It’s almost Christmas, and you know what that means: Chinatown. Well, okay, for most of you it probably means family togetherness and gifts and whatnot. But for those of us who aren’t involved in one-or-another variant of Christianity, and who don’t have a lot of family in town, what this holiday is, primarily, is a [...]

Roman Polanski: God of Carnage TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King Street West) Saturday December 17 to Sunday December 25, selected dates Upping the ante on Columbia Pictures’ claim that the forthcoming remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the “feel bad movie of Christmas,” TIFF’s programmers have readied a veritable advent calendar of [...]

In this Weekend Planner: thank the brave men and women who have fought for our country; see street-style photographs from the 1940s that look just as cool today; fantasize about looking cool on a vintage two-wheeler; take in the night market that is Chinatown; and get your car washed while you're surrounded by a mob of zombies.

Toronto’s extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city. Remember [...]

Source: The Telegram, October 23, 1971. By the 1970s, Toronto’s central Chinatown was establishing new roots west of its previous home around Dundas and Elizabeth Streets. The construction of City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square had resulted in the city expropriating much of the surrounding area during the 1950s, which led businesses and residents to [...]

Photo by Marc Lostracco/Torontoist. Many Torontonians are unaware that Chinatown East even exists, let alone that a significant landmark—almost a decade in the making—opened last week at Gerrard and Broadview. The Zhong Hua Men (“Chinese Arch”) brings a higher profile to Chinatown East, and gives the district a gateway that its famous cousin on Spadina [...]

Walking down Spadina Avenue between College and Dundas streets, you might completely miss them, so well do they blend in with the street scene. But stop by one of Chinatown’s many municipal trash bins, let your eyes wander up slightly, and you might see one, attached to a utility pole, doing its best imitation of [...]

The Rocker is not the best movie, but it’s at least good for a laugh or two. It’s got a great cast—everyone from Rain Wilson to Howard Hesseman!—and a decent high-concept premise. See, Wilson is the drummer in an up-and-coming hair metal band, but they cut him loose and become huge. Many moons later he [...]

A week after we took CityNews to task for their bottom-feeding coverage of a handful of rats in the window of Happy Seven, they once again led their 6 p.m. newscast with a piece on vermin in Chinatown. (Supposedly another restaurant was forced to close.) Citytv has also, we’re told, been running incessant promos for [...]

Photo taken just after midnight on Friday by Jonathan Goldsbie. The “For Renovations” part of the sign has since been torn off. You know what’s annoying? When the media overexposes a story while at the same time openly asking, “Is the media giving ____ too much coverage?” The Daily Show reams the cable news networks [...]

While most of the moose that embellished city streets during the “Moose in the City” public art display in 2000 have vanished from view, a few hardy specimens continue to graze among us. A survivor on Dundas Street in Chinatown has been rewarded for its perseverance by having the complex next to it named in [...]