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. To obviously quote another film kind of about boxing, Cinderella Man coulda been a contender. We'll never know what gold (both......

Dear Distillery District, We really like you, but that doesn't mean that we can't offer suggestions for improvement. We'd like to introduce your sign makers to two magic words: "during construction." They could help avoid giving visitors the wrong impression about the pride you have in the site and your stores. Wordfully, TOist.......

On May 17th, 2005, ERA Architects held a fundraiser for Spacing Magazine and [murmur] in the Fermenting Cellar of the Distillery District. It was called Toronto the Good. Admission was on a $10-20 sliding scale, the bar was open, and the buffet was impressive. Will Munro and Christopher Thinn DJed. Torontoist did not attend but trusts the many accounts of others that it was a very good time. The following year the party relocated......

Farley and University College, together at last. We at Reel Toronto sometimes feel bad prefacing our postings with disclaimers noting that most films made here aren't great films. After all, most of them have at least some redeeming quality. It's something you need to bear in mind when assessing the era in which the Chris Farley-David Spade combination was big at the box office. Tommy Boy is probably the funniest Farley flick, which might......

If you happen upon a group of tourists decked out in Chicago Bears regalia (with or without helmets) on your daily commute to work in the next few days, we think we may know the reason why. The Chicago Tribune recently informed its readers that a visit to Toronto would be well worth their while. The author of the article—who claims to have visited Toronto 137 times—recommends "10 Things To Love" about Toronto; let's......

Photos by Marissa Neave. Fashion in Toronto (or any fast, young city) is ostensibly about being scene—but for [FAT], we went behind it. Last night was the first day of Toronto Alternative Fashion Week (so alternative, it's not even a week, but rather three corset-squeezed nights of runway shows, performance art, live beats and more). While other media types milled about the Distillery District's uber-cool Fermenting Cellar, sipping wine and snapping shots of the......

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. Wherefore art thou (and thine career), Kenneth Johnson? In our very first Reel Toronto column, we established a core principle: Toronto's......

From downtown to Uxbridge, the Undercover Brother knows how to have fun in the GTA. Reel Toronto's crack team of detectives has figured something out. Aside from Chicago and Good Will Hunting, we don't get too many Oscar-quality productions up here in Hogtown. You would think with so many productions we could average better than, say, Cocktail, but we tend not to do so hot. Still, there's no shame in providing some laughs, and......

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. Before Chapelle became super-famous, he was just another bank tower janitor. Ah, the drug comedy. Do it right and you can......

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......

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. Logan and Professor X take a stroll around Casa Loma. Ultimately, the mutants would betray us and decamp for Lotusland. But......

A new free service called Operation Red Nose launches tomorrow that provides volunteer designated drivers to get drunks and their cars home safely. The service already runs in places like Sudbury and Aurora, and now festive partygoers in the Distillery District can try it out this Wednesday, December 12 to Saturday, December 15. The program is fairly flexible since drivers can request service as often as necessary to get from one place to the......

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. Mississauga scores a little slice of cinema history in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. From lame futuristic thrillers to Oscar-nominated period......

Reel Toronto is a look at Toronto's illustrious film history, during which our fair city has represented just about everywhere on earth. Yes, we're proud of our chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow––heck, Toronto even plays itself, every now and then. Even the legendary Elwood Blues cannot distract from the glaring sight of CBC Headquarters. There are a zillion reasons why Blues Brothers 2000 is not as good a......

Contributor Tony Makepeace is taking us for some spins around our city with his fantastic VR panoramas. You can look up, down, side to side, in and out—pretty much every direction but back at yourself, which would be kind of creepy. Say hello to Panoramaist: the Toronto shoe-gazer's worst enemy. Click the preview image above to launch the QuickTime VR panorama in a separate full-screen browser window. Panoramaist is best viewed on a fast computer.......

Beyond the month of February, it is not often that Torontonians have a public opportunity to celebrate their city’s black legacy. But they’ll get one this weekend at the 15th annual Marcus Garvey Celebrations. The celebrations, which honour the iconic Jamaican American revolutionary, will this year also pay tribute to Torontonians Lucie and Thornton Blackburn in commemoration of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in Ontario. The Blackburns were African American......

Though it is a rare sighting in Toronto, the luminous body pictured on the left is not Joel Black’s UFO. It’s a chandelier by award-winning glass sculptor Dale Chihuly. Originally from Tacoma, Washington, Chihuly is a highly prolific artist known for massive architectural installations, some of which exceed nine metres in length. Chihuly’s works are found in over 200 museum exhibitions around the world including in the Distillery District’s Sandra Ainsley Gallery, where his motley......

