Many thought Royson James finally went too far in his attacks on Toronto's council...

Last time out we went for zombie movies and, what with Halloween looming, it only made sense to keep up the theme for the time being. Combine zombies with one of the surest bets for a solid movie—a video game as source material—and you can’t help but end up with a classic like [amazon asin=0767834739&text=Resident Evil].

Another beautiful day in fair Raccoon City.

Never before have we seen a film that so gleefully revels in its Toronto-ness without actually taking place in Toronto. They get away with it primarily because the setting is not some other real city, but rather the fictional Raccoon City, which, come to think of it, is not so far-fetched as an alternate name for the 416.
Since there is so much evidence that Toronto loves zombies, it seems rather perfect, actually.

Suburban hell.

The flick starts off with an actiony teaser, leading into a careful roundup of people before the big zombie invasion. The Men-in-Black SUVs hit the suburbs first, including this generic Brampton neighbourhood. Based on its appearance in an identical context in Dawn of the Dead, we’re left to conclude that when the End of Days comes it will certainly start in Brampton.

Never believe the captions.

They also pick up a girl at a school, which is actually Central Tech.

Prince Edward could hardly be prouder than this very moment in cinematic history.

Yep, they cross this bridge, the main entrance to downtown, and even if you just rolled off the turnip truck you know it’s the Prince Edward Viaduct.

Remember when you couldn't get to the Danforth for a whole weekend because they were filming a shitty movie? Yeah, that was great.

We get to see it in a more dramatic context later in the film, when residents try to flee and get past a checkpoint on the bridge.

We hear you can buy the domed stadium in Raccoon City for a song.

Rather than Bloor Street, it seems to lead to the Gardiner Expressway….

Despite the economic turmoil, Scotiabank's Raccoon City expansion plans were unaffected.

…and then they get in a big old crash, apparently on Duncan Street, where you get to see the Queen West Scotiabank and the CN Tower. And this is all in the first five minutes!!

It would be easy to make jokes about the horrors of Hamilton, so we won't.

Hogtown doesn’t get all the zombie glory. No, Hamilton gets in a few digs too. This cemetery, for example, is there.

More proof that downtown Hamilton needs some revitalization.

So, too, is this big shootout, complete with its very visible Pizza Pizza. The scene was shot downtown, at King and John streets.

Scary hallways: don't make your zombie movie without 'em.

When our heroes return to the high school from the beginning, the interiors are from there as well as Bloor Collegiate and Northern Secondary.

Some of the hero dudes head into the atrium of the CBC building to pick up a weapons cache.

No word on how the Nathan Philips redesign will pay tribute to the epic confrontation staged here.

The finale, of course, is where you get an OD of Torontonia, with a finale scene at Nathan Philips Square. Much of the action takes place here, on the rarely seen City Hall podium, albeit with a few additions.

This is precisely why they closed the City Hall observation deck. Too much base jumping and vertical running.

This gal even runs down the side of the west tower, and she (well, a stunt person) really did it. No CGI here.

Stephen Harper's dream?

At the end of the flick they nuke the whole darned city, starting with City Hall. Yup, just another day in the life of our city: do whatever you want to our city, just come here and film, film, film.

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.

People line up for food at one of the many tables at Nathan Phillips Square on Khalsa Day. Photo by Dean Bradley.

Tens of thousands of Sikhs, as well as their friends and supporters, gathered in downtown Toronto on Sunday to celebrate Khalsa Day and Vaisakhi. The day started with a parade from the CNE grounds to Nathan Phillips Square, where celebrants gathered for speeches, performances and an almost mind-blowing quantity of food.

Vaisakhi is a harvest festival observed by Indians of all faiths. Khalsa Day celebrates the revelation of the Sikh code of conduct by the religion’s 10th guru, Guru Gobind Singh, on Vaisakhi in 1699. Toronto’s Khalsa Day celebrations are among the largest outside of India. According to Manjit Singh Parmar, one of the celebration’s organizers, the event is the culmination of months of planning.

“It takes almost four months of preparation,” he said. “In January, we started meeting with city officials, police officials, to make sure the site is secure. We want to make sure all the police, TTC, the local businesses, everyone who gets affected, is on board.”

Parmar says that while Khalsa Day is a Sikh holiday, anyone is welcome to join in the celebration.

“This is a community event, not just a Sikh event. It’s for all walks of life,” he said.

Jaskaran Singh has been coming to the Khalsa Day celebrations since he was a small child. This year, the 19 year-old from Brampton decided to give back to the community by volunteering to help keep things running smoothly.

“I thought I could come down and do a good deed,” he said. “I came here to help serve food, direct the flow of traffic, pick up the garbage afterwards”

Food seemed to be the main attraction at Nathan Phillips Square. Communal dining, or langar, is an important Sikh tradition, and is part of a broader belief in sharing resources and inclusiveness. At Sunday’s gathering, langar manifested itself in a number of ways, ranging from long tables laden with traditional Indian dishes to a cotton candy machine, as well as people randomly handing out fruit and drinks in the crowd.

Among those handing out food was Brampton resident BK Sehkon. Sehkon says that his family and friends, who had multiple dishes set up on a table in the square, had spent two solid days in the kitchen.

“This is just a few families coming together to make food,” he said. “Families made different things…and we all organized and came as one group.”

Sehkon was unsure exactly how much food his group distributed in total, but had an interesting way of estimating.

