Since they moved into their new headquarters, the TIFF Bell Lightbox (quite a mouthful - I really wish naming rights had never been invented!), almost a year ago, I've been dropping by at least once a week, and often more, to see great movies. (Tiff, by the way, stands for Toronto International Film Festival.)
You see, seeing a movie at the Lightbox is not your typical movie-going experience.
First, it's a beautiful bright and airy building. You walk into a large 2-story atrium flooded with light. The ground floors has a small store that sells mostly movies, books about movies, and TIFF merchandise; a gallery for movie-related exhibits; a casual restaurant with better-than-decent food -- great breakfasts! -- and a big outdoor terrace; and lastly, the box office.
On the 2nd floor, we have 3 theatres, a formal restaurant, the Blackberry lounge, a bar-cum hangout sponsored by.... why Blackberry, of course. (I love it 'cos I can charge by Bberry there which I often need to do.). There's 2 more theatres on the 3rd floor, plus Learning Labs -- studios, editing suites, and rehearsal halls for cinema students.
There are 2 more floors, with offices, the Cinematheque film archives, and much more.
But it's also what's not there that I love: no gaudy decor, no video arcade, no greasy food or stale popcorn smell, no dirty carpets, no loud music. In other words, this is a cinema for grownups.
The programming is pretty cool too. Tonight I sawBreakfast at Tiffany's, part of their Books on Film series.Thursday is the start of a Raj Kapoor retrospective, running simultaneously with a Fellini mini-fest. They're showing musicals outdoors this summer (West Side Story, here I come!). Well, you can check it out for yourself.
Me, I'll be back there Friday, for Armadillo.
You see, seeing a movie at the Lightbox is not your typical movie-going experience.
First, it's a beautiful bright and airy building. You walk into a large 2-story atrium flooded with light. The ground floors has a small store that sells mostly movies, books about movies, and TIFF merchandise; a gallery for movie-related exhibits; a casual restaurant with better-than-decent food -- great breakfasts! -- and a big outdoor terrace; and lastly, the box office.
On the 2nd floor, we have 3 theatres, a formal restaurant, the Blackberry lounge, a bar-cum hangout sponsored by.... why Blackberry, of course. (I love it 'cos I can charge by Bberry there which I often need to do.). There's 2 more theatres on the 3rd floor, plus Learning Labs -- studios, editing suites, and rehearsal halls for cinema students.
There are 2 more floors, with offices, the Cinematheque film archives, and much more.
But it's also what's not there that I love: no gaudy decor, no video arcade, no greasy food or stale popcorn smell, no dirty carpets, no loud music. In other words, this is a cinema for grownups.
The programming is pretty cool too. Tonight I sawBreakfast at Tiffany's, part of their Books on Film series.Thursday is the start of a Raj Kapoor retrospective, running simultaneously with a Fellini mini-fest. They're showing musicals outdoors this summer (West Side Story, here I come!). Well, you can check it out for yourself.
Me, I'll be back there Friday, for Armadillo.
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