By Anne Joyce

Urban Planner is Torontoist’s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to events@torontoist.com.

Coach Lovelace with her team in the locker room during halftime (from A Woman Among Boys: A Brooklyn Basketball Story). Photo courtesy of Downtown Community Television Center.

FILM: For a second year, the Canadian Sport Film Festival hopes to reach sports fans and film buffs alike with a motley collection of stories about the power of sport to enrich lives and inspire hope and courage. The festival opens with A Woman Among Boys: A Brooklyn Basketball Story, a full-length documentary profiling fearless leader Ruth Lovelace (or “Coach Love”), the only woman coaching boys’ high school basketball in Brooklyn, New York. In keeping with the theme, the film will be screened alongside the trailer for First Ink, about Toronto’s own Chris Bosh. Other highlights this year include Pink Paddlers, the story of a group of dragon boat–racing breast cancer survivors in Singapore, and the Canadian premiere of More Than Just a Game, about a soccer league started by political prisoners in apartheid-era South Africa. A Woman Among Boys screens tonight at 7 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre; various other showtimes and venues for the rest of the festival; $10 per screening, $8 for students (at the door), $40 for full festival pass.
MUSIC: In 2007, Swedish electro act The Knife decided to take a break after a few wildly succesful years (Silent Shout was named best album of 2006 by indie know-it-alls Pitchfork) and a handful of amazing live performances. During this hiatus, the sister half of the duo, Karin, continued to write. Eight months later, she had a batch of new songs ready for production, and Fever Ray was born. While constructed on the same dark, electronic foundation as The Knife, Fever Ray’s music is less invasive in its power and has a starker, moodier feel. Anyone moved by the magic conjured by the duo is sure to fall under Karin’s solo spell. Koolhaus (1 Lower Jarvis Street), doors at 8 p.m., $34 in advance (tickets available at Rotate This, Soundscapes, Play de Record, and Slinky Music).
COMEDY: (Dare we say) one of the greatest comics of all time, David Cross, is in Toronto for two stand-up shows tonight. Probably best known as gymnophobic Blue Man Group-ie Tobias Fünke from the prematurely cancelled Arrested Development, Cross is no stranger to strange. He began his television career on the Ben Stiller Show, where he met Bob Odenkirk, with whom he formed (dare we say) the funniest sketch-comedy show ever, Mr. Show, which lived out its insanity for four seasons. If you’re not familiar with Cross’s stand up—a hilarious blend of leftist political commentary and satire—you won’t be disappointed. This guy is really, really funny. 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Queen Elizabeth Theatre (190 Princes Boulevard), approximately $50 (tickets available at Ticketmaster, or try your luck on Craigslist).
RADIO: And for those who feel like staying in to rest up for Nuit Blanche, you can catch legendary musician, songwriter, and actor Tom Waits as Jian Gomeshi’s guest on CBC Radio’s Q. Waits plays the devil in Terry Gilliam’s fantastical The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Heath Ledger’s last film), showing this weekend at the Vancouver Film Festival. With Waits’s easy-on-the-ear velvety drawl and knack for storytelling, the interview should be entertaining at the very least. Stars chanteuse Amy Millan also joins the show tonight, playing from and talking about her sophomore solo disc, Masters of the Burial. CBC Radio One, 10 a.m. & 10 p.m., FREE.