     Now that 2011 has expired, it is time to look back at the year that was. I didnt travel too much this year, but that was ok, as elite names were roaming the streets of Vancouver throughout the year... now only if I had ran into some of them. 20 - Ellen Degeneres I managed to get the talk show icon twice on her trip to Vancouver, including the 1st autograph I got in which I had to run 4 blocks to get after being given up to the second info on where she was. Few if any autographs I got this year took more energy out of me than that 1st 1 I got from her. Next day, she signed again and was happy to do it. 19 - Axl Rose For a long time, I had heard nothing but horror stories about the lead singer for Guns N Roses. So I was not eager to go for him. However, this past time thru Vancouver, not only did the band actually play the show they came here to play, but Axl was even a willing signer. Pretty much anyone that went for him here got him. 18 - Simon Pegg While here for Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, Mr. Pegg was the most often seen of the films stars. Whether it was at the airport, his hotel or the movie theatre, the Hot Fuzz star signed whatever was asked more often than not. 17 - Henry Cavill The new Superman has been very good here so far. Although he is strict about limiting his autograph to 1 per person each time you see him, he has still been terrific in the interactions people have had with him. 16 - Cast of Sanctuary Never had a bad experience with this cast, this year was no different. Whether it was at the Leo Awards, the airport or a charity event, each member of the cast was exceptional.      15 - Cast of The Secret Circle This cast could have made the top 10, if it werent for 1 exceptionally bitter & sour life hating senior cast member of the show. That exception aside...the rest of the cast has been terrific with us. 14- Matt Barr & Aly Michalka I miss Hellcats. Not just because of the campy cheerleader drama storylines. But because 2 of the nicer celebs we have had in Vancouver in a long time left when the show did. While some other cast members were a lot less thrilled to interact with fans during the shows 1 year run, Matt & Aly were as accomodating & friendly as you can expect. Class acts. 13- Cast Of Supernatural Much like Ms. Torv from Fringe, the cast of Supernatural, whether its Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Misha Collins, Jim Beaver or the recurring characters of the show have been quite good to us Vancouverites when we run into them. Long as the regulars respect the no asking them on set policy, they are more than receptive to signing and chatting with us away from set when we see them. 12 - Leo Awards This years award ceremony for BC film industry was not as spectacular as past ones I had hounded. Much of that was because of an unexpected change of venue & the loss of 1 or 2 shows since last year. Still, a list of names came out that made the effort worthwhile. 11 - Amy Adams I had heard that Ms. Adams was a very willing signer, but till I saw it for myself, I didnt understand just how good she was. She willingly signed for everyone till there was nothing left out there to sign. She did it too with a smile. Wish all movie stars could have that level of appreciation.      10 - Booboo Stewart, Myanna Buring, Julia Jones, Guri Weinberg This past year, the final installment of the Twilight Saga series, Breaking Dawn 1 & 2 was filmed here. In the years prior, some of the bigger names in the film were at times, pretty decent signers. This year however, there was VERY FEW great interactions with the cast. The names above were the very few I can say were outstanding. Considering how massive the cast was, its sad you can count the great experiences on 1 hand. Not to say ALL the others were terrible, but that they didnt neccesarily stand out as great. 9- Cast Of Fringe The cast of the hit FOX show Fringe is generally friendly (the occasional grumpy Mr. Noble encounter not withstanding) the true star from a fan interaction aspect is usually Anna Torv in past years. Despite seeing the regulars probably 100+ times combined over the shows run here, she still willingly signs for us, even at the absurd time of 5:30 AM. This season, Seth Gabel became a regular and skyrocketed up along side his Fringe co-star for terrific interactions. Joshua Jackson, Jasika Nicole & others are terrific as well. 8 - John Schneider Although from an excitement standpoint, getting Mr. Schneider wasnt overly high for me (I was a Dukes of Hazzard fan..but not a massive fan), it was how wonderfully personable he was each & every time that won me over. My 1st interaction with him was 1 of the rare "I wasnt expecting that" situations where we were at the airport for persons unrelated, and saw a sign for him there. Knowing he was coming in for an episode eventually, we waited to see if it was him, it was. He happily signed then. Seeing him 2 more times after, he was just as gracious each time after, even at the Smallville wrap party, where some of the bigger stars were nothing short of rude, Mr. Schneider was 1 of the ones that made the fans waiting out there happy. 