Results tagged “glennsumi”

They’re trying to hypnotise us, people. They’re trying to brainwash us and subdue us by bombarding the television with adverts and by using the media to confuse us, and they’ll never stop… Until Superbad is the number one movie this weekend.

Going to see all three films in Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher Trilogy, one after another in one night, is one of this Torontoist’s most treasured cinema memories, and although we did it at 2005’s Toronto International Film Festival, anyone who missed that chance can now do it at the Brunswick Theatre (296 Brunswick Avenue) tonight and tomorrow night starting 7 p.m. It’s $10 for one film or $15 for the lot, so obviously you should see all three.

So, this week's most noteworthy film featuring a horrible zombie is obviously Fido, considering it’s Canadian and stuff, but we’ve talked about it more than enough, so in this week’s column we’ll make do with the next best thing—the horrible freaky visage of Cillian Murphy!

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 need some extra sauce packets' guess what? You’re getting twenty sauce packets because your face will punch him in the brain."

Without a doubt, this week we’d be letting cheapskate cinephiles down by failing to mention the CNISSU’s Free Friday Film of the week, which isn’t just one but three, starting at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex) with the remarkably hard-to-see The Monster Squad, followed by Toronto classic The Brood, and finished off with the excellent blaxploitation nonsense The Human Tornado, starring, of course, Dolemite (Rudy Ray Moore). Check out the trailer, which is pretty much NSFW –- he uses an earthquake to make his milkshake!

Ghost Rider’s head is a flaming skull. Can’t get much cooler than that, eh? And yet, from trailers you’d barely know that Ghost Rider is a cinematic version of a Marvel comic book (with, as per usual, a ridiculously complex history) that stars a biker whose head is flaming skull.

Torontoist has never seen an Alejandro Jodorowsky film! Should we be ashamed to admit that? Possibly. We are, however, not ashamed to say we love that crazy guy anyway. Who couldn’t love a guy who killed three hundred rabbits with karate chops for a scene in his most well known work (and occasionally screened by Reg Hartt’s Cineforum) El Topo? Torontoist suspect we’ve lost everyone who likes rabbits. Okay then, how about his plan to film Dune with Salvador Dali as the Emperor? No? Come on! Be honest. Lynch’s version was rubbish.

Our title this week of course refers to Catch and Release, a film which has been so endlessly trailered on TV (and we don’t even watch that much) that Torontoist feels like we could recite the whole bloody film right now. “The man I was going to marry is dead! I’m sitting wearing my wedding dress and moping – it’s a girl thing! Kevin Smith is fat and talentless, but friends with Ben Affleck so he can be in this! I’ve fallen in love with you now, sexy and stereotypical unshaven male lead! The End!”

In the post-Christmas period, there aren’t usually a lot of films released, and this year it's no different; really we’re all just twiddling our thumbs waiting for the new Cinematheque season, right?

Can you believe that Unaccompanied Minors features three out of five Kids in the Hall? Neither can we! Or that the film is directed by Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig and features lots of other excellent folks such as The Office’s BJ Novak. We can still believe it sucks, though. Which, apparently, it does. Called “a generally lousy movie” by Now’s Deirdre Swain, she notes, oddly, that Tyler James Williams is a “particular standout, as uncomfortable as it is to see the black kid turned into a clown.”

Let’s start with the film festivals for a change, huh? Most intriguing has to be the Toronto International Latin Film Festival, because it’s… on at the Royal Cinema? Que El?

Well, you know, it can’t all be exciting glamorous press conferences for internationally famous film festivals where they reveal huge megastars are going to be attending, can it? Yeah, sometimes we have to cover the films that are coming out in cinemas now. And some weeks they’re all really boring.

M. Night Shyamalan sure has painted himself into a corner, when you think about it. When we first heard about Lady in the Water we imagine we reacted the same way everyone else did, buy sighing “I wonder what the twist is.” Eye Weekly’s Adam Nayman has actually given the film some hefty (spoiler free) coverage, with a lovely little article about Shyamalan’s possible credibility implosion with the release of Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger’s The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale, which, by the sounds of things, is even more damaging than how awful Lady in the Water is.

Well, with the first match of the World Cup watched and a fresh cup of coffee brewed, looks like it’s time for Torontoist to file another one of it’s Film Friday reports. But with the whole world going footy mad (Rightly so – did you see Lahm’s goal at six minutes? What about Frings' finisher? But we digress) what on earth is there to get excited about in the world of film?

So, another film Friday reached and it is, ahem, a bit of a dull week with everyone obsessed with Cannes. And we’ve shot ourselves in the foot a bit perhaps by having already got a bit too excited about the new Cinematheque Ontario season here. So what is there to talk about, eh?

Well, though he’s been away, this Torontoist certainly missed Toronto. And his feet are a size 11 Ron but nice try. But honestly folks, what has happened to our town since we’ve been gone? The Royal, the Revue, and the Kingsway closing down? Are you kidding us? This is a serious problem. Not only is it probably going to kill off (or at least make it difficult for) many of the small festivals that make this a continually interesting city to live in as a movie goer, it’s also going to basically make Kung Fu Friday, which was moved from the Royal to the Revue a while back and recently has been very well attended, completely unviable.

This week the Hot Docs box office has opened, and with luck we’ll soon have some early coverage of our picks of the festival to help you with your ticket buying decisions, advising you to find 37 uses for a dead sheep, perhaps?

The only major release particularly worth recounting this week is the Wachowski brothers' V for Vendetta, and though it comes so shortly (you’d almost think they planned it!) after Natalie Portman’s sweary rap from Saturday Night Live went viral, the current reaction seems to be that even dudes who like bald chicks with dodgy English accents should just save up for a trip to Camden instead. The New York Times has a particularly nice piece on the beef Alan Moore, the author of the original graphic novel, has with the film, and it should clearly remind everyone to run out and buy everything he’s ever written, because it’s all the brilliant work of a genius.

Sometimes, on Torontoist’s laziest days, it will drag itself out of bed just long enough to flick on the BBC’s 6 music internet radio service, the BBC’s gift to the world’s fans of British indie music, to listen to the 6 music breakfast show, which for ages was almost always preceded by a Don Letts introduction, (if it wasn’t someone doing a bad impression of David Bowie doing the intro.) Which, to be honest, is probably the most exposure Torontoist has had to Don Letts.

The big film this week is Terence Malik’s The New World, and by big, of course, we mean big (and by that we mean epic). Though, the full theatrical release does shed 15 minutes from it’s previous limited release for Oscar consideration. The majority of the publicity centres on 15 year old Q’Orianka Kilcher, who plays Pocahontas in the feature, because Terence Malik is a legendary recluse, and neither of the male stars (Colin Farrell nor Christian Bale) are quite as interesting to the media as a young, female film star on the wrong side of the age of consent. Now’s Josh Harkness comments “this is as beautiful as anything you’ll see in theatres this year, and if you appreciate cinematography, the big screen is the way to go” but is less convinced of the film’s overall quality. Hometown boy Christopher Plummer stars as Captain Christopher Newport.

with a stunning score by Leonard Bernstein, marked the beginning of Stephen Sondheim's career as a Broadway lyricist known for his clever, catchy rhymes ("Everything free in America/For a small fee in America..."). In this New York, gang warfare is balletic, accompanied by Bernstein's haunting tunes, and grande jetés have never looked more macho. We dare you to walk away without imitating that signature whistle and finger-snap.

Here’s are the questions for the inquest: Did the avian flu fell Bat Boy? Or was it overly-harsh critics in the conservatory with the candlestick? Or was it just a bad show?