“It was like small truck, all filled,” he said. “Like a U-Haul.”

Just as the anticipation was reaching its peak, a group of a hundred or more demonstrators crashed the party. Chanting “No Olympics on stolen native land,” the protestors broke through the police barricades and made their way north on Yonge, stalling and eventually bringing the torch procession to a halt. After several minutes of inaction, the motorcade was rerouted along Wellesley, and the torch was split in two in order to accommodate a scheduled visit to Sick Kids Hospital, and to appease the growing impatient crowd at Nathan Philips Square. In the end, there were more cops at Yonge and College than Olympic fans, as most of the spectators headed to warmer places.
The demonstration primarily consisted of members from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, No 2010, No Games Toronto, and No One Is Illegal.

People waiting to see the torch at Yonge and College.

We here at Torontoist are not against demonstrations. They’re a central facet of democracy, and have played vital roles in pushing social and political change. And we sympathize with many of the cries of these protestors: it’s true that the Olympics are costing British Columbia and Canada quite a bit of dough. It’s also true that corporations partly fund them, and that they have already caused environmental damage with the building of new facilities and transportation routes.

Demonstrations like yesterday’s, though, won’t do anything to affect whether the Olympics run or not: let’s face it, the Olympics are happening. It’s a done deal. What the demonstration did manage to do was dampen the city’s Olympic spirit, and entirely ruin what would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many Torontonians. But we imagine that that was partially the point of the protests in the first place: the protesters may not control the outcome, but they can control the journey.
The torch will be in Toronto for another two days, so there’s lots of time to get your Olympic fix. You can check out the route here [PDF]. In the meantime, someone should tell Adam Giambrone that the torch isn’t coming.

All photos by Nick Kozak/Torontoist

Vaughan, world capital of ostentatious homes, even has its own White House replica for when someone wants to play president.
The plot involves an assassination attempt on the president (played by Sledge Hammer! star David Rasche) at a G-8 conference in Toronto. Kiefer Sutherland plays not-against-type as a clever secret service agent, Michael Douglas is his mentor, and Eva Longoria is the newbie/eye candy.
We all know there is many a McMansion up in Vaughan, but you probably still didn’t know they have a whole White House replica up there. When Wesley Snipes came to town for Murder at 1600, a set was built at Kleinburg’s Cinespace studios. Warner Bros. decided to keep it and it has since been used for several films.
No doubt, part of the T-dot love comes from director Clark Johnson (left), who has a brief role at the start of the flick. The Toronto native already has cred in our books for shooting the finales of Homicide and The Wire, among many other shows. He is also the brother of singer Molly Johnson and actor Taborah Johnson, who gets a bit part here as the First Lady’s Chief-of-Staff.

McMichael is a great place to meet dignitaries and see some great landscape paintings.
The White House wasn’t the only Kleinburg locale used, either. The prez et al. head to the famous Camp David retreat, actually located in Maryland. Here, camera angles keep the distinctive main building of the McMichael Gallery just out of view, preserving the illusion.

It’s a Reel Toronto rule: the more flags, the less likely it was filmed in the USA.
The president visits a local school, doing a meet and greet outside first. The street signs are a dead giveaway: this was actually shot in Cabbagetown, on Sutton Avenue. Not too far away is Rose Avenue P.S., where the interiors were shot. The school’s actual choir even gets some screen time.

First, the killing. Second, the shopping.
In thrillers, you have to have chase scenes, and The Sentinel‘s got ‘em. In one, for example, Michael Douglas is supposed to meet some informant dude at a mall, but the dude gets shot and people pull out guns and chase each other and stuff. This all takes place at lovely Sherway Gardens, and local shoppers can recognize the food court, and even the Sporting Life.

Run! Run before the seagulls get you!
Later, Jack Bauer…errr, Keifer Sutherland’s character, chases Michael Douglas through a Maryland marshland. This whole bit was shot at Tommy Thompson Park (a.k.a. The Leslie Street Spit). We then shift over to the Portlands, on Unwin Avenue, and at the denouement, Douglas (well, his stuntman) escapes by swimming across the icky water to safety (and you can see the Ashbridge’s Bay treatment plant in the background).

A Hollywood movie showing the CN Tower? In the middle of a shot? On purpose?
Finally, the movie moves to scenes actually set in Toronto and we get a zillion of them. For starters, the president is set to give his address at City Hall and we get shots galore. There are lovely Hollywood golden hour shots of downtown, like this.

You know this is only a movie because people are actually standing on the Nathan Philips Square walkways…
Do you love our City Hall? Of course you do. Well, then this is the movie for you! You can see it with SWAT teams! You can see it from overhead! You can see it with barbed wire!

Usually you only get this kind of response when Rob Ford has been ejected.
What, you want the inside too? There are zillions of shots of the president in the council chamber, and even boring shots of Eva Longoria talking in the phone below the rotunda.

Across the street, the main bad dude appears to be staying at the Sheraton Centre. It is there he shows off his postcard collection and meets with the secret service dude who is going to help them kill the president.

The finale itself takes place all around Nathan Phillips Square, beginning with President Sledge and Michael Douglas emerging from the Green P parking stairs (we forget if those are the “Porcupine” stairs, or perhaps “Rabbit?”)
Eventually, naturally, everyone swoops in, justice gets done, and democracy is preserved. And to think, none of it could have taken place without our fair burg.

All Photos by Miles Storey.