Well, this is it: the last day of this year's Inside Out festival, and consequently, the last day of our extensive coverage. It's been a gay, gay blast, but some of us are about ready for a nap. If you haven't caught any screenings so far, this is your last chance for a whole year, and there are still a few cool things to catch. You'll be happy to know that seminal gay Aussie......

Inside Out film goers who had their hearts set on seeing With Gilbert and George, a documentary about the lives of the European "living sculpture" artists are in for something of a disappointment as the screening has been cancelled. In its place, the festival will be showing Shelter for a second time. If you can stand a complete change of mood, the film really is charming and worth a look. Another screening of interest......

It's closing weekend for Inside Out, but there are still a bunch of interesting films left to see. One of the most exciting screenings today is The Witnesses (pictured), the new film from acclaimed French writer-director André Téchiné, who also made the queer-themed The Wild Reeds. Set in and around Paris in 1984, the film follows a small and rather incestuous group of friends who all become affected by the onset of the AIDS......

It's a pretty quiet day at Inside Out, with only six screenings. Fans of European movies/men might take interest in Italy's Saturn in Opposition, and the artfag must-see of the day is definitely the doc Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff + Robert Mapplethorpe. If you're feeling in the mood for something South American, Argentina's La León (pictured) is the clear choice. Set in a small and remote rural community in......

Inside Out rages on. One of the biggest-name movies of the festival screens tonight: Paul Schrader's The Walker. The film stars Woody Harrelson as a "Walker," a well-to-do gay man who "walks" wealthy women around to society events their husbands are too busy for (interestingly enough, this "profession" also came up in Sunday's Savage Grace). These women include the always-fabulous Lily Tomlin and Lauren Bacall. But things get complicated when Harrelson's character gets drawn......

The long weekend may be over, but Inside Out is still going strong. Tonight the festival will be presenting its Centrepiece Gala: a screening of Australian gay surfer movie Newcastle. It seems worth noting that this is the second gay surfer movie of the festival, following the much-buzzed Shelter, which played last Friday. But despite obvious superficial similarities, the two films are actually quite different. Newcastle is about three brothers, for all of whom......

It's Victoria Day Monday, and what better way to celebrate that old queen's birthday than by watching a bunch of gay movies at Inside Out? Things kick off at noon with a gay daddy doc double-bill at the ROM. We didn't get a chance to check out Fatherhood Dreams, a Canadian film about four gay men who are all fathers in different ways, but we did see Daddy's Love, a film about a Norwegian......

The Inside Out festival continues today with ten different screenings. One of the more high-profile films in the festival is Savage Grace, the new film from Tom Kalin starring Julianne Moore. Kalin is probably best known for is 1992 film Swoon, based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder case. So it should come as no surprise that Savage Grace is based on the real life murder of Barbara Daly Baekeland by her son......

It's Day 3 at the excellently-programmed Inside Out festival. One of the more interesting films to catch this afternoon is It's Still Elementary: The Movie and the Movement (pictured) over at the National Film Board. It's actually a documentary about another documentary, 1996's It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School, a groundbreaking film that showed elementary school teachers discussing homosexuality with children. But don't worry if you haven't seen its predecessor: It's Still......

Officially, this is Day Two of the 18th annual Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, but it's the first fully programmed day, with 8 different screenings happening. And things are starting off with a bang! There are so many cool screenings going on today, you're actually spoiled for choice. The big ticket is undoubtedly Shelter (pictured), which has already generated a significant amount of buzz on the prissy, reactionary gay......

Renda Abdo knew that she'd have some explaining to do about calling her boutique nightclub, located in the north end of the Village, "Straight." The name was ambiguous. Was Straight exclusive to straights? (Imagine if "Gay" opened in the middle of club district.) Or did it mock them? Straight was a response, Abdo explains, to the attitude that the Village had become irrelevant, a view laid out in a front page Star article with......

Canada's first same-sex marriage was performed here, and according to 2006 census data released today, nearly a quarter of same-sex common law couples in Toronto have officially tied the knot. Strangely enough, hetero marriages haven't crumbled en masse since the unions became legal country-wide in 2005, nor have people started lobbying to marry their pets. Someone should tell the Americans. This is the first time that the question was asked on a census, with 7,465......

Lit lovers should head over to Church Street today for the Writing Outside The Margins festival of queer literature, the first of its kind in Toronto. The Gay Village stretch of Church Street will be closed from 11:00 a.m. to 7 p.m. to accommodate stands selling everything from children's books, fiction and poetry to sci-fi, erotica and comic arts. There will also be two stages for readings and performances, where you'll get to participate......

Today Masaryk-Cowan Park will host the third annual Parkdale Festival, rain or shine. Set to kick off at 12 p.m., the festival is going to have a smorgasbord of activities. Whether it be employment, food, shelter, or counselling, the festival's main goal is to promote awareness for a number of youth services within the city. Participating youth service organizations include: Smart Sckool, Soulpepper Theatre, P.E.A.C.E, Gay and Lesbian Youth Line, and many more. Combining entertainment......

Canadian Bar Association demands that Stephen Harper negotiate with the United States to return Omar Khadr to Canada. The country's largest legal organization (and Khadr's own American military lawyer, for that matter) states that Khadr will not get a fair trial in the United States, which is obvious. Also obvious: the likelihood of Harper doing exactly dick about it. Gay Nicaraguan man goes into hiding in Toronto after being denied refugee status. Which is......

