We managed to see Cloverfield a few weeks ago, and with the release of Diary of the Dead (above) this week, we have to say it's rather timely to discuss our opinion of it. As tired as this quote is, there's really no better way to describe Cloverfield than to take from Macbeth's famous soliloquy: "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." It's particularly relevant because Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead are similar......

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Toronto Japanese Short Film Festival opens its doors tonight and runs until Sunday at the Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Avenue). The theme of this year’s festival is “Life is short, work hard!” and is explored throughout the festival’s programming, beginning tonight at 6.30 p.m. with the Momo (Japanese for “peach”) program. The program begins with a couple of hilarious shorts from Japanese comedy duo the Rahmens, The Japanese......

Have you entered our Hot Rod competition yet, readers? It's still running. You probably should enter, as it’s the most exciting film you could see this week, in our humble opinion. We really like Andy Samberg, you see. It’s so rarely worth struggling through an episode of Saturday Night Live just to see him (he’s so often wasted) but Hot Rod could be good! It really could! Well, alright, maybe you have a stranger......

Ah, CINSSU, how we love thee. U of T's Cinema Studies Student Union's free screenings have been a staple of Mathew Kumar's weekly Film Friday posts...and, uh, our hearts. Now, CINSSU has graced us with 20 passes (each of which admits two people) to give away to Torontoist readers for a special advance screening of Andy Samberg's new film Hot Rod. Andy Samberg is awesome (see: The Lonely Island), so we're actually looking forward......

What if by chewing gum you could eliminate your body odor, cure yourself of cancer and take pictures with your eyes? You’d do it, wouldn’t you? Of course there may be a few side effects, but you don’t need to worry about that now, do you? Open your mouth and say ah! In writer and director Jim Munroe’s first feature, Infest Wisely, a chewable nanotechnology gives people who gnaw on the tech some amazing......

David Lynch, man! David Lynch, man! Does whatever David Lynch can! Spins a tale, any size, Confuses viewers, just like flies! Look out! Here comes David Lynch, man! Is he strong? Listen bud — He's got radioactive blood. Actually, wait, that last bit might not be true, but for some reason we keep thinking of that TV theme...no idea why. This week people are going crazy in Toronto queuing up to see the latest massive......

If you aren't all Hot Docced out yet, there's still plenty of fantastic non-fiction flicks to see (including City Idol, of course). Comrades in Dreams, a film about independent cinema owners around the world has been building up great word of mouth (today at 4:30 p.m. at Innis Town Hall). Tonight, drink in the first screening of Milk in the Land (Innis at 9:45 p.m.), a doc about how the world got hooked on......

This year, Hot Docs honours Toronto-based film maker Kevin McMahon with its Focus On retrospective. McMahon, whose films are noted for being playfully intellectual, accepts the accolade in that same spirit. "Geoff Pevere said to me, 'a retrospective—now you have to die.'" says the director, "So I'm focusing on the mid-career part." McMahon first came to prominence in 1991 with the The Falls—which wove Niagara Fall's kitsch history with the reality that the river had......

The University of Toronto really seems to be getting as much as it can out of its relationship with Atom Egoyan. The Canadian film auteur, currently in the first year of his three-year term as the Dean's Distinguished Visitor in Theatre, Film, Music and Visual Arts, will be giving a free lecture at Innis Town Hall tonight (Wednesday, April 11) where he will screen a selection of his short films and discuss "the appeals and......

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......

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! Well, we think he’s scary looking, anyway. To think he was in 28 Days Later...playing a human! The Wind that Shakes the Barley, which stars the aforementioned Murphy, has done......

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......

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,......

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......

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,......

The word on the street is that the hottest ticket in town is The American Astronaut, screening tonight at Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex) as part of U of T Cinema Studies Student Union’s Free Friday Film. Screening in 35mm, this black and white sci-fi western rock opera is “the best thing ever” according to Todd Brown from Twitch Film. If you don’t think your hands are suitably insulated to hold the hottest ticket in......

How unusual! Not a lot of festivals this week. Just the Indie Can Film Festival this weekend, and the Toronto Arab Film Festival starting on Wednesday. Of course, Cinematheque Ontario continues with their exhaustive Roberto Rossellini retrospective and the Toronto premiere of the acclaimed Au-Dela De La Haine (given glowing reviews in both Eye and Now) but our pick of the week has to be tomorrow afternoon’s matinee, Night of the Hunter. Robert Mitchum is......

