It's acclaimed, it's award-winning, it's drenched in blood, and it isn't modern art. It's Pakistan's first gore film and it's freaking out the squares in Toronto this week. Hell's Ground (Zibahkhana in Urdu) is June's selection for Rue Morgue Magazine's Cinemacabre series. The monthly event, held on the third Thursday of the month at the Bloor Cinema, features obscure horror films, both old and new, as well as the occasional premiere. Omar Khan's 2007......

Federal finance minister Jim Flaherty emphasized that today's budget will be "frugal" in anticipation of an economic slowdown in the coming year. To demonstrate the concept in symbolic terms, Flaherty had an old pair of shoes resoled instead of buying the pair of new shoes traditionally associated with budgets. Flaherty also announced that he's saving money on undergarments by going "commando," although to be fair that gesture is more about sexiness than symbolism. A......

TTC "U-pass" close to passing for students, possibly also hotel workers. If the scheme passes, the TTC will suddenly be crowded once again, rendering all those recent fleet upgrades essentially moot. Hooray for public transit! Jack Layton calls for Family Day to be named a national holiday. He then asked for a pony and all the candy he could ever eat ever, on the basis that it was about as likely that Stephen Harper would......

Today we celebrate Ontario's first ever Family Day. Banks and government offices are closed, but many malls and stores are open for last-minute Family Day shopping. As reported by the Sun, the Fraser Institute released its 2008 rankings of Ontario elementary schools, with most schools in the GTA faring reasonably well. If you have stupid kids, you can use the report to find a lousy school to send them to so people won't blame......

The annual Polar Bear Dip is a success, raising $59,000 for World Vision Canada. This follows Toronto's proud tradition of really, really bloody stupid stunts for charity, like the Great Canadian Tack-Eating Contest of 1958 and the Who Needs A Parachute? First Canadian Place Jump-Off of 1971. Oscar Peterson memorial concert to be held next week. The concert will feature speeches by Bob Rae and Michaëlle Jean. Because when you think jazz, you think......

Happy New Year! Thousands of GTA-ians jammed Nathan Phillips Square to watch CIty TV's tiny perfect anchorman Gord Martineau host his 75th New Year's bash. Thousands more did not. Toronto also rang in the new year with another snowstorm, which is expected to continue all day and inflict up to 10 cm of inconvenience on the city. Stupid climate change. Today the GST drops by a penny to 5%, meaning that the shwarma you......

Canada wins the Spengler Cup. If you are like us, your first reaction to this news was, "What the hell is the Spengler Cup?" It very probably has nothing to do with famed Ghostbuster Egon Spengler (played by great expat Canadian Harold Ramis), so it can't be that good. Give us a moment while we do some research... huh. Apparently it's a professional hockey tournament. Who knew. Hundreds of people attend memorial for Benazir......

Former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto was assassinated yesterday in a bloody suicide attack that killled at least 20 other other people. Anyone thinking that this news isn't sufficiently Toronto-centric should hope that the destabilization of this nuclear-armed extremist-incubator state doesn't have much direct impact on Toronto, because if it does it's likely to be in ways that are not at all fun. Climate change remains in the news––Environment Canada have declared the dramatic and......

Toronto declares first cold alert of the winter season. John Baird immediately points out how the existence of cold weather might mean that we're all wrong about global warming. Report calls for expansion of Ontario's small claims court system. Many lawyers were interviewed about their opinion on the best way to increase access to justice in Canada—and then the report writers wrote down the exact opposite of what they said. (The joke here is that......

City Council considers removing the downspout removal subsidy. This news item brought to you by The Council For Reminding You That Municipal Politics Are Often Incredibly Dull Even If They're Necessary. (The group promises to come up with a better, catchier acronym as soon as possible.) RCMP to review Taser policy after the death of Robert Dziekanski. See, they're sorry, but they're not quite so sorry as to, for example, charge their officers with any......

Ontario's conservation officer suggests the unbanning of clotheslines. Did anybody even know that clotheslines were banned in certain parts of Ontario? Why would anybody ban a clothesline anyway? Clothes flapping in the wind are aesthetically pleasing! Pakistani police detain Benazir Bhutto in her home. Officials denied that this was a house arrest, claiming instead that they were just vigorously enforcing Pakistan's anti-trespassing laws, and that the five thousand of her supporters that they rounded up......

