Results tagged “bloorcinema”

When Reel Toronto has nightmares, they are about films like Cheaper by the Dozen 2. You might not think it possible to take so many talented, funny people and make such a dreary, soul-sucking blockbusterish family movie. But they did it. Twice.

Urban Planner is Torontoist's daily guide to what's on in Toronto, published every morning. If you have an event you'd like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you've got any—to events@torontoist.com.

On May 29, 2008, the Toronto Cyclists Union was launched. And much as he had done to kick off his earlier group, founder Dave Meslin called on his Torontopian indie-rock buddies to put on a show at the Bloor.

FILM: The Toronto Jewish Film Festival will kick off its seventeenth year this evening at the Bloor Cinema, with a screening of María Victoria Menis's 2008 Argentinian romance film La cámara oscura. Check out the festival's official website for further information on the wide range of interesting films being shown and how to buy tickets. Due to the large expected number of patrons, tickets for tonight's event will only be sold at the Bloor Cinema box office, so make sure you get there early to avoid the walk of shame. Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), 8:30 p.m., $20.

FILM: Tonight, join #1 cutest couple ever (Olivia Chow and Jack Layton) at the Bloor Cinema, where they're hosting the Toronto premiere screening of Academy Award–nominated director Leslie Iwerks's latest endeavour. The film, a short documentary called Downstream, follows the controversy surrounding Alberta's multi-billion dollar oil sands industry. Following the screening, Chow will moderate a panel discussion regarding the environmental and social impact of tar sands, featuring Layton, Iwerks, Academy Award–nominated producer Phil Alberstat, and Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaign Coordinator Christie Ferguson. Although tonight's screening is free, you need to RSVP to chowo1c@parl.gc.ca or by calling 416-533-2710 in advance, with your name, phone number, address, and number of tickets requested. Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), 7 p.m., FREE.

ART: Showcasing fifteen visual artists from Canada, United States, and Mexico, "Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World" is the AGO's latest exhibition, and it opens today. The exhibit aims to redefine the modern indigenous artist by showcasing a generation of artists less compelled than their ancestors to reflect a traditional tribal identity. As a result, the paintings, drawings, and photographs on display articulate a truly unique cultural perspective and make for a fascinating exhibition. "Remix" runs until August 23. Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas Street West), 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m., $10–18 (free for members).

We become unreasonably annoyed when bands release self-titled (non-debut) albums. With the obvious exception of Beatles-biting Weezer-style colour-coding, this approach strikes us as lazy and uncreative—at best, a misguided attempted at minimalism. We feel the same way about the title of the new Star Trek movie (i.e. "Star Trek"). "Fast & Furious," however, seems to breach through to a new level of demented beauty; following on The Fast and the Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the streamlined title of the new one has become a discussion point in and of itself, with most reviews making sure to allude to it. Certainly that's the only thing about the movie that interests us. Well, that and that it's the fifth feature from director Justin Lin, whose 2002 debut Better Luck Tomorrow (sort of like Goodfellas set in a high school) once marked him as one of the most promising American filmmakers of the early part of the decade. Too bad what happened.

PARTY: Get those digital cameras charged, ladies, because Raptors star Chris Bosh is commemorating his twenty-fifth birthday in style this evening with a super sweet public party that will inevitably make all those lavish parties on MTV's My Super Sweet Sixteen seem kind of bush league. Though originally scheduled to be held at CiRCA, Bosh's bash is now being held at Liberty Village's Maro (a bar "supper club" that needs to hire someone immediately to add a "Skip Intro" button to their website). DJs Whoo Kid and Starting From Scratch will spin all the fly beats. Oh, and some dude named Busta Rhymes is supposed to perform. Advance tickets can be purchased via Ticketweb. Ka-BOSH, indeed. Maro (135 Liberty Street), 10 p.m., $25.

As has been discussed before, the Bloor has become a relevant location for the local community of film buffs, but to Torontoist it feels like it's never been as obvious as during the Edgar Wright–curated film season The Wright Stuff.

