5 Hours in a line and a movie

So, my pessimism turned out to be well founded re my selections for the festival. I only got about half of my first picks and not even all my second picks for those slots, so had a lot of holes in my schedule to fill. I went down just after the box-office opened at 10:00 am this morning and immediately kicked myself (which takes talent) because the line to pick up envelopes already wrapped around a very large city block. (For you Torontonians... Line went from Dundas and Victoria, down Victoria to Gould, across Gould to Yonge, and was back at Dundas again when I found the end to join it. (Of course if I'd been bright enough to ask, or even fathomed the possibility the line was that long, I could have just walked across Dundas to join the end of the line... but no... I had to walk all the way around.

That line took about 2 hours and then once I had my tickets, I got in the line for the box office where one could make exchanges... Actually, I got to jump that line a bit, because in the first line I was chatting with two women who were together and one of them got in the box office line before we got to the front of the pick up line... So we got to jump that 2nd line a bit.

The box-office line was much shorter--only about half-way down Victoria--but moved much, much more slowly and took another 3 hours to get to the point where they let you in the building and up to the box office (where another line snaked around for 20 minutes or so.)
Luckily, only the last 90 minutes outside were in the sun, but that was long enough to give me a sunburn and make me feel like I had heat stroke by the time I got up to the box office where I scrambled to make sense of my tickets, and the gaps in my schedule, and compare it to what was still available. I managed to get a few more tickets, including the second screening of the new Charlie Kaufman film and the second screening of Religulous (for both of which I'd picked the first screening, but didn't get). Sadly, I missed some holes and need to to back again tomorrow morning. Let's pray it won't be so bad tomorrow.

Then after all that, exhausted, sweating and still suffering from heat stroke, I decided to see what was starting at the big air conditioned multi-plex upstairs and was just in time to see Get Smart, which has been playing for a million years, but is still at this huge 24 screen cinema.

Funny. Silly to be sure, but a few really big laughs and I like that they set up Patrick Warburton to play Hymie in the sequel, so all in all it was a good way to recover from the 5 1/2 hour line ordeal. No way would I have been able to accomplish anything productive if I'd gone home, anyway.

I really want to get down there by 9:00 tomorrow morning... but since it's 2:00 am already, and I'm blogging and doing laundry instead of sleeping... We'll see.

Over and out.

BTW. The TIFF starts on Thursday evening and hopefully I'll have the brains and energy to make a few posts during the following 10 days. I've got 43 tickets right now... and hope to score a few more tomorrow and maybe try the rush line for a few others. I'm torn about the Religulous thing... Because I do have a ticket for the 2nd screening... but if Bill Maher and Larry Charles don't show up for the second screening, I'll be bummed I didn't go for the RUSH tickets... At the same time, I'll be bummed if I wait in line for RUSH for 2 hours, don't get in, and wasted the chance to see other films.... Hmmmmm... Oh, my life is so tough.