7 - Cast Of Once Upon A Time Usually when new TV shows roll into town, odds are someone on the cast thinks more of themselves than they actually are. Not so with the cast of the new ABC fantasy drama Once Upon A Time. Each & every cast member I have met has been terrific with interacting with the fans & the pros. It was the overall attitude of this cast that made me hope for it to do well...I'm glad it is succeeding, this cast deserves it. 6- Sharlto Copley The District 9 star is simply, awesome. How awesome is he with fans? After a flight that was the better part of a day, he stopped, chatted with fans at the airport, did photos with, and even cracked a few jokes. So awesome he did an autograph session for a local African import store "African Breese Imports" just because they asked...and at the autograph session, he had no qualms signing stacks for fans, collectors or dealers alike. One guy plopped down 30 or so photos, Sharlto went thru the entire stack, not once groaning about doing it and thanked the guy for coming afterwards.      5- Callum Blue
Being a huge Dead Like Me fan, I still get a bit excited when I meet any of the cast. This past year, I had a 4th (or 5th?) chance to meet Callum Blue. He was in town reprising his Smallville role as Zod. What made this meeting stand out more than others prior though was how it went down. I first learned he was going to be coming back..I then contacted him thru a site I knew he was a member of that I too was a member of. He replied back with when he was coming. I then tried, several times, but without success, to cross paths with him naturally. So I gave him another message & he told me what day he would be off. So I tried that day, called his room & he answered & came right down. In the pouring rain, he stood, signed, and chatted with my friend & I for several minutes. 4- Chloe Moretz At 2010 TIFF I had Ms. Moretz high on my list of people to get...but she cancelled. This year however, Hit Girl was there, and made up for the year long wait. One of the best signers at TIFF. Even with volunteers telling her she had to go, she still kept signing. 3- TIFF - The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival Individually, several of the events from Tiff could make this list, and a couple I did list individually. But for the mostpart, the entire event of the Toronto International Film Festival falls under 1 event for me. So thus, why it is going here. This years fest was certainly my most successful from a star power aspect, and total wise, it was close to my best. Stars like George Clooney, Megan Fox, Madonna, Nicolas Cage & Ryan Gosling made the event quite successful for me. It was the newer names I wasnt as faimiliar with before going that made some of the more cool moments though, like Chris Pratt, Ezra Miller, Dominic Monaghan and Sarah Bolger who all made me fans of them with the way they handled their attention. 2 - Tom Cruise While I did get a disappointingly low total of 2 autographs from someone I was told "signs everything", a lot of that wasnt any fault of his or really mine either. It was just dumb luck. Still, I managed to get 2 from him, which was still 2 more than most hounds in Vancouver got from him. The 1 and only night outside the trade & convention center unfortunately turned out to be the 1 and only chance Vancouverites got to get the Mission Impossible star. He made the waiting worth it though, as Mr. Cruise strolled over to a crowd of 20-30 people (which swelled to 75-100 when extras & crew came over too) around midnight & did a 20-30 minute meet & greet with fans, taking photos & signing autographs. Each interaction he made feel special, he asked fans to make sure their photos turned out and even acknowledged autograph requests with a level of respect, and not just a "ugh, fine" mentality to it. 1- Madonna No disrespect to Mr. Cruise, but at the end of the day, a rare, hard to obtain signature is a bigger deal on average than a classy, easier to obtain star. Anytime you get someone of Madonna's level of fame, its probably going to make your best list. The Material Girl has been known for quite awhile as, at best, an unwilling signer. However, when you are promoting a movie you directed & has been panned by many critics, you are on your best behaviour. That is what fans in Toronto got when the pop icon was there to promote W.E. this past Summer for TIFF. Madonna signed probably 75-100 autographs on the red carpet, and signed at dinner a bit later after her event as well. Some honorable mentions should go out to the likes of Patrick Gilmore, Rose McGowan, Daniel & Henrik Sedin, Ben Cotton & Lyndsy Fonseca. So, that concludes 2011. Some amazing successes for me. Granted, there was some downright failures as well. I somehow never got Matt Damon despite him being here for 2-3 months. All my Saoirse Ronan autographs were ruined by an ugly fading silver sharpie. I missed Robert DeNiro AGAIN by mere inches, and same with Brad Pitt this time. Who will grace the list at the end of 2012? Going into 2011, there wasnt a lot of "sure things" I could see making the list. To be honest, most of the list is a complete surprise, simply because I didnt know going into 2011 these people would cross my paths.
