I have decided, after careful deliberation, that I will be taking my yearly trip to Toronto after all.

Celebrities, food, sights, used soundtracks. If experiencing all that means having to suffer a bunch of dumb-ass border patrol campus cops, so be it.

June and Toronto don't mix.

As I mentioned in passing, back in 2017, I had heard about a Mac & Cheese festival up in Toronto. Having no acumen for planning a day in another country and no real desire beyond, 'I want to try different kinds of mac & cheese', I drove all the way up there on the first Friday in June. I soon found myself lost as I had no way of knowing how to get to the festival - much less around the city - and the Internet on my phone was very unreliable. Besides seeing Wonder Woman in a theater and getting a bit of Internet at my brief stop at Tim Hortons, the day was an unholy wash and when I finally returned home at 10 o’clock, I had quite a bit to answer for given that I had told my parents I was doing an inventory job, something I'm now convinced they saw right through.

Thursday made that day look like Christmas morning at the Playboy Mansion.

It all started a few weeks ago when I was looking at showtimes on TIFF Bell Lightbox's website. Of course, I was planning for my annual Fan Expo Canada excursion and I thought, 'hey, maybe the screenings for late August are available the first week of June!'. Of course, they were not. Same for Revue Cinema. I'm eager and impatient. Neither are illegal...yet. That’s when I saw Robot Dreams on the schedule for one week: June 7th to the 13th.

I needed to request off for the 13th, but I needed approval from my supervisor (who had taken time off because of a death in her family) and the manager. I decided to wait until she got back on the 10th to make the request. 

As the day drew closer, I had to make preparations. Had to get some Canadian money to recharge my transit card. The machines don’t take credit cards (at least, I’m pretty sure they didn’t). Needed to buy the movie ticket online, too. The show could be sold out by the time I get there in person.

However, there was still a minor glitch: Wednesday had come around and the request for the day off still not been approved. I sent an email to the manager frantically trying to get this settled as he himself was going on vacation the 13th. (There was also a wrong punch I’d made for lunch on Monday that I needed to get taken care of that, for whatever reason, wasn’t being handled. Not at all relevant to the story, but just another example of the masturbatory efforts people will go to to ignore my existence.)

In a panic, I contacted my supervisor at three in the morning in a text. She gets back to me at seven, telling me not to worry. I wasn’t about to share this information with my mother. She’d just worry.

It was a perfect plan: throw on the previous day's work clothes, make it look like I was working from home while I was making the final preparations and steal away during her slumber. Maps and a raincoat (that day’s Toronto forecast called for rain) were a must.

At 9:00, to kill time, I headed to a Target/Office Depot/Marshall's plaza near the mall to watch the 1942 comedy My Sister Eileen as part of my 100 years, 100 movies Columbia Pictures project. As if the heat wasn’t bad enough, the movie turned out to be a major disappointment. I’ll elaborate in my ‘Worst movies I saw in 2024’ post, but this is a strong example of how not every movie older than my parents is an automatic masterpiece.

The early part of the trip wasn’t all bad. In addition to the air conditioning afforded me by the mall, I stopped into Lids to pick up a baseball cap. Wanting not to spend too much, I grab a tie-in cap from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I still maintain it was a damn good movie for what Ryan Coogler had to deal with.

Initially, I had planned to head downtown and grab a bite from one of the many food trucks. That’s when the first major hurdle of the day tripped me up: parking downtown (at least, when you don’t have money or time to waste on paid parking) is a fucking nightmare. I, somehow, managed to locate a space, but it was several blocks away from the food trucks. Let’s say I get from point A to point B and back. I need to be at the station by a certain time and this wasn’t going to accomplish that. Fine! I pull off. There’s a Wendy’s nearby. In spite of the line, I should be satisfied with this. A $5 Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger Biggie Bag is better than nothing.

12:00 was quickly approaching and I was hungry. May as well scarf this down on the way to the border. As ever, the line was long, dull and very hot. This last point was mitigated by a nearby fountain. The spraying water was a literal balm, but after a while, it proved to be too much of a good thing, so up goes the window. I finally get to the window and we do the whole, ‘Why are you going to Canada?’ dance. “Sightseeing.”, I murmur. I get to the next window and pay my $10.75 (!!) toll into Canada. That should be the end of the day’s hassles, right? Right? Not so fast.

I am instructed to pull my car to the side to be inspected. I end up in spot number 13. Of fucking course, I do. I have to stand idly by and watch them rifle through my car, ostensibly in the name of (inter)national security, but you can’t help but keep the idea of ‘getting their jollies by putting the fear of God in a person of color’ in your back pocket. (And even though I knew I was innocent - and I was allowed to pass through, but I’m sure deep down they knew, too, the worthless tossers - I couldn’t help but think of the scene in Casino when the airport security guys were rifling through Nicky’s wife’s luggage and she browbeats them for messing up her belongings and Nicky can only remark, “Don’t look at me, pal. I gotta live with her.”)

I hurry like hell down the QEW to get to the GOTransit station, but not too fast. They already had an eye on me and to hell with indulging them further. Unfortunately, one of the lanes is closed due to construction, leaving only a single one open. The truck in front of me is lugging a flatbed trailer. One of its tires bumps a plastic drum, the centrifugal force sending it flying. The sliced-up tire base weighing it down zooms across the lane, but not fast enough to avoid without incident. Can’t switch lanes, shoulder’s not wide enough to pull over (moot point; I still need to get to the station, remember?), and there’s a fuck-ton of vehicles on my ass. Ah, can’t you see what I mean? Might as well ju—

CRUNCH!