Torontoist has had a long history of critiquing Tourism Toronto's lackluster ad campaigns. Remember Toronto Unlimited? We had a field day with that one. And those awful Live With Culture ads? Yuck. But it seems like the appointment of David Whitaker as Tourism Toronto's president back in March injected a little spirit into the agency. Earlier this week, they announced a new campaign targeting gay tourists from the States. The tagline? Toronto: As Gay......

We love giving away free stuff, and since it's Pride Week, why not go with a theme? Thanks to our friends at Morningstar Entertainment, we've got two Pride-related DVD prize packs to give away. Here's what's included in each: A story of two school pals ostracized by their friends and family, The Two of Us was once the most controversial film ever produced by the BBC. Causing an political uproar when first aired in......

This is Corky and the Juice Pigs performing their song "Eskimo." If you're not familiar with the song, or if you haven't heard it in a while, then Torontoist should warn you: this clip may be offensive to the Inuit, gays, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Ric Ocasek, seals, and anyone without a sense of humour. This comes up, not because Torontoist was jonesing for novelty songs from the mid-90's, but because we recently learned that......

It's the last day of Inside Out, and this afternoon, the gay and lesbian film fest presented a pretty exciting Q&A session with director Laurie Lynd. Lynd directed, among other things, gay-friendly fare like the film version of Torontoist-fave Daniel MacIvor's House as well as episodes of Queer As Folk, Degrassi: The Next Generation and Noah's Arc. But it was his latest project that brought him to the immediate attention of Inside Out. Lynd......

Only three days left in the 17th Annual Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival! Last night, Eleven Men Out screened at the Bader; an Icelandic comedy with a reasonably original premise: a soccer player named Ottar being interviewed by a reporter in the locker room after a game while the rest of his team is changing decides, for the benefit of appearing on the magazine's cover, to come out of the......

The 17th Annual Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival Continues! Last night, the festival presented its centrepiece gala screening at the Isabelle Bader Theatre of King and Clown (reviewed by Torontoist at last year's TIFF), a movie about a Korean monarch who falls in love with his cross-dressing jester that also happens to be the top-grossing Korean film of all time (OK, so at least it was until this happened). Meanwhile,......

“What’s going on this week in cinema, Torontoist?” you might be asking, as you normally would when faced with another Film Friday column. “Well,” we'll respond, “If you want to know what is hot, you only have to look at a couple of earlier posts this week.” We refer of course to our posts The Picture of Dorian's Gay (a great title for a post, if we don't say so ourselves) and DIY, Lo-Fi,......

The 17th Annual Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival had its official launch earlier this week at the Gladstone (following a recent fundraiser) where it announced its lineup to the public. The opening night gala will be the Canadian premiere of Duncan Roy's The Picture of Dorian Gray, a modern update of the classic Wilde novel starring teen dream David Gallagher as the amoral muse. Other gala screenings include 2005......

Inside Out is gearing up for its seventeenth annual celebration of Gay and Lesbian video and film, and they need your help to ensure another successful year. This Sunday, the festival will hold the fourth installment of Bar Bazaar, a fundraiser where you can mingle, nosh on homemade baked goods, listen to music from DJ Winnie and bid on an incredible list of items in a silent auction. Notable donations include a five-class pass from......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

With the end of the academic year looming, Three Ring Paper Productions and the Transgendered, Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay Association at York University (TBLGAY) invite you to put down your books on Wednesday evening and make your way to Study Hall: A Night of Queer Readings. The event features new and previously published works from authors Derek McCormack, Debra Anderson, R.M. Vaughan, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. The reading is organized by Debra Anderson, who is......

Hey, it's snowing. Crazy! A tangled web of relationship intrigue baffles the investigators of a Markham double homicide. After reading this article three times, I still can't figure out who was married to who and who was having what affairs... ...and on that note, Happy Valentine's Day. With a similarly macabre look at love, a late Neolithic couple found buried together outside of Mantua will not be separated because, well, they're just too adorable.......

Before embarking on your Nuit Blanche evening, take a few minutes to load up your iPod. Artist Lewis Kaye has put together a series of MP3s intended to act as your audio companion for the night. Each track is tailored to a specific Nuit Blanche event. Download the audio files here. In the second of this series, we've picked another five "must see" events -- this time from Nuit Blanche's Zone B. All these activities......

After a week of pridelicious events, it's now time to take over downtown Toronto, drink a lot of beer, make some noise, wear colourful threads.... wait, is this a post about The World Cup or Pride Toronto? Anyhow, Pride Toronto Weekend is finally here, and just like on St. Patrick's where everyone's Irish... everyone's Queer this weekend... There is so much to do and most of it is free. And since the weather seems......

San Francisco is proud host of a new reality show called "How to Get the Guy" that's unfortunately not a descendant of Will and Grace, Queer Eye, The L Word, American Idol etc. Also a biodefence lab is coming to the East Bay and SFist teaches wine pairing. Getting on the wrong train sucks. Getting on the wrong train and becoming the victim of what will later be described as a "stabbing spree" really sucks.......