Instead, I walked around Toronto and saw a couple old sights. Had lunch at Ginger. Bought a game at 401 then it was off to the Royal Ontario Museum. There's always something interesting to see at the ROM but I always stop to see the gemstone exhibits and dinosaur bones while I'm there.
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| Quartz variety: amethyst, from Bolivia |
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| "Leaf" necklace, gold and diamond |
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| The massive Futalognkosaurus skeleton |
As always, I took a lot of good reference photos while I was there, but was struck by the fact that I really need to get back to sketching when I'm at museums--draw in the moment as it were, instead of hoping that I'll use the photo references to draw later.
Went back to the hotel for a quick nap before dinner. But not many of the restaurants that I enjoy were on this side of the city so it was worth trying something new. There was a restaurant called "Pigot's Burger Club" that sounded interesting. Turns out though that they served their food through a local bar. No worries. There was room for one at the bar and they took good care of me. The food was awesome and noone complained about me watching cartoons on my phone. Afterwards, I discovered this little hole-in-the-wall cafe with exquisite crepes!
One chocolate crepe and a strawberry juice later, yeah, I'm definitely coming back to Melt n Dip next time I'm in town.
On the walk back to the hotel, I was reminded that one of the things that makes Toronto so appealing to me is that there is art worth looking at everywhere you go.
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| Mural at Sansotei Ramen |
Saturday was a full day of screenings that would end with a feature. It was the big day at TAAFI, for me anyways. The day was jam packed with animated short film screenings, capped off with the North American premiere of Mars Express. I was on pins and needles all day waiting to see this feature and I have to say that Mars Express exceeded all of my expectations. I was looking for an experience similar to when I watched Love Death and Robots or Technotoise, Edit y ja for the first time and I was not disappointed.
The film was a dystopian look at society's struggle between humans and robots on a colonized Mars--all told through the eyes of a war-weary detective and her partner, a robot who is the backup copy of her fellow soldier, long since killed in battle. This film is coming out on DVD through GKIDS, so I won't spoiler it, but hopefully the trailer below will whet your appetite.
I'll end this post with a couple more stand-out films that I saw over the weekend. As they work their way through the festival circuit, these are the ones that I think are well worth your while to track down, be it in a festival or when they're posted online.
I'm Hip, a short film by John Musker--the writer and director of such Disney classics as the Little Mermaid and Hercules. I'm Hip was a cute musical number that definitely lived up to the hype.
Delete Machine by Charlotte Ledwidge was a hilarious gag film with excellent timing and a great payoff. Would love to show this film in a class that teaches comedy.
Fried by Melina C was another cute film, this time about a raccoon who gets caught in a fast food restaurant. It was filled with decent character and background designs and character animation.
Side Sidemi by Zoe Medcraft was all about ants gathering food told to a jaunty musical score. I really liked the character design and character animation on this one. Also liked the overall design/visual style. There were no arms or legs to any of the characters, just the bodies, hands, and feet going through the motions as you expect they would. Reminded me of Evelyn Lambart's animation style and her film Fine Feathers.
Then there was The 7th Night: MaoMao Visits by Ah Loong. This heartbreaking tale of a boy and his cat explored the Buddhist concept of spirits from the recently deceased visiting their loved ones on the seventh night from their passing in order to provide a measure of closure.
Well, I would've loved to stay in town a little longer, but had to run to Ann Arbor for an impromptu family reunion before everyone drove to Ohio to see the eclipse. But yeah. TAAFI is always worth a visit!
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