The 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival descends on the city this Friday with a huge “free for all” event. That means all of Friday’s programming at every Jazz Festival venue is, yes, completely free of charge. There will be concerts from local favourites Molly Johnson and Mary Margaret O’Hara, plus a show by Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves, who will be launching the fest from its epicentre, Nathan Phillips Square.

Here’s a rundown of some of the shows worth checking out on Friday—and during the rest of the festival, when you’ll actually have to pay.

Folks who are planning on having a swim in the pool at Scadding Court Community Centre over the next few days may find themselves a little disappointed. Those who want to go fishing, however, will probably be ecstatic.

For the rest of the week, the Community Centre will be holding its annual Gone Fishin’ event, meaning its indoor pool will be an indoor fish pond. The pool has been drained, dechlorinated, and refilled with 2,000 rainbow trout, to be caught by local children and families.

Going in reverse chronological order, Searching for Bobby Fischer—starring Ben Kingsley, Joe Mantegna, and Laurence Fishburne—is a darned wonderful little film (and a true story, to boot) about a chess prodigy. The story primarily takes place in New York, but there are a lot of interior scenes set in various schools, gyms, and other virtually indistinguishable locales.
The final chess tournament was filmed at U of T’s Trinity College. That was relatively easy to spot.
Other school-type scenes were shot at St. Veronica’s School, Upper Canada College, the extinct Victoria Royce Presbyterian Church, and Ryerson’s Willard Hall (now Covenant House).

Joe Mantegna’s job is working for a newspaper, so they grabbed some scenes at both the Star and Sun newsrooms.

Outdoor scenes are even trickier to spot, with some done in High Park and Grange Park. This, at least, is a recognizable landmark: the King Eddie.

Sea of Love is a pretty cool thriller from the era between when Pacino was doing classic films and when he started shouting “Hoo-ah!” and stuff. It also takes place in New York, and they did shoot a good bit there, but there’s some 416 going on too.
Take this early scene, where the cops invite a bunch of deadbeat criminals on outstanding warrants to what’s ostensibly a Yankees breakfast. It might look like any ol’ bingo hall, but if you look close you can tell it’s actually the Masonic Temple/Concert Hall/Mike Bullard studio/MTV Canada headquarters.

The film opens with a montage of seedy New York shots, but they weren’t all done there. This porn shack is actually the Metro Theatre on Bloor West (the triangular marquee is the giveaway.)

It goes by quickly, but this is the former Jerry’s Restaurant, now known as the Lakeview Lunch. (Well, now it’s the new Lakeview Lunch.) Tom Cruise’s awful Cocktail shot there too back in the day.

Here’s Pacino having a drink at the Horseshoe Tavern’s front bar.

Then there’s a long list of long-gone locations. This one is probably the Matco Supermarket (and, yes, that’s John Goodman). Where was Matco? You tell us! Also gone the way of the dodo: Crooks Restaurant and the old 53 Division.

The new 53 Division is that brown building beside Eglinton Station, but we suspect it’s the station interiors that were shot in the original building.

This fancy shmancy dinner appears to have been grabbed at Sutton Place.

Finally, Silver Streak. There was a time, folks, when Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor ruled the box office because, like, they were crazy funny. Even funnier than the Wayans Brothers, believe it or not.
This flick, basically a fun chase set largely on a train, was directed by homeboy Arthur Hiller, who went on to head the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Of course, even if you’re mostly on a train, you have to get off every now and then, right?
Accordingly, Union Station gets some celluloid love during the finale, with shots of the Great Hall…

…the train blazing past the Royal York…

…and the sheds…

…and giving a grand kick-off to the long-awaited renovations. The final credits roll over this beauty.
The station is actually doing double duty, playing train stations in both Chicago and Kansas City. Most of the shots of the train allegedly travelling that stretch were actually done on CP’s lines around here and in Alberta. Despite the rail line being called “Amroad” (Amtrak wasn’t thrilled about stuff like trains crashing into stations…), you can tell they are painted-over CP trains.
This is rarity for Reel Toronto. Not only are all three movies done with sufficient skill that Toronto doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb, they’re all, gulp, good! It’s enough to bring a tear to our cynical, snarky eye.

