Results tagged “america”

Is anyone else disappointed that the dystopian future promised in 1980s films isn’t here? If there’s one thing we’ve learned here at Torontoist, is that en masse, humans are terrible at predicting our future. It’s always so much more mundane than we expect it to be. The perfect example being The Running Man.

Not content to let America have all the schadenfreude fun, Ashley Madison—Toronto-based online dating company intended for people looking to cheat on their spouses, whose slogan is "when monogamy becomes monotony" and who is responsible for TV ads like these—took out a full-page ad in today's New York Post.

On the opening track of Pink Martini's latest album, lead singer China Forbes croons, "Everywhere I go, I see a world designed for you and me"—and every time you spin the record, you hear songs from all over the world. This Saturday, one lone performance at Massey Hall will echo in a mass of different languages, sung in a million more exquisite styles.

Boozy Suzy is the undisputed champion of the Pillow Fight League. When she’s not downing beers, she’s downing opponents with her dreaded hammer fist. Boozy Suzy is also Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot, an event coordinator who has been involved with the Pillow Fight League since its inception. She has watched the girls-only league grow from a local curiosity to an international sensation that has been covered by Anderson Cooper 360º, Good Morning America, and ESPN: The Magazine.

New glass recycling program will save local municipalities millions of dollars. It turns out that you can turn used glass into other things than smaller bits of broken glass!

According to the Inside the CBC blog and the National Post, Toronto's favourite boyish-looking provocateur, Avi Lewis, is back on the airwaves with his newest show, Frontline: USA. The show promises to "strip away the spin and highlight real issues such as poverty, violence, race, health, and immigration" in America. Considering that Lewis is involved and that the show airs on Al Jazeera English, chances are that Frontline: USA won't be a Dobbsian exercise in blaming America's problems on immigrants.

Photo by Linnea Helmersson.

If you’re into bad classroom reels, found footage, grainy home movies, and low- to no-budget outsider flicks, then it might suit you to head over to Stacey Case’s Trash Palace this weekend for the 8 fest. This small-format film festival is new to Toronto and will exclusively feature films shot on Super 8, 8mm and 9.5mm, as well as loops and zoetropes. Zoetropes! Please let there actually be zoetropes.

Or it will be tonight between 10:00 and 10:51 p.m., when there will be a total lunar eclipse over Toronto (and various other cities North America and Western Europe, but 10 p.m. is when it’s happening here).

Barack Obama thumps Hillary Clinton in last night's primaries. Obama for the first time won the majority of Latino voters, the majority of women voters, and the majority of senior citizen voters, while broadening his support in the demographics he was already winning. On the bright side for Hillary, she did manage to win the vote of nearly 87 percent of the voters who thought she was more qualified to be President than Obama. On the Republican side, John McCain won all his primaries, then told us that Barack Obama is a young whippersnapper selling false hope, and that grownups know that despair is the only rational response to the world.

A three hour Blackberry outage affected millions of people across North America yesterday, leading to much wailing and handwringing over the temporary unavailability of a technology that didn't even exist ten years ago. Truly we are a nation of whiners.

When your own mother calls you "foolish" and "an idiot," you know you're in serious trouble. However, if your name is Salman Hossain, it's likely that your mom's assessment of your intellectual abilities is the least of your concerns right now.

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com.

Provincial Conservative leader John Tory, battling to stay employed in the face of disaffected fellow partiers who want to hold a leadership review next month, says in a letter on his website that he has travelled the province listening to members and coming up with ideas to address their concerns. The Tories are lucky; a leader who also had a job as an MPP probably wouldn't have time for stuff like that.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

Oh yes.

Last week, Toronto-based advertising agency TAXI announced 15 Below, a new project to coincide with TAXI's fifteenth anniversary that would see the company create, manufacture, and distribute 3,000 coats for homeless people across North America. Designed by TAXI's executive creative director Steve Mykolyn and designer Lida Baday (pictured), the waterproof, windproof, and plentily-pocketed coat serves as a lightweight jacket during not-too-cold weather, can fold into a backpack during decent weather, and—when you fill the pockets up with newspaper—converts into a super-warm jacket that was tested (in a meat locker, no less!) to be effective up to -29° celsius.

