Von Hahn: TIFF Lightbox deserves its own Oscar
By Karen Von HahnSpecial to the Star
Fri., Feb. 18, 2011timer3 min. read
The list of nominees for this year's Oscars is nothing if not thorough. In the Best Picture category alone there are 10 nominees. And yet in my view, as self-designated voting member of the non-existent Hollywood (North) Foreign Press, there is one significant oversight. The award for Best New Place to See a Movie (and Grab a Drink, Take in an Exhibition and Get Dinner While You're At It) should go to… our very own TIFF Bell Lightbox (tiff.net/tiffbelllightbox).
It's funny, but after a decade of very public fund-raising, with the Toronto International Film Festival's brass repeatedly making its case for a "home" for the festival, when it finally opened in September to great public fanfare, complete with rapper K'naan, free cupcakes and a bouncy castle on King Street, none of us really knew what to make of the Lightbox. Was it the Festival's offices? Some sort of film education centre/museum? Were ordinary citizens who weren't in the film industry permitted inside its perfect glass box? And if so, what exactly did one do in there?
I am proud to report that the veil has been lifted. Unlike many people I know, I finally went to see a movie there (yes, it shows movies), and the experience was so stylish and so superb that not only have I been back several times since but I fear I am developing a dangerous Lightbox addiction because now it seems I don't want to go anywhere else. In fact it's so good I almost didn't write about it for fear of letting too many in on my secret.
But it would be selfish not to share my enthusiasm for the city's most significant cultural and architectural contribution since Koerner Hall. So here's what makes it so terrific. The physical building, which can be hard to take in fully from King Street, is a beauty. The lobby is the kind of grandly minimal light-filled space one encounters walking into a contemporary art museum rather than a multiplex. The levels open to one another in a seamless way, offering views that are worth framing from the escalators and the elegant bridge on the mezzanine. The finishes are beautiful, extravagant even, for a public space. And in the second floor BlackBerry lounge, where one can enjoy a cocktail, there is a wonderful lookout on to King Street West beneath.
Culturally too, it's brilliant: Every night its five cinemas show a mix of classic repertory cinema and new arts-oriented releases. A-list Hollywood guests such as director Peter Bogdanovich sometimes pop in when they're in town to introduce their favourite films. It has two exhibition spaces that show film-related ephemera, and two onsite Oliver & Bonacini-run restaurants — Canteen, a fun, casual and bustling bistro, and the more serious Luma (so you don't have to stand in the lobby after the movie trying to think of where to go to eat).
But the best thing about it is that it's a movie theatre for grown-ups. Unlike, say, the AMC, where you have to negotiate a stinky food court full of teens made listless by food additives on your way into the theatre, it doesn't reek of old popcorn and frying oil. There are no loud trailers with sounds of car chases and gunshots playing on an endless screaming loop in the lobby. So far, the theatres are pristine and pleasantly ventilated with comfortable seats. They don't vex you with ads or hours of trailers before the feature presentation. And the crowd tends toward the types who frequented rep houses back when there were such a thing, so the people-watching for the alternative eyeglasses alone is entertaining.
It's all so cool it feels like a trip to somewhere like Amsterdam, until you remember you're in downtown Toronto.At the foot of the escalators in the lobby there is a real Oscar on a pedestal in a glass case. It was awarded to the great Denys Arcand for The Barbarian Invasions, a film that reminded us that popular entertainment and art aren't mutually exclusive. Thanks to everyone behind the TIFF Bell Lightbox, movie-going itself has been elevated to an art form. Which, at least in my book, is Oscarworthy.