As in The Sound of Music, a good song can save you from even the worst of fates…
If you are a lady “of a certain age,” you love Adventures in Babysitting. You dance in your underwear when you hear “And Then He Kissed Me,” you can sing The Babysitter Blues, and you can crack your friends up simply by saying, “Don’t fuck with the babysitter!”
If you are a male of a certain age, however, you mostly remember that one of the film’s subplots involves future Oscar nominee Elisabeth Shue looking an awful lot like a Playboy centerfold. Here at Reel Toronto, we care little about such things. Like real estate agents, it’s all about location, location, location.
Take the famed Babysitter Blues sequence, for example. Some people might be too enthralled by the comedy at hand or the presence of Albert Collins to notice that it’s not taking place in any, old, scuzzy Chicago blues joint. Hell, no—it’s our own scuzzy blues joint, The Silver Dollar. Fans of ’80s cinema (and loyal readers) might also recognize it as The Blue Oyster bar from Police Academy.

Just another night on Elizabeth Street…
As for the plot, it’s standard fare. It’s kinda like Die Hard with kids, in that the babysitter just wants to do her job but all these bad, bad things keep happening. For starters, Chris, the babysitter, is waiting to go on a date when her boyfriend calls in sick, freeing her up to babysit, you see.
One of the key subplots is that she is supposed to pick up her friend (played by a pre-quasi-fame Penelope Ann Miller) at the local bus station. A nice location shot like this one is almost enough to disguise the fact that the scenes were filmed at our own terminal at Bay and Dundas.

“The Little Blue”? Is that supposed to sound like a nice joint?
Eventually, Chris finds out that the boy with whom she is so much in love is actually dating some other chick and, rather than being sick, is having dinner with her at a hoity-toity restaurant. The smarmy boyfriend is played by The West Wing‘s Bradley Whitford (apparently immune to aging ). Anyway, the kids start a fuss, get kicked out of the restaurant, and end up on Wellesley Street, outside the Sutton Place (today the eatery is called Accents).

We don’t know that this scene was actually shot in Toronto, but there was no way to avoid posting a screencap. See, the girl in the movie is obsessed with the comic book character Thor, and she thinks she meets him when the group ends up at a local mechanic’s shop. Having not seen the movie in a loooong time, we were stunned to realize that “Thor” is played by a pre-fame, pre–Private Pyle, lean, mean Vincent D’Onofrio. To quote famous Torontonian Will Hunting, “How do you like them apples?”
Maybe you’ve heard the legends of how American films would have to toss garbage around when filming here to make us look like an American city. Well, AiB (as we call it) seems to be the source of all that, having strewn garbage in an alley only to find it gone when it came time to shoot.
We know some hospital scenes were shot at Toronto General and Toronto Western, but overall, you have to keep your eyes open to spot Toronto here—so kudos to the crew.

Saturday, February 23, 5:00 p.m. – Citizen’s Income Toronto All-Parties Forum (issue-specific event to discuss the idea of a Guaranteed Liveable Income) at St Luke’s Church, 353 Sherbourne Street
Wednesday, February 27, 6: 00 p.m. – St. James Town Debate at Saint Simon the Apostle Church, 525 Bloor Street East
Thursday, February 28, 7:00 p.m. – Candidates Debate at Rosedale United Church, 159 Roxborough Drive
Sunday, March 2 – Cabbagetown Debate – Time and Location TBC
Wednesday, March 5, 7:00 p.m. – Candidates Debate at the 519 Community Centre, 519 Church Street
Monday, March 10 – Regent Park Debate – Location and Time TBC
Tuesday, March 11, 7:30 p.m. – All Candidates Debate at the St.Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East

Photo by Shaun Merritt