FILM: Filmmaker Edgar Wright, who's currently in town to direct Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, is taking Kevin Smith's initiative by curating a mini film-festival of his own at the Bloor Cinema. "The Wright Stuff" runs sporadically until April 12 and will screen Wright's favourite films (among them Shaolin Soccer, Drunken Master 2, and The Brood) alongside a few of Wright's own films. Being screened tonight in a double bill are Wright's 2004 zombie parody Shaun of the Dead and his 2007 crime-medy Hot Fuzz. Wright will stick around for a Q&A after the screenings. Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), doors at 6:30 p.m., $18.

Some people have a hate-on for ol' Ben Affleck, but we like him just fine. One of his underappreciated flicks is this here little number, Hollywoodland.

Most holidays are commercial, but Valentine's Day, shamelessly so. It's not statutory. It's not political. It's not religious, unless love is your religion, in which case you probably live in a commune in middle Saskatchewan, and you refuse to go on the internet because it makes you nervous, and oh, my god, how are you reading this? Ahem. Where were we? Right. Valentine's. It's not even really a holiday. All the more reason to celebrate, we say: if ever the economic clime called for a Buy Sweet Nothings Day, it's now. ("Stimulus package" has an erotic frisson to it, no?)

According to our highly unscientific, entirely unreliable survey, about 87% of us would have voted for Obama given the chance. In fact, we love him so much that we've taking to dancing in the streets. Even our animals are getting in on the action. January 20 is inauguration day; to accompany this epic moment is an epic amount of coverage and an epic round of parties. Share the joy, the happy tears, the drunkenness, and the sheer unmitigated relief by checking out one or all of Toronto's inauguration events. Our guide to everything Obama is after the fold.

ART: Side Space Gallery open their "new.Re.new" exhibit today, featuring five artists. Each piece of fibrework, sculpture, or painting is by an artist either new to the gallery, new to the neighbourhood, or new to art creation in general, so be nice and offer directions to any amateur artists you find wandering aimlessly near the gallery. Side Space Gallery (1080 St. Clair Avenue West), opening reception at 7 p.m., runs until January 16, 2009, FREE.

Photo by intrepidacious from the Torontoist Flickr pool.

Australia! It's a big country, and to be terrifically unfair and dismissive we'll be honest and say until recently it hadn't given us very much. Off the top of our head, we thank it for inspiring an enjoyable episode of The Simpsons, a couple of 2000 AD stories (Oz and Song of the Surfer), and, uh…

FILM: Give yourself something more exciting to contribute in the Starbucks lineup tomorrow than your ruminations on the latest episode of Gossip Girl, and check out Trouble the Water at the opening of the 2008-2009 Doc Soup season. Chronicling the story of a black couple (and yes, we did need to mention their race) finding themselves in the middle of the chaos that is post-Katrina New Orleans, the film is being hailed as one of the most important documentaries to have come out of America in a long, long time. Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), 6:30 p.m., 9:15 p.m., $12.

FILM: War/Dance, winner of the 2007 Hot Docs Audience Award, will be screened tonight at the Bloor Cinema. The documentary follows a children's dance troupe from northern Uganda invited to compete at an annual dance and music festival. The screening is presented in association with GuluWalk and AMREF Canada. Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), 7 p.m., $10 ($5 for students).

Of course, these events have just been private birthday parties and the like held by staff on occasion. But Saturday night, those same staff will be opening up the theatre for a public shindig, starting at 11:00 (not long after the apparently-excellent Man on Wire gets out), a fundraiser their new project, Runaway Cinema. A feature-length film written and directed by Bloor shift manager and blogTO portraitist Robin Sharp, about an adolescent boy secretly taking up residence in the theatre's backspaces, it's in some ways a less campy follow-up to his Bloor-set Popcorn Trilogy of shorts that played before movies shown at the theatre last summer (the third part of which can be seen above).

ART: There are two cool art openings today. The first is StreetSpeaks, a new photo exhibition by May Karp, a 30-year advocate of expression through street art. The exhibit showcases the street art photographed by Karp while travelling through France, Portugal, Miami, New York, Spain, the Canary Islands, and Toronto. Until September 27 (The Moore Gallery at 404-80 Spadina Avenue, 2 p.m., FREE). The second is The Artillerist, an installation by Pixel Immersive Gallery, featuring many artists including Neil Collyer, Derrick Hodgson, Niko Stumpo, and Janis Kun, among others. The show boasts an interactive premise, with visitors using Nintendo Wii controllers aimed at digital canvases in order to output graphics previously created by the show's artists. Each visitor will be able to view their unique composition on the exhibit's Flickr gallery, and will also be able to purchase hi-res prints of their work. Until October 4 (Pixel Immersive Gallery at 156 Augusta Avenue, 7 p.m., $5).