A new study says that diseases and parasites from farmed fish are having devastating effects on wild salmon stocks in parts of B.C. Skyrocketing global demand for seafood means fish farming can be very profitable, even when the cost of frequent tractor replacements is taken into account.

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...

Craig Silverman, author of "Regret the Error," has published his annual compendium of errors and corrections in global print and online media, and it's a doozy. Culprits are fairly evenly dispersed, with errors from America (Obama? Osama?), the UK, Australia and Russia all figuring prominently. But don't fear! Southern Ontario media did us proud by contributing their fair share. The Toronto Star makes the list—twice. And both about the happy subject of death!A Nov....

City councillor wants to bring in the army—literally—to fight gangs. Torontoist ultimately decided to link to the Star's version of this story over Holy Shit Somebody Actually Said That Weekly. You are welcome. Mitt Romney delivers passionate speech defending religious plurality in America. The gist of the speech is thus: "Don't be intolerant of me because I am a Mormon; be intolerant of those agnostics and atheists over there who should not even be...

First and foremost, we're going to warn you that the video above may not be safe for work, children, or the faint of heart. It's from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario's latest ad campaign. In the video, a young sweet sous-chef with her whole future ahead of her happens to slip on some grease, spilling a vat of boiling water all over herself and horribly scalding her face. While she's on...

Hannah Moscovitch's play East of Berlin is familiar territory for Tarragon's extra space. Remember Rosa Laborde's Léo, which was remounted last season? Well, here's another show in the same space that's set in South America, has political subject matter, spans the life of its main character, and features only two other actors, a man and a woman, both of whom he has sex with. This may be a bit of a tangent, but Torontoist...

Scandinavian Airlines says that they will permanently ground their fleet of Canadian-made Bombardier Q400 turboprops following three accidents involving problems with landing gear. In response, Bombardier will no longer market the plane as the Q400 Skid.

With the final film line-up announced and special guests already booking flights to Toronto (legendary horror dude Uwe Boll! Direct from Germany!), the acclaimed Toronto After Dark Film Festival is set to play out its second year. Starting tomorrow night through to the 25th, the Bloor Cinema will play host to over 50 new independent and international horror/sci-fi/fantasy/action/animation and generally offbeat works from across North America, Europe and Asia.

Hundreds of taxis disrupted city streets yesterday, driving erratically through downtown Toronto, flouting traffic laws, and honking their horns randomly. Subsequently, many of the drivers also participated in a protest against bylaws which limit Pearson pickups to licensed airport limos.

J. K. Rowling to come to Toronto on her reading tour. It's her only Canadian stop, so expect an audience that is 30 percent younger readers and 70 percent aging, obsessive fanboys and fangirls, most desperately wanting an explanation as to why Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were not revealed to be secret gay lovers.

As Torontoist reported yesterday, the Hummingbird Centre is changing its name to the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, marking the second change in corporate naming rights during the venue's half-century existence. Support of the site has ranged from a philanthropic brewer (O'Keefe Brewing head E.P. Taylor) to a multinational media company.

No Film Friday today as we’re too busy with the festival, but we can let you know that this week sees releases of some pretty decent-sounding films: 3:10 to Yuma, Shoot ‘Em Up and Hatchet. Er, and also The Brothers Solomon, starring Will Arnett and directed by Bob Odenkirk but apparently dire. Let's Go To Prison wasn't great either. Sob.

Fan Expo is awesome. As awesome as anticipated by Torontoist late last week. Sure, the food is expensive, a bunch of the guests cancelled last minute, and Hobby Star is a huge corporate bully, but that doesn’t change the fact that Torontoist came within spitting distance of Adam West this weekend. In this three-day celebration of all things geeky, the biggest winner in the comics vs. sci-fi vs. horror vs. anime vs. video games battle appeared to be… video games! Playing host to the Toronto stop of the World Series of Video Games, Fan Expo delivered non-stop excitement during which those who still live in their parents’ basements were pitted against each other in intense competitions akin to sporting events. Watching Guitar Hero II champions from across North America rip through a video game edit of "Freebird" while a few hundred people cheered in encouragement ranks as one of the strangest things Torontoist may have ever seen. Also, Battle Royale shirts. They’re amazing, but why does everyone suddenly have one?