Results tagged “theband”

We managed to see Cloverfield a few weeks ago, and with the release of Diary of the Dead (above) this week, we have to say it's rather timely to discuss our opinion of it. As tired as this quote is, there's really no better way to describe Cloverfield than to take from Macbeth's famous soliloquy: "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

There used to be a sign above a video arcade that proclaimed "Yonge Street is Fun Street." Back in the 1960s and 1970s, much of that fun was to be had at the many bars and clubs that lined the street south of Gerrard––Le Coq D'Or, Steele's Tavern, Friar's Tavern, Zanzibar Tavern and so on. Depending on the venue, you could listen to music, dance the night away or catch a striptease. Today's advertiser...

Today’s Reviews:

Our Toronto International Film Festival preview coverage is a little different this year. While last year, our reviews came from our film editor, this year we were lucky enough to have our reviews come from many of our Torontoist writers. Today we have our Gala Presentation and Contemporary World Cinema preview, with reviews of Emotional Arithmetic, Jane Austen Book Club, Sleuth, The Band’s Visit, Breakfast With Scot, The Counterfeiters and Jar City from Christopher Bird, Beth Bohnert, Jonathan Goldsbie, Kevin McBride, Marco Moldes and Johnnie Walker, with Christopher Bird awarding our first 5/5 mark of the festival to The Counterfeiters (pictured above).

What does the international community say? U.S. President George W. Bush calls the verdict "a milestone in the Iraqi people's effort to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law". The UN and European Union criticize the former Iraqi leader's death sentence. Vatican representative, Cardinal Renato Martino, calls the sentence "eye for an eye vengeance". Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay refused to comment.

You'd have to be a curmudgeon not to like the Bicycles. It's hard to hate a band that opens a show with painted cardboard standups of various band members, sing Archies/Monkees inspired songs about girls from Montreal and visits to Australia, and fill their shows with handclaps, tambourines and harmonies that come straight from a 1970s bubblegum pop record.

. That’s right: nothing at any Indigo, Chapters, Coles, or World’s Biggest Book Store. What’s odder than the fact that a book translated into 20 different languages isn’t readily available at any of the chain's stores within the GTA is that this exactly what happened roughly a year ago when I tried to buy another book that gives an insightful look at another not-discussed-important-issue: And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts. That book provided a thorough history of the AIDS crisis, tracing it as far back as what was believed to be "Patient Zero"; it sold and inspired a movie. But good luck finding a copy at Indigo. Or in Toronto for that matter. My search in 2005 took me as far as Yonge-Eglinton, where I eventually found a copy at the reliable BMV Books.

Individual tickets for shows at the festival go on sale today, and Torontoist will admit that we’re a little behind on our TIFF programme previews (who puts a festival straight after Labour Day, eh?) So we’re going to speed it up a bit, with coverage of the ‘big’ films – the Galas and Masters today and we’ll clear up the rest over the next couple of days. If you seriously fancy any of the films we’re mentioning here you can easily pick up tickets online at the Toronto International Film Festival home page, but we’ve got no idea if there are any tickets left. So if you’ve got your heart set on something and they’re all gone, keep it in mind most of the films below will eventually come out and cost ordinary cinema prices, so maybe check out something that might not instead?