With TIFF ‘08 kicking off next Thursday, most of Toronto’s reviewers are turning their attention towards the 300-plus films that will be taking over the city’s theatres over the following two weeks. Predictably, there’s not much else worth talking about opening this week.

It was 363 days ago that Torontoist trekked down from North York to the NFB Cinema at John and Richmond for a 9:00-on-a-Monday-morning press screening of Boy A, ahead of its world premiere at TIFF. It was worth the schlep. Surprised to learn from the credits that it was a TV movie produced for Britain's Channel 4, we said of the drama about a young adult being assigned a new identity upon his release from prison that "nothing in the film (save perhaps its crisp digital-video aesthetic) suggests that it's anything less than a first-rate independent feature production....Let's hope it gets the theatrical release it deserves." Well, on the second day of the 2007 Festival, before it had even publicly screened, worldwide rights to the film (excluding UK TV) were snapped up by The Weinstein Company. And today it comes out in Toronto—at the AMC, no less (where, apparently, is it playing in 35mm). Do not, however, watch the trailer. It gives away the whole damn movie, up to and including the final scene. As does Ebert's review. As with most movies, the less you know going in, the better.

FESTIVAL: HobbyStar's annual Fan Expo returns today. The largest of its kind in Canada, the event has grown exponentially since its inception in 1995. The Comic Book Expo, Science Fiction Expo, CNAnime Expo, Gaming Expo, and Rue Morgue Festival of Fear are all happening at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre for the next three days. There are some pretty hilarious and fun things happening, like a masquerade ball where the best World of Warcraft–themed costume wins a Sony VAIO laptop. This year's celebrity guests include Sean Astin, Henry Winkler, and Buzz Aldrin (among many others). Tickets purchased will be good for all expos, but not necessarily for all special events; for example, director Wes Craven is a featured guest of the Festival of Fear, but if you want a picture with him, you'll have to pay $200. Some people will do anything to get a cool Facebook profile picture. Metro Toronto Convention Centre (255 Front Street), 4–9 p.m., $25–$69.

It's the fourth of July weekend, and as a result Canada joins its southern neighbours in having very little new of note in cinemas—it's probably why Hancock, for example, started screening early. Although it's entirely possible that that was just a desperate attempt to avoid poor reviews doing too much damage. They're not quite as bad as we thought they might be, but the praise is very faint, with, for example, The Star's Peter Howell just about mustering the will to call it "worth seeing" but noting it is "rough around the edges."

Cinematheque Ontario usually has the monopoly on canonical cinematic summer fare in Toronto, as they spend two or three months unspooling a few dozen of the most famous films ever made. But this year the Bloor Cinema is giving them a run for their money, with an equally ambitious—yet markedly different—program of the greatest films of all time. Among the movies playing in 35 mm prints this July: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Brazil, A Clockwork Orange, Goldfinger, Dr. No, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, Dr. Strangelove, Barton Fink, 12 Monkeys, Harold and Maude, E.T., Blade Runner, Amélie, City of Lost Children, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Independence Day, Jurassic Park, Labyrinth, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid To Ask, Vivre sa vie, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Jules et Jim, Vertigo, Taxi Driver, and The Shining. Although you can pick out a few thematic threads (Lynch, Bond, etc.), it's really just a Good Movie Festival.

There is an English-language movie called Troll 2. It was neither made by people who speak English, nor contains trolls. Rather, the 1990 film is an Italian production (with an American cast) concerning vegetarian goblins whose consumption of humans is predicated upon first turning them into plants. Hence the line (the exact wording of which varies among sources), "She is becoming one with the vegetable world." If, after reading the preceding sentences you are not interested in seeing this Best Worst Movie (as the in-progress documentary regarding its cult status is titled), there is likely little else that might convince you.

We don't know what exactly spawned their big decision, but the big guys at the Toronto Cyclists Union sat down and decided they needed some kind of fundraiser. Bike-a-thon? Nope. Bikini car wash? Nope. Star-studded screening of Pee-wee's Big Adventure? Why not?!

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.

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.

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.