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Below are some pics of the men who attended TIFF 2011. Pics below of Shawn Ashmore, Antonio Banderas with Melanie griffith, Jay Baruchel, Nicolas Cage, George Clooney (bad pic), Kim Coates, Paddy Considine, Chris Cornell, Hugh Dancy, James Gandolfini, Ryan Gosling, Marc-Andre Grondin, Justin Long, Diego Luna, Ezra Miller, Dominic Monaghan, cast of The Moth Diaries (Scott Speedman), Chris Pratt with Anna Faris, Eddie Redmayne, Johnny Rotten, Salman Rushdie, Joel Schumacher, Adam Scott, Seann William Scott, Keifer Sutherland, Channing Tatum, Johnny To and Nat Wolff.                                   Below is a bunch of pics of some of the actresses that attended TIFF 2011. Below are pics of some of those in attendance. Melanie Griffith (with Antonio Banderas), Melanie & Antonio again, Juliette Binoche, Selma Blair, Alexis Bledel, Sarah Bolger, Kim Cattrall, Jessica Chastain, Lily Cole, Abbie Cornish, Abbie Cornish again, Anna Faris with Chris Pratt, Anna Faris, Megan Fox, Megan Fox again, Satrah Gadon, Rebecca Hall, Arielle Kebbel, Arielle Kebell again, Stacy Keibler, Madonna, Chloe Moretz, cast of The Moth Diaries, Allison Pill, Saoirse Ronan, Yvonne Strahovski, Mia Wasikowska, Shailene Woodley                              For me, the final day of TIFF was day 9. There was 1 more premiere on the 10th day, but I opted to not do it & called the 2011 version of the Toronto International Film Festical a wrap after day 9.
Maybe if day 9 had been better I would have been more motivated to try day 10, but it wasnt good. It started with a red carpet for a film with rebecca Hall. The crowd was the thinnest I had seen during TIFF for Roy Thompson Hall. Maybe 150 people tops endured the cooling weather. Rebecca came out and signed sparingly. I managed 1 of the maybe 10-15 autographs the actress handed out. It certainly didnt win over too many fans. A lot of moaning and booing happened, and again, I was left wondering...do these entertainers WANT people to see their films or not? All it would take is 2-3 more mins of fan interraction and she would have made 75% of the fans happy, instead of the 10-25% she actually did. For the sake of 2 minutes, Rebecca could have won over a few more fans, instead of alienating some. I spent some time hanging out with some other hounds, and went with them for the band Wilco. IO saw a couple members of the group, but we never saw the ones they were waiting for...they had gone earlier and got 4 of the 6 members, and were only waiting for 2. While waiting for them, we stumbled across an actor going into the back of the Elgin theatre for a Q&A session. It was Paddy Considine. Only the 1 European hound in the car knew who he was, and had a bunch for the BAFTA award winning actor. I helped him when he got out, and Paddy was terrific. Signed whatever was asked, and chatted with those who wanted to chat with him. That is someone who understands the value of good PR. A little later I went back to RTH for the final premiere of MY fest. It was for Winnie, featuring Jennifer Hudson, Elias Koteas and Terrance Hwoard... unfortunately, the only 1 to show up of the 3 was Howard. I got 2 autographs from him, and that was, the end of my film fest. GRADES A+ Paddy Considine B+ Terrance Howard D+ Rebecca Hall TOTAL autographs today 6 TOTAL autographs for all of TIFF 89 Day 8 started disappointingly slow. I left the house hoping to find Hanna star Saoirse Ronan at a press conference, instead got Dominic Monaghan and Shawn Ashmore coming by...neither of whom I had stuff for.
Eventually I made my way around town and ended up at the Elgin for the premiere of Violet & Daisy. There was an unusually large crowd for such a small premiere, this made it difficult getting much signed. First up was Ms. Ronan, and she did sign quite a bit, unfortunately it was in a dying silver sharpie. I was disappointed in it, as I wasted my best photo on the dying pen. Shortly after Alexis Bledel came in and signed a few, then James Gandolfini signed a few as well. I waited around the back of the theatre for them departing and was disappointed yet again when all 3 of them came out at the same time. Because of that, I had to abandon James & Alexis and fodus on the main star, which turned out to be tougher than I envisioned. I got another Ronan, again, in the dying crappy silver pen. From there, I hustled over to the premiere of the Maggie Gyllenhaal film Hysteria. I got 2 from Maggie there. I saw Hugh dancy out there too, but didnt have anything for him. GRADES A- Dominic Monaghan B+ Shawn Ashmore B+ Saoirse Ronan B+ Hugh Dancy B James Gandolfini B Maggie Gyllenhaal C+ Alexis Bledel TOTAL autographs 5 Day 7 was very short.
