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 bellwether of rep cinemas: Bloor Cinema. Photo by Smaku. Audiences at the Bloor Cinema have fallen in love with zombies; a......

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 of Festival Cinemas, which sparked fears that rep cinema would disappear from the city. In 2006, the future of repertory......

Hello readers! If you were lucky enough to win tickets to the screening of There Will Be Blood last night you will have already made your mind up about the film (well, we hope), but we’re going to subject you to our opinion of it anyway. Quite good, wasn’t it? Contrary to a lot of things we’ve heard, it did seem to be identifiably a Paul Thomas Anderson film (strong performances, non-traditional story arc,......

The Toronto One Minute Film & Video Festival turns five tomorrow. Not to be lumped in with our typical neverending, city-spanning, celebrity-scoping, press-pass flossing film fests, this one usually comes and goes gracefully before anyone even knows it exists. Sixty films, 60 seconds each, played back-to-back at the Bloor Cinema. You couldn’t get bored if you tried. Founded in 2003 as the result of a dare among friends and former-filmmakers in Toronto, the idea is......

Five days of Pan-Asian cinema in the city kicks off tomorrow night, as the Reel Asian International Film Festival celebrates its eleventh annual incarnation. Bloor Cinema will present the Opening Night Gala film, Finishing the Game, at 7 p.m., followed by a Q&A session with lead actor Roger Fan and producer Julie Asato. Added bonus: local comedy troupe Asiansploitation will perform beforehand on the red carpet. This year's festival is poised to impress. And......

If there’s one thing Torontoist likes to do, it’s moan about stuff, but on the face of it, that Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days receiving a theatrical release here is something that should be received without complaint. After all, journalists have praised the film, including Norm Wilner at Metro, who calls the film "marvellous filmmaking." But really, it just gives us a chance to moan about the lack of......

The Royal St. George's College "Focus on the Environment" speaker series continues with David Suzuki at the Bloor Cinema on Monday night. This year's series kicked off in September with Jane Goodall and continues through the rest of the school year with guest speakers ranging from writer Roy MacGregor to polar explorer Geoff Green. In contrast, the only guest speakers we remember from our high school years were actuaries and federal civil servants telling......

Photo by christine mullen photography from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. For horrific undead humans who are sustained only by feeding on our flesh, zombies are surprisingly well-liked. Witness, for instance, Sunday's fifth annual Toronto Zombie Walk, which took zombies on an hour-and-a-half-long lurch from Trinity-Bellwoods up to the Bloor Cinema for the After Dark Film Festival. Braver souls than us were there to take photos, and, as usual, some great shots were submitted to......

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. Aside from director Boll, who......

Darryl’s Hard Liquor and Porn Film Festival (covered by Amanda Buckiewicz earlier this week) is at the Bloor Cinema this Saturday, October 13 at 8 p.m, but if you’re a person of milder tastes (soft liquor and corn?) this week’s festivals of interest include the Toronto Latin Film Festival, the Macedonian Film Festival, the DNA Film Festival (it’s a busy week for festivals!), and the ImagiNATIVE Film Festival, which continues to win us over......

Chances are, if you're like us, your first experience with pornography was a mix of titillation, curiousity, and shame. Maybe it's still that way, but at least for one weekend you can be free from shame if you join fellow pervs at the Hard Liquor And Porn Film Festival. Eight years ago, Darryl Gold threw a party and invited guests to bring booze and their favourite porn scene. When one party-goer decided to bring......

The Revue cinema is due to reopen its doors on October 4th, and if you’ve been waiting for the chance to buy tickets for the opening night, they’re now on sale at She Said Boom (393 Roncesvalles Avenue) at $20 for the film and the after-party or $10 for just the party at the Lithuanian Hall (1573 Bloor Street West). The opening night film is secret, but it was selected by an online poll,......

Though Brad Pitt might be sitting this one out, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival just unveiled the first seven of fourteen feature premieres for their critically acclaimed horror/fantasy fest. Now entering its second year, the current lineup includes (wait for it) David Arquette's horror film debut as writer/director, The Tripper (starring Paul Reubens, Jason Mewes, Lukas Haas, etc). As if that wasn't a sufficient enough reason to grab tickets, other flicks include the......

Continuing his love affair with Toronto, American horror king George A. Romero will be stopping by the Bloor Cinema this coming Sunday to answer some audience questions and offer a sneak peek at his upcoming Diary of the Dead. The legendary director, who may not have actually invented zombies, is still single-handedly responsible for the modern portrayal of the cinematic undead. Filmed in Toronto (like its predecessor, Land of the Dead), and premiering September......

During the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, motion picture studios controlled every step of the production, distribution, and exhibition of movies in the United States. Then, in 1948, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled these practices anti-competitive and monopolistic, forcing the studios to divest themselves of the theatres they owned, and opening the market to foreign films, art films, and independent films—for the first time, movie houses that were not part of large chains......

