Friday we had an 11:00 a.m. movie and a 6:00 p.m. movie. The early one was Much Ado About Nothing, modernized, filmed in b&w at Joss Whedon’s (of Avengers & Buffy the vampire killer fame) house in 12 days. We liked it a lot. Came back to the apartment for egg sandwiches, and then Mark headed out for coffee while I recorded demos for my class.
The evening show was The Paperboy, our last Red Carpet, where we were again surrounded by screaming girls trying for a glimpse of Zac Ephron. Meanwhile the director, Lee Daniels, slipped in entirely unnoticed. I liked how all the actors (except Zac) were playing against type: John Cusack as a slack-jawed, back woods yokel, Nicole Kidman trampy – one of the other characters calls her a 40-year-old obsessed with jailhouse cock. Matthew McConaughey as a closeted gay man, who likes it seriously, dangerously, life threateningly, kinky, but actually keeps his shirt on most of the movie. I do agree with Mark that the movie was kind of a mess – gothic in every sense of the word, and in real need of editing. Oh, yeah, and I really liked Macy Gray as the narrator and the help, too.
We walked back to Carlton St. and caught the streetcar to Little Italy, and had a late dinner at a place called Marinella’s. It was a lot like Lombardino’s in Madison – traditional Italian fare, but updated and using local ingredients. And very Canadian. We split a salad, and, after noticing all the seafood shells on everyone’s plates, I got the seafood risotto. Mark had a pasta with red sauce and 2 kinds of house-made sausages and meatballs. Between our salad and main courses, our waiter came over to tell us that he was done for the evening, and other servers would take care of delivering the rest of our meal. He came back with his backpack and street clothes on to say goodnight to some his friends who were at the bar, saying, “ciao, guys”. We walked back to our apartment, but we probably didn’t completely walk off the dinner.
Saturday was sex-comedy movies. We started early with another delightful indie film in the AMC theater – My awkward sexual adventure. Seems like it was a partnership between the writer/star, Jonas Chernick, and the director, Sean Garrity, who were both present for the screening. I really like the cute Indian guy – Vik Sahay. And we both liked that it was filmed in an area that looked an awful lot like our adopted Toronto neighborhood – high rise condos, lots of clubs, gay couples with their dogs.
At noon, we went to see The Sessions, with John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien, the poet in the iron lung. With and Dan Dority as his night attendant Rod, and Calamity Jane as his last girlfriend, although probably Helen Hunt as the sex therapist and William Macy as his priest were more memorable. And his taciturn Chinese day helper got some of the best lines, since she was the one booking them into a room in a motel for the sessions, and explaining what was going on to the also Chinese desk clerk.
We debated about what to do after, since we were all done with movies by 1:30. In the end we decided to eat a little lunch back at the apartment, another version of egg sandwiches – egg salad this time – then Mark went for coffee and I worked a little more. We made Saturday night our big night out for a fancy dinner. We wanted to go back to a restaurant we had liked when we were last in Toronto in 2008. We remembered it was up north of University of Toronto and had a lower level entrance, under an apartment building. And when you got inside there was a terrific view of the city. We thought it was Sorrel – but now I think it was Scaramouche. As soon as we got close we knew it was a different place – but we went in anyway and had a perfectly nice meal. It only took me until about midday Sunday to get over the missed opportunity – I guess we’ll just have to go back to Toronto sooner.