It started mid-afternoon for me doing the press conference for Trespass with Nicolas Cage. I was hoping for Liana Liberato to also show up, but she didnt come for some reason. Cage however did all he could to win over fans. Everyone at the press conference probably got at least 1, and some of us, 2 autographs from Mr. Cage. There was a few hours to kill after that, and my next autograph wasnt for several hours. I hung around at a hotel for awhile waiting for something else to happen and saw Hugh Dancy come in, and Jewel Staite leaving the hotel. Leading up to the premiere for Trespass, the weather had shifted to light showers, and it was looking glum for any action on the red carpet. I was given info on where Nicolas Cage was having dinner and tried there for him. Nic came out and signed for those of us waiting, and I managed to get my autograph and keep my photo dry, which was a small miracle considering the light drizzle. From there I went over to the TIFF Bell Lightbox to hound the only other envent of the day, Asia Argento. While waiting for her, I had the odd situation of seeing myself (as I had several times this fest) on a TIFF ad, tis time, on an elevator. Shortly after that I got an autograph from Asia, and that was the end of a very short day. A+ Nicolas Cage A Asia Argento TOTAL autographs 4 Day 6 was wrought with huge disappointments for me and others. Cancellations dominated the day as the likes of Jane Fonda, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jennifer Lawrence were all absent desite being on the original guest lists.
My day started off confirming Lawrences absence and speculating heaving that JDM was also a no-show. However, I was still hopeful he was maybe in Toronto for the premiere and just somehow wasnt at the press conference. I showed up to the premiere for Peace, Love and Misunderstandings hoping for the man who played John Winchester to be in attendance, and worst case scenario...at least I would get Jane Fonda. As it turns out, NEITHER of those situations happened, as both of them were no-shows. Instead, we were mistreated to the incredibly unfriendly Chase Crawford and shockingly unfriendly Kyle MacLachlan, who between of them signed maybe 10 autographs and spent less than a minute interacting with the fans. I dont know what company is dishing the $ out for P,L&M but I can assure you, the cancellation of the movies 2 biggest names and absolute neglect from itsw 2 second tier names likely unsold many tickets that night. The public relations team for this film must have had heart attacks when they checked the next day for fan on the street reactions and saw plenty of negatively worded responses. One of the reactions I saw in person was a gil, maybe 15ish who word for word said "fuck Chase. He NEEDS our ticket sales, we dont NEED his acting, theres lots of other guys to follow". Thisw blunt, factual and quite attentive response to being slighted by the tv actor is the type of thing that will over time hurt his star power. Hes replaceable, theres dozens of prettyboy faces out there, and some casting director is going to 1 day pick a nicer, more personable, more fan friendly 1 over him. The casting director of PL&M probably wishes they had that prior insight. I attempted the Jennfer Garner red carpet. Had Alicia Silverstone signing near me, but was unable to get close enough to the fading star to get 1 of the limited autographs she tossed out. Jennifer Garner was just as bad, even statign 9according to a source who actually has admited to having bad hearing...but her body language did convey the same message) "I dont like you" as she skipped over my item, which seemed odd for someone that had prior to that moment only seen me for a total of 20 seonds in her entire life, back in 2007. and no words or actions were exchanged in that meeting. After the shitty start to this day, I decided I better go for what SHOULD be a slam dunk. A premiere at the small Isabelle Bader Theatre. It was the only premiere the theatre had this festival that I worked, and it was...ok. I managed a couple autographs from Sarah Bolger and Scott Speedman as well as 1 from Lily Cole. Sarah Gadon was also there and signed willingly, I just had nothing for the budding star. It broke my shutout slump..even though I had hoped for at least 2 more autographs from that carpet, it was a start. I contemplated quitting the night there & cutting my losses, but instead took the short walk over to the Windsor Arms for the InStyle party. A plethora of C & D list names populated the Canadian version of this party. I was disappointed to miss Covert Affairs stars Chris Gorham and Piper Perabo, both of whom walked right by me. I managed an autograph from Anton Yelchin and 1 from Jessica Chastain, before |I opted to call it a night. A few other names went to the party. Ashley Greene of Twilight fame went there, snubbed the crowd, and got loudly booed for her disrespect. This girl will be doing TV Movies of the week within 2 yrs. She has little to no talent, and a sour attitude and the Twi-fame is about to be done...and she seems oblivious to it. The Trailer Park Boys also showed up, and greeted, signed and took pics with anyone who asked. They have always been terrific at fan interactions, this time was no different. Kim Cattrall was seen leaving the party and snubbed most requests, although she did sign 1 autograph, most of the requests for the aging star were ignored. All toll, considering how abysmal the day started, getting what I did in the end seemed like a small victory. GRADES A+ Trailer Park Boys A- Sarah Bolger A- Sarah Gadon A- Christopher Gorham B Scott Speedman B- Jessica Chastain B- Lyndsy Fonseca C+ Anton Yelchin C Lily Cole C- Alicia Silverstone C- Piper Perabo C- Kim Cattrall D+ Jennifer Garner D Ashley Greene D Chase Crawford D Kyle MacLachlan TOTAL autographs 7 |
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