Usually saying the words "short" and "sex" in the same sentence means that somebody had a bad night. Unless, that is, you're talking about Darryl's Hard Liquor And Porn Film Festival, a showcase for short movies about everyone's favourite late night activity. Wannabe porn directors, now's your time to shine, as the final call for submissions has been pushed up to August 15th. The rules are fairly loose, pardon the pun, with the only criteria......

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love My Bike You should go see a movie tonight, dontcha think? Here are two you might want to check out. The Isabel Bader Theatre (map) has a free screening of Dr. Strangelove starting at 8:15 p.m. This particular version is digitally-restored and has a resolution of 4K, which apparently means something significant. Actually, it's kind of a big deal: the restoration is being shown-off as part......

The joke goes: "The women in Montreal are so beautiful. Where do you send all the ugly women? To Toronto?" In the Hot Docs smash movie Let's All Hate Toronto, Brampton comedian Russell Peters tells the joke as evidence towards the animosity Canadians have for Toronto. Rob Spence and Albert Nerenberg, the directors of Let's All Hate Toronto were offended as well. They brought forth a petition to the Just for Laughs comedy festival to......

Do you love this city? Of course you do! And here's your chance to profess your undying love to the world. Elevator Films, the people who brought you the Hot Doc hit Let's All Hate Toronto, are holding a contest called "Let's All Love Toronto." They are asking you—yes, you—to share photos and videos of why it is that you love this fair city of ours. Does riding the subway warm your heart? Put......

Cinematheque Ontario’s summer season begins tonight, and we’ve got one pair of tickets to give away to their opening night screening, the celebrated silent film classic Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans, argued to be one of the greatest films ever made by countless critics. It’s tonight at Jackman Hall at 6:30 p.m., so if you can make it and you’re randomly selected from the people who email us at contests@torontoist.com, we’ll notify you by......

David Lynch, man! David Lynch, man! Does whatever David Lynch can! Spins a tale, any size, Confuses viewers, just like flies! Look out! Here comes David Lynch, man! Is he strong? Listen bud — He's got radioactive blood. Actually, wait, that last bit might not be true, but for some reason we keep thinking of that TV theme...no idea why. This week people are going crazy in Toronto queuing up to see the latest massive......

OMG! This week sees the release of Kickin' It Old Skool, a Jamie Kennedy vehicle. He plays a breakdancer who awakes from a 20-year coma and something that Jamie Kennedy probably considers hilarity ensues. We here at Torontoist Towers are astounded at the idea that somebody greenlighted a film with Jamie Kennedy in it. Absoultely gob-smacked. Moving on, Stone Cold Steve Austin plays Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man On An Island (The Condemned)......

As ticketholders lined up around several city blocks to get into the Bloor Cinema Friday night, the main concern among them was whether Let's All Hate Toronto would live up to its hype. The movie itself was not reviewed beforehand, so this was the first time the movie would see an audience. Some went into the movie expecting a serious in-depth investigation into the sociological and psychological theories behind the animosity towards Toronto, and were......

Canadian culture is very difficult to define. There are very few unifying traits that identify a person as a true Canadian. Sure, for the most part there's hockey and the fact that we're all polite, but even so, is that all it takes to make us a part of the "true north strong and free"? Well, according to a new documentary entitled Let's All Hate Toronto, one thing that brings all Canadians together is their......

Every couple of weeks "What's The Frequency, Campus?" will highlight some of the intriguing shows and special programming happening on Toronto's campus and community radio stations. The differences between commercial radio and campus/community radio are vast. While the content is miles apart (you’ll never hear the same song played three times an hour on a community station), the two are also operating on wildly different budgets. Commercial stations are largely owned by huge media empires......

It is often said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. This is precisely what Jacque Fresco has been urging humankind to do. Industrial designer, engineer, inventor and artist, Fresco is often described as a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci. Encouraging society and government to envision a world where we use our collective energies to create buildings and cityscapes that benefit the greatest number of people on a global scale,......

While North American documentaries are becoming increasingly political and divisive, Souvenirs, Iraeli filmmaker Shahar Cohen’s directorial debut doc, is the very human story of a father and son trying to understand where they came from so they might to understand who they are. Souvenirs follows Shahar, an unemployed filmmaker, and his 82-year-old father, Sleiman, as they drive through Europe. Sleiman, a former WWII truck driver in the Jewish Brigade, believes they are retracing his experiences......

Call us crazy (or suicidal), but we here at Torontoist can't get enough of the living undead. Whether they be dancing, attending film festivals, marching through our streets, or saving a kitty or two, we can't get zombies out of -- or away from -- our brains. That's why we were delighted to hear of yet another horde descending upon our populace. At 8:30 p.m. tomorrow, 100-300 zombies will rise from their graves and gather......

Torontoist officially can’t wait for the first home renovation programme to have its interior designer kick open a door to an empty room and scream "This…Is…SPARTAN!" referencing this week’s biggest release, 300. On the topic of 300, we link you to the best review ever featured on the otherwise not-particularly-good Ain’t It Cool News. Neill Cumpston enthuses, "If you watch this movie and go into a Taco Bell, and say to the cashier, 'I......

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