Letter from Joy
September 10, 2024
Hi, everyone,
Well, it’s normally the time of year that I would be heavily into seeing up to three movies a day at the Toronto International Film Festival, but as with the last number of years, such is not the case. As with so much of life as we knew it, COVID changed everything, and while the festival has started to regain its former momentum and celebrities have started descending on our already traffic-clogged streets, I and most of my friends are sitting another one out. I always found the lead-up to the festival and its on-line ticket selecting process an extremely tense time, and my anxiety at selecting up to thirty films and hoping I get the films I wanted on the dates I chose was through the roof. I’m quite happy to be done with that. I actually much preferred the original process of simply lining up for tickets for shows I wanted to see and leaving the theatre if I didn’t like it and going to see something else on the spur of the moment. I saw a number of unexpected gems that way. Once we started having to book reserved seats well in advance, it became something of a chore, and surprisingly did little to end the long line-ups to get in. Even though people already had their seats reserved, we still persisted in lining up an hour ahead of time! Mind you, that was one of the fun things at the festival: getting to meet and talk with people from all over with a shared love of movies, while waiting in line.
Of course, when I was seeing thirty movies in ten days, a good number of them turned out to be terrible and would never see the light of day. If I was lucky, I’d see a handful of truly wonderful films, a lot of mediocre ones, and the aforementioned duds. It wasn’t so bad when the cost of tickets was only marginally higher than seeing them in the theatre, but the prices have been steadily rising, and now the cost of a ticket, let alone a package, is through the roof. And some of the films arrive in theatres for less than half the price within days of their screenings! This year, the only film I heard about that I was anxious to see is the Demi Moore/Margaret Qualley film “The Substance.” I was going to try to get a ticket when I saw that they’d added a few screenings due to demand, but then I read that the movie is opening in theatres on September 20th, so why bother? I’ll wait and see it for less than half the price.
As I’ve gotten older, I’m also increasingly realizing that there are few things in life that are all that important. While I used to think I simply had to see a particular movie that the critics were raving about or watch something supposedly mind-bending on TV, I now think that it’s not the end of the world if I miss it. Something else will undoubtedly come along, and in the larger scheme of things, who cares? A friend of mine once said that she’d reached the age where she realized that there was nothing in the world that she couldn’t live without, and while I wouldn’t go quite that far, she has a point. You can let most things go.
In other news, there’s not much to report. We’ve hardly golfed at all this summer, due to the extreme heat and very wet weather. It seems as if every time we had a game scheduled, it poured. Then when we did play, I lost my swing, and could barely hit the ball. Very irritating. Golf is not a game for the easily frustrated. Anyway, we golfed last weekend and I did much better. But we’ll see how long that lasts. I’ve been going on long walks with my daughter, Shannon, and her delightful puppy, Foxy Cleopatra. My sister is currently in France, visiting her older son, hopefully returning next week (A potential strike by Air Canada pilots is putting that in jeopardy) so we can resume our regular walks when she returns. And I’m trying to work through a new idea I have for a book. It’s still in the very early stages, so nothing yet to report. The novel I recently completed will be out sometime next summer, and as soon as I have definite news, I’ll let you know. I’m also keeping the title under wraps for now, but all will be revealed when the time is right.
And that’s about it for now. Stay safe and well, and above all, be kind to each other.
Warmly,
Joy