Sure, there may be celebrities everywhere, but often the most interesting people you meet at the Toronto International Film Festival are standing in front of you in line.

Who: Tim Ryan, Editor: Rotten Tomatoes
From: Los Angeles, California
In Line For: All the King's Men
Years at the Festival: First Year!

What are you looking forward to for this year's festival?
There's a lot of stuff. Always interested in Werner Herzog, really interested in Little Children, heard a lot of good things about that. The Fountain, of course. I was interested in the Kurt Cobain documentary. One of the other things: I was really interested in Babel and Pan's Labyrinth and both of those didn't disappoint at all. I really liked both of those a lot.

Any other thoughts you have about the festival or Toronto?
I think one of the most fascinating things is that you sort of come across the border and you're like, woah! Here's this great North American city that's kind of forgotten: well, of course you think about it, but I didn't really have any idea of the size and the scale, it's just a happening place. And I think one of the things is that — it's sad to say but it's true — Canda sort of flies under the radar sometimes, there's a lot of American people that don't think north of the border that much, but then they're here and they're like, "ah this is great."

The festival itself too is pretty accessible. The press screenings have been pretty well planned, and the movies so far have been good. There hasn't been a single day where I've thought, "ah, today looks a little boring." It's been pretty solid all the way through.

A brief look at the some of the films and events happening at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.

Because I promised her I wouldn't reveal any details, lets just say I sat next to a certain actress while watching a certain movie today, even though she's not officially supposed to arrive in town until tomorrow. She made a surprisingly good movie companion. Yeah, I'm sorry for being so cryptic, but she made me promise not to say anything before I was allowed to eat some of her popcorn.

Anybody pick up a copy of the Toronto Star today? In their A&E section, which has been festival-full for the past few days, they made a glaring mistake in the headline that ran across the entire top of the page: "Toronto International Film Ferstival." Nothing serious, but I still found it amusing.

The first weekend of TIF '06 is over and done... but man howdy, what a weekend. I saw more good films this weekend than I've see all year, and I'm going to tell you all about them.

Today's podcast includes:

• Reviews of Penelope, Pan's Labyrinth, Deliver Us From Evil, Lake of Fire, Rescue Dawn and Black Sheep


• And mini reviews of just about anything else that crossed my eyes or mind in the past three days.

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW (19 meg MP3 file)

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www.cdnfilmcentre.com/training/newmedia.html

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Sure, there may be celebrities everywhere, but often the most interesting people you meet at the Toronto International Film Festival are standing in front of you in line.

Who: Cameron White
In Line For: Lake of Fire
Years at the Festival: Three

What are some of your best memories from festivals past?
The best part I guess is just being able to meet the directors, talk to them, see how excited they are.

What are you looking forward to for this year's festival?
I'm excited to see movies that I wouldn't normally be able to see. This particular one is going to be about abortion so I'm looking forward to learning more about that debate.

Any other thoughts you have about the festival or Toronto?
I think its great that the city of Toronto is doing something like this. I know it's becoming more and more popular, and it's definitely becoming one of the world's most renowned film festivals. And that's great for the city.

The premiere of Queer Lounge as part of TIFF came along with the premiere of John Cameron Mitchell's "Shortbus" last night. The party was wild and performers like the Hidden Cameras, Kids on TV, Sook Yin Lee, Gentleman Reg, and Mitchell himself (above) held nothing back.

Proof? The two feet you see below are none other than monsieur director, bodysurfing over the Phoenix crowd during his performance.

As Sameer revealed the other day - and after I had given Ten Canoes a glowing podcast review based in part on its daring not to use subtitles - the proper, director-approved version of the film should, in fact, have subtitles for all the Aboriginal dialogue. The version shown earlier this weekend was an erroneous print.

So, never one to miss an opportunity to double their money on tickets (**cough** Borat **cough**), the Toronto International Film Festival has scheduled a special repeat screening for Ten Canoes this Tuesday night at the Cumberland. If you have a ticket stub for the Thursday screening, you can turn it in at the box office for a free ticket (pending availability). And if you don't, you can buy a ticket at the box office starting today.

I remain firm in belief that Ten Canoes worked strongly without subtitles, but given the potential PR fracas kicked up by having director Rolf de Heer in Toronto to present an improperly-titled film, I can understand why TIFF is covering all its bases.