Results tagged “johnharkness”

Hello! Although you probably didn’t notice, this Torontoist writer was away for a week, and as a result we failed to do something very important. Specifically, to congratulate Norm Wilner on becoming NOW’s senior film critic. We're not doing this just because we know Wilner keeps an eye on Torontoist to see if he gets a mention, but because we like his work so much that we can’t think of anyone better to step into John Harkness’s (non-literal) shoes.

Really not much on in terms of Christmas films this week. The Bloor is showing National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (which is about as far away from a Christmas classic as we can imagine without being a film about aliens from another galaxy that have never heard of Christmas) and White Christmas. We’re still happy to recommend Enchanted (we just saw it, and it was absolutely lovely), but for those of you who want to see something specifically related to Christmas, the Revue has come to your rescue with the help of Dion Conflict, who will be showing Christmas Kitsch-A-Roo at 9:30 p.m. If you’re familiar with Dion Conflict’s Hunk-A-Junk screenings, you’ll know what to expect—a variety of utterly bizarre found shorts—but they’re normally excellent fun and the Christmas theme means some really weird stuff is going to show up. Hopefully he’ll be showing the legendary Santa Claus' Punch and Judy, which really has to be seen to be believed.

We’re going to take a break from our usual Torontoist style in this post because the passing of John Harkness, the film critic for Now magazine since its inception in 1981, is something that has particular importance for me. As the writer of Torontoist's weekly “Film Friday” column, which, as you know, very often quotes the reviews from local critics, I have probably quoted John Harkness more than anyone.

Last week, we were told off a bit in the comments for being "down" on everything. We thought we’d do our best to be really positive this week, and then we realised how lame it is to force it, you know? The great news is we don’t actually have to force it, as this week sees the release of spins a massively interesting narrative: the tale of Steve Wiebe trying to be recognized as the world champion at classic 80s arcade title Donkey Kong.

It’s not been a week since the Toronto International Film Festival left us, and this week’s new releases make it hard for us to move on despite a couple of TIFF premieres leading the way.

It’s always strange to write a Film Friday column in the week before the Toronto International Film Festival, since by this point it’s hard to think about anything else. We’ll be previewing the festival on Monday, so be sure to check back if you can’t think of anything else, either. In the meantime, have you had a chance to enter our Canadian Retrospective contest? You could win one Canadian Retrospective ticket package containing tickets for six screenings featuring nine Michel Brault films. It closes on Sunday!

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.

This week Torontoist decided to work out for itself exactly when The Simpsons was good. Because it’s just been so long, so depressingly long, since we’ve seen a episode that didn’t make us want to open a vein. Seriously. Using the powers of science (well, Wikipedia) we’ve decided it was good between seasons three and ten, peaking in (roughly) season seven.

Tut tut tut. We’re all very disappointed in you, John Krasinski, for your decision to star in License to Wed. Sure, you’ve been working so hard to build up your hipster cred—interviewing the Shins, playing on stage with Ben Gibbard, but I’m afraid we might have to revoke your hipster privileges.

Look out! Here comes David Lynch, man!

So there we were, all ready to write another post previewing the final weekend of the Sprockets International Film Festival for Children, when we realised that the film we wanted to bring everyone’s attention to, When the Show Tent Came To My Town, had already had all of its showings! Darn. So though we aren’t going to do a full review of the film, we’d just like to note that When the Show Tent Came To My Town is an absolutely brilliant Japanese-language film that deals with school bullying and friendships in an intelligent and moving way, and that if you get a chance to see it (even if you don’t have any kids) you should. It’s great.

So, although we’ve only just spent a whole post gushing about Sprockets, we can’t really forget about the other excellent stuff that’s going on this week. The Images Film Festival closes this weekend, and we’ve been told Live Images 4: Quasar, tonight at the Music Gallery (197 John) at 9:30 p.m. is the hot ticket, as it features “an army of modified 16mm projectors and a quadraphonic sound system to envelop the audience in a pulsating array of light and sound particles.” Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, IMAX!

Now here is an interesting thought, readers. Grindhouse, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ homage to classic trashy double bills comes out this week, and, if you want to see it, you have to see it in a multiplex, because not one of the independent cinemas here (or we imagine anywhere else) are showing it.

This week our attention is almost completely owned by Cinematheque Ontario’s offerings, even with the thought of Christina Ricci chained to a radiator in Black Snake Moan grasping at us.

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.

After what feels like a surprisingly long gap of film festivals in the city, they’re back, with The Prisoner Justice Film Festival now running and Ozflix starting tonight with screenings of Ten Canoes and 2:37; We pretty much hated 2:37, though (but we’ve heard good things about Ten Canoes). Full details can be found at their respective websites.

So it’s Christmas next week, which means, as per usual, not very much going on in terms of independent cinema in Toronto but shed loads of films shoved out in the multiplexes to get that much sought after cash of people who want to sit in a darkened room. Ironically, of course, all of the festive films came out in about September so they could bleed as much cash out of them as possible, so there’s really very little Christmassy (or Chanukahey, or Kwanzaey) on, unless we count the Bloor showing It's A Wonderful Life at 7 pm tonight (it’s a free screening for members, too).

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.”

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.

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.

Let it never be said that Torontoist’s fearless Film Friday column doesn’t use its peerless powers of precision to pick out the perfect film for your viewing pleasure! Yes, the other rags might have ignored it (probably no press screening) but this week’s pick above all others has to be Let’s Go To Prison, starring Toronto born Will Arnett (of Arrested Development) and directed by Mr. Show genius Bob Odenkirk, how could it possibly be anything other than completely excellent?

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 it more interesting to talk around the film rather than about it, finally admitting the film is “not paranoid enough to be really interesting”.

A brief aside; The London Film Festival is currently running and our sister site Londonist are covering it, and have already given a sterling review to one of our favourites from TIFF, Reprise. You might want to check it out.

Yeesh; another week, another pile of movies which were at the Toronto International Film Festival. Considering there are, oh, 32,064 or so films at each TIFF we should probably get over this as soon as possible, otherwise every week our column is going to sound the same.

We know, we know; you’re bloody sick of reading about films. But the frank fact is that films continue to be released, and, well, you might still want to go and see them in the next week. Quite a lot of stuff has come out, after all!

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!

Ahem. Yes, this week there are other films out than that film that we refuse to name in this post because we’re covering it enough already. There are plenty of other options, folks.

Ah, another week, another Film Friday. But wait! There’s something special this week to break up the monotony! An extra special review of the (heavily delayed) Pulse brought to us by our superhuman photographer and co-editor David Topping. What do you have to say about it, David?

A quick update to an old story before we get onto all the new releases that are going to make us as depressed as ever – Remember You, Me and Dupree? We hypothesised that movie-execs came up with the title “while explaining what was going to happen during some sick, cocaine fuelled orgy”. Turns out we were right, as long as during the sick, cocaine fuelled orgy was to the tune of Steely Dan’s Cousin Dupree! Steely Dan have written an incredibly amusing letter to Luke Wilson to tell him to sort his little/bigger brother out. It reads like exactly the kind of rambling nonsense old rocker burnouts would write when annoyed/amused about possibly being ripped off, and is almost completely unquotable, so you should just read it all.

We’re all still busy basking in the warm glow of the revelation that the Royal, at least, will live again, and we know we mentioned it last week, but Superman Returns has been getting good enough word of mouth it might actually be worth checking out. Eye’s Jason Anderson claims “it's the rare blockbuster that lives up to advance hype”, but thankfully, good old trustworthy John Harkness of NOW gives it a kicking because the cast are too young and “here's still the big problem with all Superman stories, which is that he's kind of dull”.