As TIFF continues on, I have been at the receiving end of a few invitations to post-film parties. It both tickles me and annoys me that I couldn’t get tickets to any of the films I wanted to see, but I can still gain access to these VIP parties.

Last night the big shindig was a party for Uma Thurman at Brassaii. I was like, Uma Thurman party? Count me in. I have been starstruck by her since I saw her sporting those ridiculous prosthetic thumbs in the horrible Hollywood adaptation of Even Cowgirls get the Blues.

Mikey was like, “Show up at around 9, before the crowd sets in, we’ll take some photos on the red carpet, and we’ll go in. Done!”

So Michelle and I proceeded to get ourselves dolled up for Uma and for Brassaii. I had not yet been to this club, but had been assured that it was “the place to be” by a number of higher-ups at the radio station. In fact, earlier this summer I recall one of my coworkers making a sidelong remark to another coworker that this club was not really the kind of place where one of the butchier dykes at the station would fit in. I believe the exact words were, “Brassaii isn’t exactly a [Butchdyke] kind of place,” followed by some derisive laughter.

As something of a butch myself, I thus felt both vindicated and maliciously pleased when Mike very plainly and publicly offered to me and me alone his invitation to this TIFF party, right in front of the very person who had made that remark. Take that, exclusionist! Fine, I was feeling a bit exclusive myself, but at least I based my elitism on not being a snob, rather than fitting into some heteronormative ideal of beauty. *ahem*

Anyway, so as we were leaving the house, I got an urgent text from Mikey: “Babe, meet me at the corner of King and Spadina and I will let you in. Security’s being a bitch.”

So we went to King and Spadina and met up with Mikey, who was looking very fetching in his black-on-black, if a bit stressed out. He led us not to the front door of Brassaii, as I would have expected, but along Spadina to an alley behind the King Street businesses. As he strode along, seemingly effortlessly picking past the stashes of garbage strewn throughout the alley, he explained that Uma’s publicist was something of a…handful, let’s say. She was throwing Hollywood agents out of their own party, and security was instructed not to let anyone in, even those who had been invited to the event. It was a bit out of hand. He would explain more later, but for the time being, he parked us outside the fence separating the alley from the Brassaii patio.

There we crouched quietly in our fancy pants and suit jackets until Mikey appeared on the opposite side of the fence to let us in through a discreet gate that led in behind the patio bar. We just sneaked into a TIFF party through a back alley. Good times.

I soon learned why Mikey had been so stressed. Uma Thurman’s party was inside the restaurant portion of the building, closed off by a sheer white curtain from the irritated milieu of media folk who had been invited to the event only to be kept outside of it. Apparently nobody is permitted to see Uma eat. The patio was full of disgruntled agents, screenwriters and assorted media personnel in dark blue jeans with black turtlenecks and blazers. One agent complained that she had been thrown out of her own party by Uma Thurman’s publicist.

Apparently the publicist had also called Brassaii about a half an hour in advance of their arrival to demand Mexican food for her charge, although there is no Mexican food on Brassaii’s menu. The publicist, however, was adamant—Uma Thurman, it turns out, is on a Mexican-only diet. That’s a new one for me. I do appreciate a good burrito, though. There’s a Z-Teca down the street, if you want. I am pretty sure Brassaii ordered the food in from somewhere else, though.

The bar had been bought out for the entire week by a certain online social media company, which had hired camera people to film the events for its website. Those camera people were also ousted from the goings on inside the place, even when invited to shoot by guests at the party. This seemed an especially unfortunate choice, because the film hasn’t been picked up yet and doesn’t even have a trailer. In fact, of all of the people I met at this party, nobody even knew the exact title of the film—so one might think that a little bit of publicity on one of the most pervasive social media networks would be welcomed. But…no.

On the glamorous side of things, there were certainly quite a few notable names about. I saw Jason Reitman grabbing some air and texting on the patio. The ousted agent chatted him up for some time, possibly in hopes of regaining access to her party.

Henry Winkler, whose son directed the film, was also there, and let me tell you, the Fonze is no diva. In fact, he was inviting people to take photos with him while he waited for his son to get his coat. Security, of course, nixed the photos, so I didn’t get to pose with him. The best I can offer is this:

‘Eeeeeeyyyyyy. Total highlight of the night. Well, that and the open bar.

Finally, there was a buzz among the media milieu. “She’s coming! Here she comes!” And so, feigning our best Toronto ennui, we banished partygoers sipped at our gins-and-tonics and cut our eyes as though only mildly interested at the Hollywood royalty passing us: Uma Thurman gliding by, escorted by that notorious publicist and an entourage of agents, security burlies, and assistants, with the flash of a pink scarf and that face that stops you and makes you think that the five seconds that it took for her to traverse the length of the patio lasted at least five minutes. She’s just so very, very pretty. It kinda makes the diva antics of an over-protective publicist worth the trouble.

Not enough trouble for me to repeat the process for the Keanu Reeves party tonight, though. I had my TIFF experience, and I think I’ll sit the next one out.