Results tagged “kungfu”

It seems like ages ago that calling our fair city "Hollywood North" meant something. Blockbusters used to set up shop on a regular basis and you could stroll through the University of Toronto campus and see pylons, trucks, and signs for a film going by the rather odd name "Good Will Hunting."

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.

So we’ve already covered Who Killed The Electric Car? then. That’s good. Unfortunately, in the world of general release movies, there’s basically nothing happening, so…

news, we almost want to yell 'Terrible news, everyone!' Just to be contrary. And no, we're not talking about new episodes of Futurama on Comedy Central. This good news is far better than that - the Royal is going to continue being a theatre. Bought up for $2.3 million by Theatre D Digital, which currently operates the Regent Theatre on Mt. Pleasant, much like the Regent it will be used as a post-production facility during the day, and they will use the money from that to operate it as a movie theatre in the evening. We're told that whether it will remain a rep theatre is unclear - The Regent merely shows second-run movies at first-run prices.

Right. Well, first up, a quick reminder to you about the post which lies a bit below this one – the most pleasing way to say goodbye to the Revue and the Royal will be to check out tonight’s Kung Fu Friday at the Revue (Crippled Avengers, people! The Wu-Tang Clan like it! What’s stopping you?) And then checking out Dion Conflict’s Trailer Trash 2 at the Royal on Saturday. And then cry buckets of tears, probably. Torontoist expects to have a bit of a bubble at the end of the final Kung Fu Friday, anyway (hey. It means a lot to us.)

Crippled Avengers stars the Five Deadly Venoms, the heroes (and villains) of one of the most famous and popular Kung Fu films of all time (The Five Venoms). Torontoist almost can’t do the plot justice, but let’s just say it’s rip-roaring revenge flick with the Five Venoms each crippled (for some reason or other) before learning ‘differently-abled kung-fu’ to teach their crippler a lesson. A lesson they will learn through being beaten up with kung fu.

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?

So, did anyone see the article in today’s Eye about the imminent death of the Festival cinemas? A nice article reminding us that it’ll take someone with a good deal more money than business sense to save the Royal (at a cool $2.7 million) but it more timely in reminding us that while our cinemas might be dying, we at least still have the Toronto International Film Festival Group’s Cinematheque Ontario to keep us in going. It might be in the Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas West), admittedly not the most exciting of venues, but it might soon be one of our only choices to see some rarely shown films on the big screen.

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.

Well, it’s interesting to note in this week of HotDocs that our favourite film released this week in theatres is also a documentary – The Devil and Daniel Johnston. We happened to catch it at TIFF2005, and noted “The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a powerful documentary with no easy answers. While fans of his music will enjoy it more than those who have never heard of him, anyone who has ever felt life was pain will find meaning in this movie.” A view that we consider validated by the fact that NOW’s John Harkness spends most of his review complaining that he doesn’t ‘get’ Johnston’s music. Still 4 Ns, though!

When it comes down to it, we should all be glad Niagara Falls exists. Yes, it’s a gash in the landscape surrounded by tack, but on the other hand, it’s a guaranteed day you don’t have to look after your friends or relatives when they come to visit. Just put them on a bus and forget about them. The George F. Walker penned film, Niagara Motel could probably do some damage to this tourist trafficking, featuring Glaswegian (and Drew Carey renegade) Craig Ferguson as a drunken janitor, lamenting the death of his wife, who fell off the Maid in the Mist. Intriguingly, the film faces direct competition from Escape from Happiness, the George F. Walker penned play starting on Saturday at the Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst) that has far better reviews.

It's been nearly a week since the Oscars, so the question is, have ? 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 about two weeks after a film's release with a whole bunch of extras, eh?

We here at Torontoist thought we’d try out a new weekly feature listing the best (and worst) films to be hitting Toronto’s screens in the following week, as a city which features both multiplexes, second run theatres and blessed with several vintage single screen movie houses, there’s a lot that can be missed.

Kung Fu Fridays starts again tonight after a hiatus for the Toronto Film Festival, with a blistering October Schedule and a new location. Due to the (recently) traditional Royal Cinema being hired out regularly for festivals and so on this month, tonight the biweekly dose of Kung Fu action is being shown at the Revue Cinema at 400 Roncesvalles Ave (that’s 3 blocks south of Dundas West Station, for anyone unfamiliar with it). And tonight’s dose of Kung Fu action is a big draw for any of the crowd who caught the legendary Sammo Hung in SPL during the Toronto Film Festival – Kung Fu Master, directed by Wong Jing and with martial arts direction from Hung himself (also in a starring role, along with Jet freakin’ Li). The story is naturally going to be a pile of nonsense, but who cares when you can watch some of the legends of Hong Kong cinema kick seven bells out of each other with the raucous Kung Fu Friday audience? If you’ve never been to a show before tonight is the time to start.

The Toronto Film Festival is fully over and has been for nearly a week, with staff having made their way back from their temporary offices in hotels and malls, volunteers returned to their usual jobs or schools, and stars returning to… their lives of going to parties and hanging out with other stars (not a big change there, then). Now all the films are over and the red carpet has been rolled away, most of us are quite happy to forget about the festival for another year, and indeed, many of us got kind of tired of it by the end. So Torontoist is here to take a look at some reasons why we should still be in love with the Toronto Film Festival.

New contributor Mathew will be posting regular on all things TIFF. Here goes: