Results tagged “roythompsonhall”

Chances are, if you're a Kevin Smith fan, you've already heard about this one via your Jay and Silent Bob secret decoder ring. But for everyone else, say what you will about his movies, Smith is still Storytelling Champion of the World (or at least of the DGA) when it comes to riffing with a live audience. That’s why the Bloor Cinema is brilliant for cashing in on his insanely well-received Evening With DVD series (wherein Smith answers fanboy questions and tells tales about life, love, Prince, and anal fissures) by organizing a three-day Kevin Smith Fest (wherein each and every movie is followed by a Q+A with the Jersey boy himself).

What does a baby panda born in a Chinese zoo have to do with Torontonians? Absolutely nothing aside from a case of the awww's, and one of the things they tell you in J-school is that animal stories are money. This time, instead of looking across the Pacific pond for feel-good fuzzies, Torontoist only had to go as far as the man-made pond adjacent to St. Andrew station.

It’s the final day of the festival, which is always rather maudlin one—although for those of us who try to cover it, the festival is largely a far too hectic, busy period of time, once things start to slow down the sudden lack of pressure is terribly deflating. Never mind—we’ll have some wrap up coverage for you next week. Tonight’s closing gala is Emotional Arithmetic, reviewed by Jonathan Goldsbie at the very beginning of our TIFF 2007 coverage. He called it a “highly-polished drama” but noted that it “plays out exactly as one would expect and is only rarely revelatory.” Head along to Roy Thompson Hall tonight to catch your last glimpse of the glamour and pageantry of the festival.

It begins! Tonight the Toronto International Film Festival opens officially with Jeremy Podeswa’s Fugitive Pieces, so if you want to start soaking up the atmosphere of the festival head down to Roy Thompson Hall before 8 p.m.

What does it take to run one of the world's premiere film festivals? Lots of volunteers, of course! This week, the Toronto International Film Festival starts recruiting volunteers for the 2007 festival, a process that will continue throughout the summer. They're not only looking for people to help out with the theatres during the festival, but a variety of tasks in the weeks leading up to the fest. Whether you are a new or returning volunteer, you can become a volunteer at any of these sessions:

Once a month Torontoist would like to encourage you to drag yourself off the couch and across the room to that nice, comfy swivel chair in front of your computer, to experience something from the wonderful world of streaming. Anyone who's visited YouTube or eBaum's World knows how gratifying watching two Asian kids lipsynch to Jessica Simpson can be! So in the interest of expanding your horizons (or at least giving you some way to kill time at the office without actually having to do any work), we'll find some interesting, funny, or just plain stupid and entertaining way to amuse yourself with your computer (without the need for pornography).

4:45pm - Paperback Hero (Isabel Bader Theatre)

9:00pm - Exiled (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) - see our Day 7 coverage.

6:00pm – The Fountain (Visa Screening Room (Elgin))

9:00pm – The White Planet (Cumberland 2)

5:45pm – Programme 1 (Cumberland 3) – See our Short Cuts coverage. Featuring Ninth Street Chronicles and Patterns 2&3!

9:00pm – Rescue Dawn (Ryerson Theatre)

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.

We've finished up our TIFF Preview, so today we begin our daily coverage of the festival, beginning with this, our picks for the first day. Or as we should perhaps say, the first night, because the festival doesn’t really kick off until this evening, other than one screening (Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute, sneaking in early). It’s rather odd that the opening Gala isn’t literally the first film, but we guess that’s the way it is!

This year the Toronto International Film Festival features a mind-melting 352 films and over 500 guests from across the world. It’s no wonder, then, that not only is the press conference in which they announce the majority of these almost impossible to keep up with but that we’ve spent the last couple of hours just trying to of a way to approach this post to give you the maximum amount of information without overwhelming you. We could just start yelling stuff out that we learned today randomly, we guess. Did you know there are 12,855 registered volunteers for this year’s festival, and that for the sixth consecutive year their most popular name is Jennifer? (Sucks to be you, Jennys of the world)

Standing ovations all around yesterday evening as director Spike Lee addressed an appreciative crowd of university students at Roy Thompson Hall. Lee used the guest lecture to bash a familiar adversary in gangstaism.

Seminal New York writer and director Spike "It's Gotta Be the Shoes" Lee will be speaking at Roy Thompson Hall on March 14, making his first public appearance in Toronto in five years. Organized by Ryerson University Students Administrative Council, the talk and question/answer period is bound to include subjects like the New York Knicks and the time they lost the championship to the Houston Rockets in 1993.