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. The two great Canadian heroes prep for an adventure, Shakespeare-style. Strange Brew is not a great film, but it sure is......

Torontoist Environment Editor Chris Tindal is currently engaged in a federal by-election campaign. This weekly column is an attempt to offer a behind the scenes glimpse into what it's like to be that mysterious Other: a politician. Last night was our first public all-candidates debate in this campaign. Hosted by the Bay Corridor Community Association in the Sutton Place Hotel, it was extremely well attended by an engaged audience. For those of us who recognize......

While February 14th is reserved for lovers, and February 18th is all about families, February 13th has 'em all beat...tomorrow, Wednesday, is none other than Dead Bra Day! This is a chance for all bearers of boobs to come on out to Secrets From Your Sister (560 Bloor Street West) and: A) Save 20% on all of the boutique's fabulous, well-fitting and long-lasting bras by trading in a "dead" bra for a wicked discount, and;......

Our favourite Bloor Street comic emporium is having an event tomorrow that sounds totally neat. The Labyrinth proudly hosts its first-ever group show tomorrow evening, an event called Vinyl Graffiti. They accepted submissions of art in any medium for which an old vinyl record sleeve could be used as the canvas. The event starts at 7:00 p.m., but at 8:00 p.m. they will begin a Character Design Face Off competition. Anyone who shows up......

Toronto has been called a city of neighbourhoods: The Beach, Yorkville, Chinatown, Little Italy, Greektown, The Annex; all have their defining characteristics that make them appealing to locals as well as visitors. And when it comes down to it, most of these areas are well-defined by the intersection of two major streets. Photo by David Urbonas from Flickr. Since the inaugural Yonge & Bloor installment of A City Intersected, Torontoist has made every attempt at......

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. Mediocre Action Movie + Toronto + Sam Jackson = HELL YEAH! Let’s get this out of the way: The Long Kiss......

How will this space-age family's future lose its balance? Junior scares Father by having Teddy simulate a bear attack. Rover, happy to see his master after a long session at the vet, jumps onto the ladder. Mother relays the cost of the family's latest insurance bill. Father, overcome by a sudden burst of inspiration after reading an article about Jackson Pollock, tries to reach the yellow and blue paint cans. The Manufacturers Life Insurance......

If you're anything like us, you've always dreamt of riding the subway without pants. You'll finally have your chance on Saturday, during the first ever Toronto No Pants Subway Ride. The idea for a pantsless ride originally came from the good folks at Improv Everywhere in New York, where the ride is in its seventh year. While Toronto already imports far too much culture from other cities, this is just too awesome of an......

Sure, they penned the obviously raddest one-hit-wonder of 1996, but since that fateful year, full of cheerleaders and homoerotic football players, Nada Surf have continued to rage against the dying of that hit-single light. They may have fallen off MTV's radar, but so have most things north of Christina Aguilera's baby-bump. Since leaving Elektra in 1998, the band have built a quiet following of appreciative indie rockers around the world, unconcerned with attaining the......

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. Many Annex-dwellers rejoiced last December when BMV opened its fabulous new Bloor Street location, and the discount book warehouse......

Near Manulife Financial: Bloor East citizens would like less poo in their public spaces. With condo fever gripping the still-shabby southeast corner of Bloor and Yonge due to the future One Bloor 80-storey tower, the Bloor East Neighbourhood Association (BENA) met Wednesday night at the Rogers Centre (333 Bloor Street East) to discuss how their little stretch of street could be transformed to rival the world-class reputation of Bloor West. BENA, representing ratepayers along......

Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson has, as he put it to Torontoist in a phone interview earlier today, "seen better days." The Integrated Media OCAD student and his final project for his advanced video class are the direct cause––intended or not––for yesterday's bomb scare at the Royal Ontario Museum, and, a day later, Jonsson is now suspended from OCAD and is wanted for questioning by police. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's readymades pieces (the most famous of......

Thursday evening, CEPAL (the Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange) presents a talk by Dr. Norman Finkelstein at U of T's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Just a few months ago, he was Professor Norman Finkelstein, but he made himself some powerful enemies, and now he's pretty much out on the street (i.e. lecture circuit). Apparently, that's not an uncommon development for academics—even Jewish ones—who are critical of Israeli policies and the advocates for same.......

In the opening line from 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa, author Stephanie Nolen illustrates a feeling many of us understand. "I looked at AIDS in Africa for a long time before I understood what I was seeing," she writes. Nolen is an award-winning journalist who has spent the past several years as our eyes and ears on the AIDS pandemic in Africa. As the Africa correspondent for the Globe and Mail, Nolen has written......

This Friday, November 16, we (Newmindspace) will be hosting our very first lightsaber battle! This summer at Burning Man, we witnessed a 10,000-person lightsaber battle put on by a camp called Watto's Junkyard, easily the largest lightsaber battle since the Jedi Civil War. However, with our limited resources, we realized that without a large donation from a rich weirdo (which are plentiful in San Francisco), we would probably not be able to get the......

