Richard Crouse

With the End of Festival bash at Fiamo just hours away, here’s a quick review of notes and quotes from the 2010 edition.

One big surprise was that despite battling a nasty cold last Tuesday, Kris Kristofferson stuck around the Empire Capitol 6 after his interview with CTV film critic Richard Crouse and a Q&A long enough to watch Lone Star.

The actor and singer-songwriter got such an enthusiastic reaction he couldn’t even take a pee in peace, as noticed when some overzealous fans followed him into the washroom.

“I’ll probably still be telling the truth as much as I can when they throw dirt on me,” Kristofferson said before bidding farewell.

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Actor and comedian Mary Walsh of This Hour Has 22 Minutes fame was a barrel of laughs during her brief stay.

“At least four Canadians will see it now,” she quipped after noting her film Crackie made TIFF’s Top 10 Canadian films list.

The dynamic Newfoundlander, who plays a troubled teenage girl’s brash, potty-mouthed grandma in Sherry White’s gritty east coast drama, cheerfully lambasted attitudes toward homegrown fare.

“It’s Canadian? Nope, not going to see it. Forget about it,” she said, joking maybe they should have made Crackie in 3-D.

“I just think any Canadian film is a hard sell. You name me a film — whether it’s depressing, middle-of-the-road or funny — that

is not a hard sell,” she said.

Walsh revealed she’s developing a talk show in which she’d team with different guests weighing in on the news of the week — “Naomi Klein and a bunch of left-wing women one week, and Ann Coulter and a bunch of right-wing women the next.”

Tentatively titled Broad Appeal, it would be “something like The View but with a singular kind of view per show.”

She’s also playing Siouxee Power, an “aging punk person” from The Rock who wins the lottery and moves to Toronto’s tony Rosedale neighbourhood in Rise Up, a half-hour Global comedy series in development.

“I skateboard in it,” said Walsh, who in Crackie also got back on a bicycle for the first time since she was 18.

And, yes, she’d love to confront Sarah Palin again, as she did last year in Ohio when, as This Hour’s Marg Delahunty, she buttonholed the former Alaska governor and got dumb answers to her health care questions. The clip went viral.

Noted Walsh gleefully: “She’s never going to go away.”

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Does being compared to Jim Carrey because of the hyper-zaniness of Matt Frewer’s Max Headroom character bother him?

The Victoria-raised actor featured in Uwe Boll’s Darfur says the comparisons are more flattering than frustrating.

“Jim acknowledged in a GQ article that he based everything he does on an actor named Matt Frewer,” he says. “It was kind of surreal reading that. His background is in standup and mine is as an actor, and I’ve always looked on that kind of physical comedy as just another string in my bow.”

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QUOTE, UNQUOTE: Memorable quotes from this year’s festival….

“It never felt like Ranger School when I was in the bathtub with her” — Kristofferson, reacting to Internet reports claiming he once described working with Barbra Streisand on A Star Is Born as an ordeal akin to going to Ranger School.

“The NFB is a real wonderful thing about this country, that it’s got a body like that that supports a director-driven, often very risk-taking kind of filmmaking” — Oscar-winning animator Chris Landreth.

“Film festival people in Victoria are very festive — despite Campbell cuts” — actress Madeleine Sherwood (Sweet Bird of Youth, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.)

“I’m just really happy Pagliacci’s is still here”

— critic Richard Crouse, on the joys of returning to Victoria after 25 years.

“Super-what?” — filmmaker Scott Amos on how he feels about Super Bowl Sunday conflicting with the festival.

RUSHES: Things we learned at this year’s fest… Producer Rob Merilees is teaming with director Bruce McDonald on Hardcore Logo 2 … We have B.J. Cook to thank for getting Kristofferson here this year. The local singer-songwriter met him on the set of Heaven’s Gate through mutual friend Ronnie Hawkins 30 years ago. And that was no ordinary baby being wheeled around town in a pink baby carriage during Converge yesterday. It was a doll with an iTouch playing short films mounted on her tummy … The audience at Friday night’s documentary on Trimpin, the inventor and sound artist whose creations include Seattle’s Experience Music Project’s tower of guitars, really got into the spirit of sound creation. Acting on a patron’s suggestion, they ripped their Audience Favourite award ballots in unison, to the delight of the endearing instrument-maker.