From Up On Poppy Hill did not disappoint in this area. The pacing of the story was excellent, but you did have time to get to know the characters. Umi, the female lead is introduced to us through her daily duties at home. Throughout the entire film the theme of duty keeps returning and we see how that affects Umi, and Shun the male lead.

The way Goro Miyazaki uses the animation of wind so keep a sense of movement in scenes where the characters may be standing still is fantastic. The contrast in the  colour palette in the school clubhouse compared to Umi’s house really makes us feel as if she is taking a step into another world as she starts to interact with Shun and his friends.

The story for Up On Poppy Hill is based on a manga geared towards teenage girls, so there is an element of the melodramatic, but it is nice to have an animated film with a female lead. This was a great first film for me to start off TIFF11.

Good news – if not getting a hard ticket to a movie is the worst thing that happened to you today you got yourself what I like to call first world problems. Celebrate that.

Better news – you can still get a ticket that movie if you really really really want it.

1. If you are rich you can get a ticket from a scalper. Yes this is a little old school, and yes there are bound to be fraudsters murderers and perverts as you navigate through craigslist or twitter to get your obscenely marked up ticket, but people do it every year.

2. If you have a Visa Infinite card but are not rich enough to pay over $400 for a $40 ticket then you can try to buy your ticket through them. Go to https://visainfinite.ca/offers.html – there may be more seats available at some point before the festival starts.

3. If you are not rich and do not have a fancy high fee credit card you can wait. Like take the day off of your real life, be that work, parenting, whatever and camp the fuck out in line as long as it takes so you are among the first ten people in the rush line. How long you will have to wait varies from film to film, and you have to be logical and think that if a movie you want to see is at night or on a weekend even more people can wait for rush so you will have to go even earlier to be at the front of the line. I waited for Juno in the rush line for about 3 hours and I was still not near the front of the line. I got in, but if you want a popular screening you may need to wait at least that long if not much longer.

4. Be incredibly lucky. Sometimes they release tickets that you can buy online the same day. You need to wake up early and keep trying to order.  The challenge here is there is no guarantee that additional tickets will be released the morning of the screening and there is even less of a guarantee that the site will be operational at any point in the day.

If you are poor, or lazy or forgetful and not so ridiculously good looking that people just give you things because you ask then you are still screwed. Better luck next year.

As someone who is not getting any younger and needs a little pick me up between films I will share my short list of places to stop for a beer, between theatres. These are not places to see and be seen, but you can get served, get a seat and take a moment to reflect on your most recent film. Please add time to order, drink  and pay to recommended travel times.

AMC to Ryerson – The Imperial Pub at 54 Dundas Street East, just east of Victoria. Go upstairs, get a bottle of 50, play some foosball and bring your own hand sanitizer to the bathroom. It’s a bit sketchy but there is plenty of seating upstairs and occasionally hot popcorn.

Ryerson to Isabel Bader – 7 West on 7 Charles Street just west of Yonge. They are open 24 hours and you can get a bite before or after your midnight madness movie.

Anything at AGO – Village Idiot Pub at 127 Mc Caul Street. So many beers. Seating can get a bit tight, but the selection is worth the lack of personal space.

Isabel Bader to Scotiabank, Lightbox, Princess of Wales (POW) or Roy Thompson Hall (RTH) – The Charlotte Room at 19 Charlotte Street. Tiny streetlet between Spadina and Peter.  High quality pool tables, fantastic staff, and the best nachos you will ever have. You can get half beef, half chicken ALL delicious. They are closed on Sundays.

Lightbox (or POW or RTH) to Scotiabank – Town Crier Pub at 114 John Street. So much delicious beer. If you want something shandy-esque and light for daytime drinking try the Stiegl Radler – Grapefruit beer. For reals. We all miss Smokeless Joe’s, but this place has more comfortable and plentiful seating.

Honorable mention - South of Temperance - 20 Adelaide Street West. If you head south on Yonge from AMC and hang a right at Adelaide you can’t miss it. Yes, it’s full of bankers. Yes, the very competent wait staff wear tiny outfits forcing them to do a pseudo bunny dip for the low patio tables but you can get sun in during the day in the middle of the financial district. They have tasty beers on tap, a fruity white wine sangria, yummy brunch and delicious fish tacos. If you want to sit on the patio on a weekday  you need to reserve or get there by 11:30 AM, but it’s pretty fantastic. Allegedly they will be closed for part or all of a day/night early in the fest for the Alliance party, but the rest of the time they will be open for business. Sun-soaked, beer-flavoured business.

Stay thirsty my friends.

If you are in a bad box- 19 or thereabouts, all of the same rules apply. At this point it is out of your hands, and you still have  72 hours before you can even start to think about what you will do with your empty slots. You may get lucky. You may get nothing. The only thing you can control for the next few days is how you deal with the interminable wait until you find out how many of your first selections you may yet still get. Theatre capacity plays a large role in the outcome of the proceedings at this point so all is not lost. Wait until the day before pick up before you start  to panic and make other choices. If you go to the lineup early on advance order pickup day you could still have the opportunity to get a first choice from the box office or someone else with a conflict. Watch Legend. Or for the kids watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Unicorns can exist. Sometimes you can be in a crappy box number in the draw and still get exactly what you want. Or, like the year I had to switch a first choice coupon for Bella – you may get what you need.

You can access the box office from the King St Metro Hall entrance close to John St and take the escalator down to the concourse. For people familiar with the PATH system you can also get there directly from St. Andrew Station without surfacing by following the path signs to Metro Hall. This location is mere minutes from Roy Thompson Hall, Princess of Wales Theatre and the Lightbox.

Actors – not just the talented and lovely like Ryan Gosling and Juno Temple but also frequent festival favourites. My list includes Mads Mikkelsen , Viggo Mortensen, Aaron Eckhart, and Kristen Scott Thomas.

Release Date – the Entertainment Weekly fall movie preview comes out around the same time my drop off coupons arrive in the mail. It lists the known release dates for many films between September and December and I occasionally drop an early pick if the movie is coming out very soon after the festival.

Distribution – if the film does not have a North American distributor listed in the Programme book it may or may not be released anywhere you can see it anytime soon. I tend to go for UK picks that may only end up airing on BBC but are actually awesome films, like The Trip, Mr. In-Between and The Last Hangman.

Programmer - year over year you will find that you may love films that were selected by the same programmer. If your sensibilities align with one or two it makes the elimination process easier. I tend to love the picks of Jane Schoettle and end up with at least 25% of her films in my final list.

And finally the schedule – when the actual times and dates come out inevitably I have many of my first picks in the same time slot. I have to go through all of the filter/narrowing options listed above to make my final selections. One must also consider the likelihood of waking up for a 9 AM film when building a schedule. Many bars are serving until 4 AM during TIFF – jus’ sayin’.  And even if you can wake up, you need to pick something that can keep you awake. Previous early morning picks include Easy Money, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party and No Country for Old Men. Gunshots or music are good for keeping you up in the morning.