People queue up for a chance at a condo. The condos at One Bloor Street East range from $300K to $2 million, so remember, kids: lines aren't just for poor people and the Nintendo Wii any more! Loonie breaks a buck ten American. It's funny because last week when Torontoist mentioned the loonie-rising story, economists were all "well it'll probably hit a dollar-ten eventually" and it seems "eventually" was "less than a week." Speaking......

Eat Me is a regular feature about the nooks and crannies of Toronto's restaurant scene, about the amazing restaurants that are––for some reason––criminally underpatronized. It's pretty easy to find sushi places in this city. From the Bloor Street strip to North York, sushi places range from suspiciously cheap to ridiculously expensive, from having incredibly creative culinary creations to the same old rolls. Quietly tucked on the east edge of Little Italy is Jun Jun Sushi......

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,......

Seriously, who cares about Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt or George Clooney or Ben Affleck or whoever? Jerry Seinfeld––one of the greatest comedians, one of the greatest television actors, and owner of 47 Porsches––is coming to Toronto on Wednesday. He'll be at the Manulife Centre (55 Bloor Street West) at 9:45 a.m. to promote Bee Movie, the new animated movie that he directs and stars in. According to IMDB, the plot summary is thus: "Barry......

Beyond its picnic areas, tennis courts and manicured gardens, High Park is a thriving ecosystem. The Western Ravines and Beaches Discovery Walk explores some of the park’s wild areas, as well as some of the neighbouring regenerated wetlands. The walk starts at the Bloor Street entrance to High Park. Passing the picnic areas and a concession stand, the Discovery Walk signs lead you down into a ravine beyond the domain of cyclists (in theory)......

Last Monday was not just the start of the Ontario general election campaign—it was also the beginning of a campaign to change the way we elect our representatives to Queen's Park. On October 10th, Ontarians will vote on a proposal by the Citizens' Assembly (a randomly-selected group of 103 Ontarians) to switch to a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, similar to that used in some other countries including Germany and New Zealand. A few......

Photo by TerraS. The Toronto International Film Festival has only been on for four days and Torontoist is already sick of overhearing conversations like: "I saw George Clooney walking down Bloor Street!" "Oh my God, no way! I walk down Bloor Street all the time!" But that's probably because we haven't had any of our own celebrity encounters as of yet. In fact, contributors to our Flickr Pool seem to be having better luck......

If you missed it, yesterday our Toronto International Film Festival preview began with a look at the Gala and Contemporary World Cinema programmes, and if you didn’t know, tickets go on sale tomorrow morning online, at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM and at the TIFFG Box Office at the Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street—so after you’ve read this, you might want to start queuing. Today we have our preview of the Special Presentations, Real To Reel......

It's not just for pot-smoking, Cheetos-eating, reluctant-to-bathe college dudes anymore. Ultimate Frisbee is probably the fastest growing competitive sport in North America (next to Speed Stacking) and the only sport where you can unofficially score "underwear points." But don't expect any dropped pants at the Canadian Ultimate Championships this weekend—these guys are playing to win. Eighty teams from across Canada will be competing for top prize in five divisions: Open (technically co-ed, but almost......

"Honest Ed" Mirvish passed away nearly a month ago, but Toronto is still in mourning. On Sunday, August 12, his family will be hosting a celebration of life outside of the Honest Ed's Emporium (581 Bloor Street West) in lieu of Ed's famous annual birthday party—he would have turned 93 on July 25. With live music and entertainment scheduled from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., the city is closing down Bloor Street between Bathurst......

Photo of delighted fans by Carrie Musgrave. It's a curious bit of magic that can connect eighties synth-pop, Bob Marley, and bouncing castles with a seventeen-year-old boy wizard. It's even more curious to see how far that wizard and his multi-billionaire creator have come in just a few short years. Last night, magic and wonder invaded the typically staunch and business-like intersection of Bay and Bloor. To celebrate the release of Harry Potter and......

Garrison Creek once ran through Toronto from its tributaries near what is now St. Clair West, to what was once the shore of Lake Ontario, past the northeast side of Fort York. Development polluted the creek as Toronto began to grow, and in the early 1900s, work began on the burial of Garrison Creek. Long since converted into a sewer, Garrison Creek has completely disappeared from view. It has not, however, been forgotten. Evidence......

When searching for a suitable title for the sequel to last year's massive street parade/subway party Flight of Fancy, we needed only to consult a thesaurus. Not only a 2000-era epic trance track by Ian Van Dahl, Castles in the Sky are also seemingly impossible tasks. Some people call them "pipe dreams." We call it the next Newmindspace event this Saturday. While the details of the route are secret for now, we can tell......

OpenCities was a weekend-long unconference that took place on the 23rd and 24th of June. Many excellent conversations came out of the weekend, and this is one of them. You can read notes from the rest at OpenCities.ca. The late Jane Jacobs asserted that a great public space should attract different people for different reasons at different times of day. Why, then, have we forgotten the last part in our planning—and our thinking? Torontoist......

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......