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has announced that the rich pay the lowest tax rates of all income groups. Heather Reisman, Jim Balsillie, and everyone who lives on the Bridle Path celebrated this by heating their gigantic mansions with a fireplace full of money and cackling. Maniacally. Dalton McGuinty is adding to economic fear-mongering by claiming that the rising loonie is hurting Ontario’s economy and that interest rates should be lowered. Meanwhile on......

For decades, Toronto has been one of Hollywood's most versatile back lots. Along the way, every specialized branch of the multi-headed film and television biz has sprouted up in the city. Camera, electrical, post production, locations and ... plane crash and natural disaster recreations? Yep, TV series like Discovery Channel's Mayday recreate the drama and the horror of famous plane crashes. Art director Adrian Greenlaw and his crew of disaster dressing specialists range across......

So, things are rapidly going to hell in Pakistan. Somewhere between one and two thousand people have been "detained" (i.e., dragged away) since Saturday and all private television stations shut down and the country is about ninety percent of the way to pure chaos, which, given that they have nuclear weapons, is bad. Of course, the White House managed to find the good in the situation, namely that Iraq could be as bad as Pakistan.......

Toronto is apparently "about to go broke." Wait, what? Today, VIA stands for Very Irritated Aboriginals. A First Nations protest over land is currently affecting all of VIA Rail between Montreal and Toronto. The move, according to 680 News, was to "protest against a developer's plans to build condominiums using material from a quarry on land they claim is theirs." Since the entire country is pretty much native land (it even says it right......

On Sunday night, a small motorcade of revellers snaked down the Danforth, whistling and beeping and waving what looked like the Japanese flag with a green background. Turns out it was the flag of Bangladesh and the occasion was the Bangladeshi team's triumph over Bermuda in Cricket World Cup. While most sports fans are fixated on basketball's Final Four, the rest of the commonwealth is feverishly following cricket's Super 8. The unsolved murder of......

"I’m going to Pakistan in November to share Q&A with young theatre artists during a festival celebrating Punjabi culture. I arrive on November 17. Look for more posts then." —Darren O’Donnell Thus begins Darren's account of his time spent presenting his interactive theatre work in rural Pakistan and in Mumbai, India. Video Show for the People of Pakistan and India is a collection of footage from his journey, and will be shown at The Centre......

New allegations of insider trading involving a Toronto asset management firm leveled against Conrad Black. At this rate, in about two years it will turn out that Conrad Black's entire financial career was actually illegal. A Missouri mother is desperately trying to keep her daughter from moving to Toronto to marry a serial bigamist. The real story here is that you should click on the link and look at this guy. He is 70......

In the post-Christmas period, there aren’t usually a lot of films released, and this year it's no different; really we’re all just twiddling our thumbs waiting for the new Cinematheque season, right? Well, there’s still some things of note this week; this Wednesday the first Doc Soup screening of the year hits, with a screening of Jesus Camp at the Bloor (506 Bloor W.) at both 6:30 & 9:15 pm. The filmmakers will be present......

What’s that you say? We didn’t manage to give you any picks for this Monday? Ahem, well, oops? Let’s pretend there wasn’t anything really on, eh? Not that we were too busy going to screenings to write about them or something. But if we were too busy going to see screenings instead, here are a few things we might have learned. 1) Hot Docs screen just slightly too many adverts before the film starts, and......

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word 'Lahore'? Is it a French prostitute? Or the second largest city in Pakistan? That issue is currently up for debate in the vibrant city of Markham. The prospect of naming a street after the city of Lahore, Pakistan has certain Markhamomians concerned. While some believe Markham's sizeable Pakistani population warrants the street named after a Pakistani city, others think it is inappropriate......

En 2004, Marion Boyd, une ancienne procureure générale de l'Ontario, concluait dans son rapport sur le tribunal islamique, la charia, que les femmes musulmanes ontariennes devaient avoir les mêmes droits que les catholiques et les juives de la province et, par conséquent, avoir recours aux tribunaux islamiques en matière de droit de la famille. Cependant, plusieurs groupes s'y opposent farouchement. Des femmes musulmanes se prononcent contre parce qu'elles craignent des injustices comme celles subies par......