Torontoist already has a documented history on disliking Death of a President (including arguing with a FIPRESCI jury member about it) and we don’t really need to go into it again, so let’s hear what the critics have to say. Eye’s Liz Clayton gives it three stars, but doesn’t seem that enthused; “ultimately doesn't insinuate anything more creepy and despairing than what turns up in the real news every day”, while NOW’s Cameron Bailey finds......

You may wish to go to the cinema, but nothing you saw in the Film Friday really tickled your fancy. You may wish to go to the cinema, but you don't actually want to spend money to do it. Or, perhaps, you may wish to go to the cinema, but you actually want to go and see something genuinely good. Starting tonight with The Long Goodbye. Thank goodness, then, for Free Friday Films, held by......

Well, not even a week until the Film Festival is left, and frankly, Torontoist is ever so slightly… No, scratch that, we’re utterly crapping our pants over the enormity of trying to cover the world’s largest film festival. We’re only little! Both Eye and Now have already started their festival buzz machines, um, buzzing – Now have taken the choice of starting their capsule review stuffed film fest preview a week in advance (we guess......

Oh man! This week’s big news in films comes from a crazy place called Vancouver??? We know! Torontoist have never heard of it either, but apparently it’s in Canada! Wild! So anyway, it’s clearly going to be an exciting place to be come September, as the famous for being terrible German director Uwe Boll wants to have a fight with YOU. Yes, you! As long as in the year of 2005 you’ve written two articles......

Torontoist has mentioned his love for green roofs before so we're happy that Jane Rabinowicz, who helps run Santropol Roulant, a Montreal community group that organizes rooftop gardens, bike workshops and meals on wheels programs, will be lecturing tomorrow night 7:15 at Innis Town Hall. She'll be joined by members of Foodshare, the Toronto Food Policy Council and others. Thanks Spacing Wire for the tip.......

It's been nearly a week since the Oscars, so the question is, have you supported those poor souls in Hollywood by going to the cinema yet? Don't you understand that by watching a DVD you're probably supporting terrorism, or something, and just not getting the film experience you deserve? Yes, you'd be a right idiot to watch films on anything but the big screen. Which might beg the question why they now rush DVDs out......

The Oscars are next weekend! And much like the fact that most people will skim over, or simply ignore the categories that don’t interest them, Torontoist is going to have to admit defeat to mentioning every single film out each week, particularly on a week like this one, with something like 12 new releases in the city this week. We mean, honestly. Some of it just isn’t worth reporting. Does anyone need to be told......

The University Of Toronto Cinema Studies Student Union (CINSSU) screened Clement Virgo's Lie With Me last night, and will entertain a discussion with the filmmaker at Innis Town Hall (room 222) tonight, along with his wife, who wrote the novella on which the film is based. Clips will be shown, and Professor Bart Testa will moderate. And space is limited, so please rsvp.......

- The NFB's Citizen Shift is presenting a screening and discussion night across the country, on the theme of measuring security measures. Tonight's TO screening is at Innis Town Hall. - Amoebacorp is looking for a senior graphic designer. To get the job you must jump through flaming hoops, or just fill out their quirky questionnaire. - CBC News is reporting that 70% of TTC drivers have been assaulted at least once. - Not......

When a movie festival runs for five days and shows over 230 films, calling it 'short' seems a little misleading. But the organizers of the World Wide Short Film Festival have decided to go ahead and use the 'short' qualifer to describe the bigtime, 11-years and counting event. Starting tonight until this Sunday, June 14-19, films like Taika Waititi's "Sons of War," Craig Goodwill's "My Own Revolution," Jeff Moneo's "Plastic Bitch," Monica Rho's "Stationary," Brian......

Augusten Burroughs, former adman with credit card debts, and present essayist, speaks at Innis Town Hall at 8pm, as part of This Is Not a Reading Series. Burroughs is frequently compared to that other gay essayist, David Sedaris, but isn't bothered by the comparison. You can listen to clips from his latest, Magical Thinking, on his site. Torontoist is keen on any literature that involves TANG, a beverage on which Burroughs has been known to......