What I'll Miss About Toronto: #23 - TIFF and Awards Show Season

Okay, so my last post was a bit emo. I've decided to lighten things up a bit and go back to my list of things that I'll miss. This post started off as a blog about how I am going to miss all my favourite awards shows while I'm away from North America, but I realized it didn't follow my "What I'll miss about Toronto" theme.

So I had to throw in TIFF - or the Toronto International Film Festival - one of my must go to events every year here in our lovely city. Ever since being introduced to the festival in 2006 by my friend Erin, I've been an avid attendee and for the last three years, I've been responsible for organizing tickets for my friends. In fact, I am so in love with TIFF that I thought I would come back for September and volunteer for the festival (that's still TBD - depending on how much money I have left).

Some of the best movies I've seen at TIFF were the likes of Slumdog Millionaire (People's Choice Winner in 2008), Waiting for Superman (on of my favourite docs from 2010 on the American education system) and People with Kids from this year - which is expected to be released in April 2012. I highly recommend it. It's great how the city becomes electric in the first two weeks of September. Film junkies filled into theatres, stars from all over the world come and party, and we get a peek into movies that might never get released or we get the first chance to see the upcoming award season's nominees.

Which leads me to Awards Season - my version of March Madness. At work, I've run the Oscar pool for the last 5 years in a row, which makes me sad as I retire the crown this Oscar season. I will get to see the Oscars before I leave for Asia - thanks Kim Hunter for hosting this year, which I am thankful for. You better believe I'll be live blogging and Facebooking.

But here to help you out with your Oscar picks for your Oscar pools - here are my picks:

Best Picture - The Help

Best Director - Alexander Payne (The Descendants)

Best Actor - Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress - Viola Davis (The Help)

Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Supporting Actress - Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Best Writing (Original) - Bridesmaids

Best Writing (Adapted) - The Descendants

Best Animated Film - Rango

Best Foreign Film - In Darkness

Best Doc Feature - Undefeated

Best Doc Short - The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Best Live Action Short - Raju

Best Animated Short - Dimanche

Best Original Score - Hugo

Best Original Song - Man or Muppet

Best Sound Mixing - Transformers

Best Sound Editing - Transformers

Best Art Direction - Midnight in Paris

Best Cinematography - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Makeup - Albert Nobbs

Best Costume - Hugo

Best Film Editing - The Artist

Best Visual Effects - Harry Potter