This summer, Toronto has offered up a multitude of ways to eat healthy. Between the new farmer’s markets and events such as Tasty Thursdays and today’s Street Treats Fair at Nathan Philips Square, fresh, local, healthy food is available all over the city. But eating healthy is only part of the equation when it comes to your total wellbeing. True, the summer months are usually a lower stress, more casual, care-free time for most people,......

The CN Tower isn't the only building this week to get a rainbow makeover (just in time for Pride Week, we might add). The latest skyscraper to adopt what seems to be an approaching fad is the almost-complete Met Condos at Yonge and Carlton Streets. The cylindrical cornice was lit for the first time tonight with computer-controlled LED panels, similar to those now being tested at the CN Tower. For now, the Met simply......

Ever wanted to know what goes on in the kitchens at the Royal York Hotel? Or see if the interior of the Gooderham Flatiron Building is as cool as its exterior? Or finally know what’s in that loft above the Pure Spirits building at the Distillery District? Doors Open Toronto 2007 will allow you to do all that—for free! 150 buildings across the city will allow you free access on May 26 and 27 in......

If the premise of the headline is appealing to you, you should probably be coming out for the Toronto The Good party on Tuesday night. Spacing Magazine, E.R.A. Architects, [murmur], the Toronto Society of Architects, and Wireless Toronto have teamed up for the third annual TTG party to celebrate the Festival of Architecture and Design. We went to the 2006 edition, and it was the single most fun event we attended all of last......

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! What can we say? We're suckers for photographs of old signs, hand-painted lettering, and other typographic ephemera. But that's only part of the reason we were drawn to this photo by Torontoist Flickr pool member Cameron Laird. As Cameron......

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! The Distillery District is a very popular destination for this city's photographers. It was the setting for this striking image by Torontoist Flickr pool member ~EvidencE~ (Michael Quigg). There's something about the way the bricks look in the far-off......

A conference about culture-led regeneration in Toronto headed up by independent non-profit real-estate developer Artscape took place yesterday at the Joseph Workman theatre at the Queen Street CAMH. In recent days, the unpopular OMB ruling to demolish the historic Abell Street building and its 80 live-work studios has crystallized the dire need to improve methods of city planning for many citizens. This has left many people asking, how do we go forward and make things......

Last Thursday's 20th Anniversary bash for Artscape was a who's-who of Toronto arts philanthropy: the guest list boasted big names from around the city like Councillors Joe Mihevc and Gord Perks, Toronto Arts Council Executive Director Claire Hopkinson, Poet Laureate Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, and more. It was an evening of being seen, sampling a whirlwind of savoury hors d'oeuvres and trading congratulatory speeches with some of Toronto's most influential arts personalities. Artscape can......

How cool would it be if you could design a Toronto city street from scratch, top to bottom? How wide would it be? How many lanes? Would it have a streetcar? A bike lane? Would the buildings along it be residential, retail, or mixed? Last Thursday night, a group of random citizens joined city councillor Pam McConnell and other TTC and city officials for an evening (hosted by the West Don Lands Committee and the......

Whether you're Scottish or not, it's always fun to celebrate Robbie Burns Day on January 25th. The day is to celebrate the life and death of Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland who wrote such ditties as Auld Lang Syne and Comin' Thro' the Rye, the poem which is said to have inspired J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. He is also known for drinking a lot and womanizing even more, and......

Then you'll love Lake Ontario Park! At least, that would seem to be a reasonable assumption. However, if you're looking for more reassurance (recommended), the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (or, NAMBLA) is hosting a public forum on their plans for "Lake Ontario Park," which is to be "one of Toronto's great new park spaces and a defining destination for the city," running from the Portlands (Cherry St. south of the Distillery District) in the west......

Here at Torontoist, it is no secret that we love trains. A lot. This is why we are so excited that tomorrow evening, a super trippy lit-up train will roll into the Distillery District at 8:15 PM. The Canadian Holiday Train embarked on its two-week journey across the north on the first of this month and will be stopping in our fair city tomorrow evening, raising money and collecting food donations for Toronto's local......

Sheri Wildhagen and David Greig's Wildhagen Hats is Queen Street's newest gem, occupying the second floor of 575 Queen St. W for just over three weeks. Featuring dozens of cute and stylish women's hats, the store above Mokuba is the pair's second Toronto retail venture after their Distillery District location. The 20's-era retro designs mixed with the contemporary materials make for very PoMo accessories. Check out the website for an in-depth look at the......