counts. I wrote more about the tiff celebrity spottings and the sad attempt to get some pictures over at Rocha-chatter.