As best as I can with so many factors against me, I try the ‘fiddle with my phone’s cellular data in the settings app’ technique for all I’m worth. I, somehow, manage to get internet on my phone (thank you, Rogers!), but it's a little patchy. The maps app cannot be opened fast enough. My bus leaves at 1:09. It is now 1:06. ACACSMF.

I make it to the train station. I see across the street that a bus is departing. That couldn't be mine, could it?

I ask around, vaguely hoping that there’s a vehicle on its way to the New York City of the North. I head across the street to check out the schedule. It should look like this:

It does not.

I walk back to my car. I strap on the seatbelt. I am so angry and so exhausted. Just driving to Toronto is not on the table at this point. Mental and emotional exhaustion aside, parking on the streets of Toronto is impossible (why do you think I've come to lean so hard on GOTransit?!). Let's say I get my ass in my car and take the journey up there. Then, by some miracle, I find a parking space. It's 4:30 bordering on quarter to five. No way they're letting me in the theater now. It's the Friday night "Kids in the Hall" panel at 2022's Fan Expo all fucking over again!

Wanting to scream, cry or break shit, but unable to deal with the consequences and attention such actions would garner, I make a decision right then and there: Screw you, guys. I’m going home. However, as I am unwilling to risk further exposure to the Keystone Cops that cost me my dream day, I decided to take a back door back into America. On the way to the train station, I noticed signage for 'The Falls to the USA'. It takes me a while to get out of my parking space. Given all the people walking behind my car, I wonder aloud if there’s a clown car nearby, then I realize that there’s a train just arrived at the station. I’m finally able to make my way to the Rainbow Bridge.

Thankfully, the process of returning to America is much less complicated here. The traffic is so slow, tourists to the Falls are moving faster. It occurs to me in hindsight that I could’ve finished My Sister Eileen in this time, but it plus the punishing heat could’ve only increased my misery. Finally, after 35 minutes, I get to the stand and declare my citizenship for the guard. He lets me through and I am home again. Feeling a) hungry and b) that the run-in may have done some damage, I need to make a stop. The internet on my phone being whole once again, I set a path for the Fashion Outlet Mall.

As I stop in the parking lot, I see the damage. Now, the left side of the front bumper was cracked when I first got the car, but the accident has only made the gap even more pronounced. The car isn’t the prettiest girl at the dance, but she can still cut a rug.

I want to get it fixed, but the money is not there and is likely to never be unless my secondary endeavor that I’ve been training on and off for the last month pays off…and even then, there are a lot of moving parts. I may have to find another solution, one that’s not as short-term.

Having a craving for something sweet, I grab a smoothie from a vendor inside and zoom over to DiCamilo Bakery for cupcakes. I wasn’t expecting them to be the fancy versions of the Hostess ones, so they were a little messier than I expected. I finally made the long drive back, not even putting up with the pretense of music. I just wanted this fucking day to be over.

I take some solace in the fact that Robot Dreams will be playing in my hometown next month. Not enough, but some. In fact, I think I may need a few weeks of mental decompression to build up any energy and desire to make my annual trek to Fan Expo at the end of August. I’d like to go, but not if it means dealing with this bullshit again.

Worst movies hub.

The last two years, I've been posting about the worst movies I saw in those years. Then, one day, it dawns on me that I've had a Letterboxd account for longer than that and - with rare exceptions - I never got around to talking about the worst movies I saw from years ago. I figure that now's as good a time as any to regale you with my lists of the worst movies I've seen each year as far back as 2014.

There are some movies I've ranked as low as these and sometimes lower, but thinking back, they didn't piss me off anywhere close to as much as these have.

2021
Deadly Games
Gas
The Incubus
I Saw What You Did (1965)
Joysticks
Lady in a Cage
Monkeybone
Scissors
Seven Chances
Under the Rainbow

2020
The Cassandra Crossing
Cuties
Distant Justice
Galaxy of Terror
Ingrid Goes West
The Kings of Summer
The Prowler
Scream for Help
The 6th Day
The Way of the Gun

2019
Behaving Badly
Blackboard Jungle
Bringing Up Baby
Don't Make Waves
Dreamcatcher
Duplex
The Graduate
Never Goin' Back
Revenge of the Green Dragons
Village of the Giants

2018
Amityville: the Evil Escapes
Are We There Yet?
The Blob (1958)
Gotti
The Illustrated Man
King of Comedy
My Father, the Hero
Skyscraper (1995)
Tales from the Hood 2
The Wrong Guy

2017
Barracuda
Blue Monkey
Double Dragon
Fire Sale
Ghost Fever
A Holiday Heist
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Son of Hercules vs. Medusa
13 Ghosts
Trapped (1982)

2016
Born American
The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (1973)
The Cobbler
Evilspeak
The Golden Child
Island of Terror
The Night Walker
The Supernaturals
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
Without Warning

2015
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
Another Stakeout
Burying the Ex
Curucu, Beast of the Amazon
Fantastic Four (2015)
The Hole (2009)
Mr. Boogedy/Bride of Boogedy
Revenge of the Creature
This House Possessed
What's Up, Doc?

2014
Dumb and Dumber To
I, Frankenstein
The Monster and the Girl
The Legend of Hercules
Night of the Demons 2
Pompeii
Rio 2
Sex Tape
They Came Together
Winter's Tale