Dr. Julia Ogden (Hélène Joy) and Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) from Murdoch Mysteries. The Victorian Era, when the city gained its nickname Toronto the Good, is usually thought of as a time of staid social order upheld by unwritten laws of morality. In the name of propriety, boarding houses had a strict ten o’clock [...]

After last month’s inaugural open-mic-esque short film program at the Revue was so chock-a-block full of awesome, Tim Bourgette and co. wasted no time looking ahead to a sequel. Thus, Drop Your Shorts 2 (electric boogaloo) opens for submissions this Sunday. Toronto filmmakers, no matter their level of radness/awfulness/professionalism/lack thereof, are invited to throw down [...]

Every day this week, Torontoist is exploring the future of repertory cinema in Toronto. We spoke to the theatre managers of four major rep cinemas to hear if rep cinema is dying, what it’s like to exist in a YouTube society, and what original programming has them most excited. Today, we look at the fall [...]

Today we celebrate Ontario’s first ever Family Day. Banks and government offices are closed, but many malls and stores are open for last-minute Family Day shopping. As reported by the Sun, the Fraser Institute released its 2008 rankings of Ontario elementary schools, with most schools in the GTA faring reasonably well. If you have stupid [...]

Is 1996 retro yet? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean Toronto isn’t way overdue for some good, old-fashioned ska-punk sounds courtesy of Less Than Jake, who are playing a free show this Saturday (January 19) at 8:00 p.m. at The Sound Academy (aka. The Docks). They make us all nostalgic for the old days…you know, [...]

It’s Boxing Day! Go spend money! If you don’t, Canada’s economy will suffer and it will all be your fault! You probably don’t even own all the seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD yet, do you? You slacker. Turkey explains how well its airstrikes in Kurdish Iraq have worked. Short answer: they worked [...]

Sarah Polley is having a kickass month as her debut directorial feature, Away From Her, racks up the accolades. On Sunday, the Los Angeles film critics gave Polley a New Generation Award for up-and-coming directors. Then, on Monday, the New York film critics felt Away From Her was 2007's Best First Film. In addition, earlier this month Polley was named one of the "50 Smartest People in Hollywood" by Entertainment Weekly. She's the youngest...

Torontoist is sad to report that the Annex’s doc-driven underdog moviehouse, the Brunswick Theatre, is closing up shop (tonight!) before even being able to celebrate its first birthday. Among the reasons for the closure, as given by owners Scott Gilbert and Bre Walt, were the high overhead costs, a lack of private rentals in the [...]

Last Wednesday, legendary Canadian music retailer Pindoff Record Sales sold off their 72-store Music World chain. Two days later, the new owners filed for bankruptcy protection and and will likely lay off 648 employees by the end of January. And so it goes. According to court documents, Music World plans an "orderly wind down," including closing stores and liquidating inventory. The retailer has been in dire straits for years, propped up by the Toronto-based...

On Sunday afternoon, over 150 independent publishers, writers, artists and bloggers from across the continent will pack Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel for Canzine, Canada’s largest celebration of small press publishing and alternative culture. The affair is organized by Broken Pencil, a quarterly magazine devoted to mobilizing the scattered community of small-circulation art. This year, to coincide [...]

Slightly different beginning to our Film Friday today, because we’d like to highlight the fact that our favourite film in ages, Reprise (pictured above), was released on DVD this week. We really feel it should have been given the same kind of cinematic release it’s getting right now in the UK, rather than an astonishingly [...]

It’s always strange to write a Film Friday column in the week before the Toronto International Film Festival, since by this point it’s hard to think about anything else. We’ll be previewing the festival on Monday, so be sure to check back if you can’t think of anything else, either. In the meantime, have you [...]