All the Stupid Things I Did At The Toronto International Film Festival, A Roundup

I have returned from Toronto with an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, as if my body is trying to tell me, "Some of the things you do may not be a good idea anymore. Or never were, really." Ah, what's the difference, it was still fun. Though, as I explained in my TIFF preview, I have a tendency to get myself into stupid situations. So I thought it might be fun to go through all the stupid situations I got myself into while I was in Toronto. A roundup of high jinks, if you will.

Though, before we get to that: I read this piece about how three brothers built an "AI empire" that steals other people's work and gets just an insane amount of traffic. This includes "realistic"¹ sounding bylines for writers like Jordan Cooper who do not exist. This made me depressed. Anytime I think "Hey, I think this newsletter is doing okay, and I really enjoy doing it," I read something like that and it feels hopeless. How can any human possibly compete with that?

This is when I will thank you again for being a subscriber to The Hard Pass and reiterate that I am doing my best over here as a one-person operation and, I hope you can tell by the typos, at least you know there is no AI writing this. I mean, could AI embarrass itself in front of Courteney Cox? (We'll get to that.) But I can only continue to do this with paid subscribers. This newsletter is time-consuming, and that's the advantage AI has over me. For it, it takes no time. And without paid subscribers, I will need to do something else and we'll all be left reading fake writers like Jordan Cooper.

¹The bio for fake writer Jordan Cooper reads, "Staff Writer Jordan Cooper is a pop-culture writer and vegan-snack reviewer with roots in music blogging. Known for approachable, insightful prose, Jordan connects modern trends-from K-pop choreography to kombucha fermentation-with thoughtful food commentary. In his downtime, he enjoys photography, experimenting with
fermentation recipes, and discovering new indie music playlists." I think this bio annoys me more than anything else about this. I get that AI would think this sounds realistic, but the truth is most writers have to write their own bios. And the thought of any writer I know personally describing themselves as having "thoughtful prose" is pretty funny. Though, even this fake person's "downtime" hobbies make me feel bad. Mine would read, "In his downtime, he enjoys sitting at his local bar while he tries to forget the world exists."

Okay! Now back to the roundup of all the stupid situations I got myself into while I was in Toronto. These stories involve Courteney Cox, Jesse Eisenberg, Alden Ehrenreich and, somehow, a producer of the movie Hitman: Agent 47. Some of these are kind of embarrassing, so I can only do this for paid subscribers. There is no way on earth I am going to release these to "the world."

Also, I have a bonus offer. For the next paid subscriber, I will send you a code for Spider-Man 2 for PS5. I was sent this code, but I already own the game. I only have one, so it will go to the first person who subscribes then emails me at mike@thehardpass.net.

(The Hard Pass only exists because of paying subscribers and I do need to have posts just for them. If you decide to become a paying subscriber today, there is plenty left to this post — it‘s over 2200 words — plus a lot more like the story I was told about Tom Cruise that is now my favorite Tom Cruise story, risking embarrassment by approaching Philip Seymour Hoffman to ask him about Along Came Polly, and the time Larry King called me a "freak" and asked if I was "a nerd.")