Feature-length movies that play at the Toronto International Film Festival can broadly be divided into a few categories: those that will be released to theatres within the following five months (i.e. Oscar season); those that will be released to theatres within the next six months to two years; those that skip theatres and, sooner or later, go straight to video; those that never have a life outside of the festival circuit and their region......

Canadians can no longer access Demonoid.com, the world's second-most popular BitTorrent tracker. According to a statement on Demonoid's website, legal action treatened by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has forced them to block connections from Canada. This can only be seen as a major victory for the CRIA. Thanks to them, it is no longer possible to download pirated music off the internet...unless, of course, you happen to live outside of Canada, or you......

No Film Friday today as we’re too busy with the festival, but we can let you know that this week sees releases of some pretty decent-sounding films: 3:10 to Yuma, Shoot ‘Em Up and Hatchet. Er, and also The Brothers Solomon, starring Will Arnett and directed by Bob Odenkirk but apparently dire. Let's Go To Prison wasn't great either. Sob. Today’s Reviews: Captain Mike Across America Captain Mike Across America is an interesting proposition:......

Out of respect for the funeral of Richard Bradshaw, the Toronto International Film Festival Group chose not to hold their traditional big final press conference in Nathan Phillips Square yesterday, and so with slightly less fanfare than usual we received a massive lump of press releases from the Festival announcing that they’ve announced absolutely everything about the festival there is to announce, pretty much. So what does that entail? Well, in the 32nd Toronto International......

If today’s column title gets Rachel Sweet’s Hairspray stuck in your head for the rest of the day, good! Because then we’ll have made our point that the version of Hairspray hitting this weekend isn’t as good as the John Waters original. Though the music not being as good is only part of it. There’s also the inherent irony about making a musical in which one of the central themes is integration through a......

Michael Moore’s much anticipated Sicko hits, and having seen it, we can say it’s not particularly essential for Canadian viewers to watch, unless you want to feel smug about our lovely health care system, or slightly surprised that it only takes an hour or so in London (Ontario) to be seen in an emergency room. Yes, the film is chock-a-block with anecdotal evidence, and it’s probably to the film’s fault that, as usual, Moore......

Ontario unveils greenhouse gas reduction targets. The plan reduces greenhouse emissions to six percent below 1990 levels by 2014. Not to be outdone, Alberta announced that next week they will release their plan, where they will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to ten percent below 1990 levels by 2257. The MuchMusic Video Awards happened over the weekend, and as usual it was a big fun music party. Torontoist recommends its own liveblogging of the event. Because......

ARR! Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End hits this week and as the third second sequel to hit this summer it’s got some stiff competition. Nice to see though that they’ve made sure it beats Spider-Man 3 in at least one respect, in that at 2 hours and 47 minutes long, it’s a good half hour longer. It’s nearly as long as Inland Empire (which is finished at the Royal now, so we......

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 elite of the documentary film world gathered this morning at Revival for a press conference announcing the lineup of this year's Hot Docs festival. It's a powerhouse program, which TVO's Rudy Buttingnol attributes to the filmmakers and the growing importance of the medium. "Documentaries are helping change the way people think," says Buttingnol, who will also receive the inaugural Outstanding Industry Achievement Award. "Just look at how governments around the world are now trying......

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place. SFist Tourist......

A busy day for Torontoist yesterday, though no parties; though the Star! TV Shmooze was taking place. We didn’t hear any gossip about it, but it did rain. So we imagine the gossip would be something like… Famous celebrities got a bit wet. Torontoist instead felt the hot tickets of the night were the screening of Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain, which featured members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, foley artists, a narrator and......

Photo courtesy of John Shearer/WireImage for Toronto International Film Festival Two Torontoist contributors, Rob Shostak and Mathew Kumar, covered last night's absolutely ridiculous evening at the Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan screening. Borat arrived to much fanfare on top of a wagon pulled by sluggish and reluctant 'Kazakhstani' women. And that was only the beginning. Shostak was inside the theatre, and has all the juicy details (Technical......

Well, with day one done and dusted, this morning perhaps many people will still be sleeping off the opening night party, but for others (not least the staff and volunteers) it been another early morning to get the festival up and running. This is the first full day of the festival and as such it’s heavy with films to join the rush queue for. Let’s see what we’d give that honor to. Visions 11:15am –......

As a grand finale for the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival, the Dave Brubeck Quartet performed an incredible set last night at Massey Hall. Although the group of four could have been called Dave Brubeck and the Geriatrics, these jazz cats were tighter than David Bowie's pants in Labyrinth. 85-year-old Brubeck was absolutely amazing. With Bobby Militello on alto sax/flute, Michael Moore on double bass (no, not THAT Michael Moore), and Randy Jones on drums, the......

Author William "Upski" Wimsatt lectures tonight at Harbourfront. Between his job as Director of the League of Independent Voters, Wimsatt has found time to write Bomb The Suburbs, the hip hop theory classic, No More Prisons, an examination of the American penal system, and How To Get Stupid White Men Out of Office - a Michael Moore-inspired treatise on marginalized voters. He's been touted by both Tupac and the Utne Reader too. Not a lightweight.......