Happy New Year, film fans! Or, perhaps, not. For we’ve slammed like so much booze filled new year vomit upon the tarmac of the post-Christmas lull, in which basically nothing of interest is released in any format. Certainly this week fans of more high brow cinema will have to hang on like those last few drips of chunky bile saliva for Cinematheque Ontario’s winter programme, starting on January 13th, which we’ll probably talk about then,......

- That lumpy lothario Neil Strauss (or, He Who Suggests That He Seduced Britney Spears) is in town to chat about his new book on picking up, at Chapters Festival Hall (or, the Chapters on Richmond and John) tonight. - Interesting ideas were bounced around a humid tent at the Word on the Street blogging panel yesterday. Daily Dose's Sam has put up a pic." - Kim Jong doesn't have a Canadian passport.......

Two photos stand out in Irwin Oostindie’s exhibit Axis to Grind: Inside North Korea showing at Gallery 1313 until Feb. 27. In one, a soldier stands at attention, bayoneted rifle by his hands. This photo is what most of us think of when we think of Kim Jong Il’s ‘rogue state,’ a country with a Stalinist security apparatus and a Maoist cult of personality, arguably combining the two worst aspects of Communist ideology. But......