The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for the Oscars this morning. Canada done good. Torontoist fave Sarah Polley landed a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay for Away From Her, based on the Alice Munro story "The Bear Came Over The Mountain." The film, which Polley also directed, was also nominated for Best Actress, Julie Christie. Canuck-fest Juno also scored a bellyful of nominations. The film landed four nominations: Best......

They’re trying to hypnotise us, people. They’re trying to brainwash us and subdue us by bombarding the television with adverts and by using the media to confuse us, and they’ll never stop… Until Superbad is the number one movie this weekend. Stupid movie executives. We were totally stoked for Superbad until they started a non-stop marketing frenzy that made us completely bored and, frankly, offended. John Harkness at Now is similarly unimpressed: “The weirdest......

“What’s going on this week in cinema, Torontoist?” you might be asking, as you normally would when faced with another Film Friday column. “Well,” we'll respond, “If you want to know what is hot, you only have to look at a couple of earlier posts this week.” We refer of course to our posts The Picture of Dorian's Gay (a great title for a post, if we don't say so ourselves) and DIY, Lo-Fi,......

Going to see all three films in Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher Trilogy, one after another in one night, is one of this Torontoist’s most treasured cinema memories, and although we did it at 2005’s Toronto International Film Festival, anyone who missed that chance can now do it at the Brunswick Theatre (296 Brunswick Avenue) tonight and tomorrow night starting 7 p.m. It’s $10 for one film or $15 for the lot, so obviously you......

Every Sunday at The Rivoli, Laugh Sabbath presents a show featuring comedians from the city's alternative comedy scene. This week's show, "Comedy and The Last Christmas Ever," features Levi MacDougall, Knock Knock. (Who's There?) Comedy!, Bob Wiseman, and Scott Thompson (returning to the same stage where The Kids in the Hall performed 20+ years ago). Sundays at Laugh Sabbath guarantee a night of hilarity, and are highly recommended. Look for a Levi MacDougall video after......

We liveblogged the civic election as it happened. Continue reading to see the night's transcript. More Torontoist coverage of Civic Vote 2006: Design Daytripper: Election Signs The Last Minute Voter's Handbook Chasing the No-Giambrone-Mobile When Your Landlord Hearts The Other Candidate Hotter Than He Should Be......

Only fifty years left for sea fish. Unless, of course, we do something wacky and start serious conservation efforts immediately. For those interested in eating ecologically responsible seafood, here is help. Former Pizza Pizza head arrested for income tax evasion. He apparently "forgot" to pay over $650,000 in income taxes. A federal report says the Toronto Port Authority is just fine and recommends expansion of the island airport. In case you missed it: Toronto......

Nicole Krauss weaves a tangled yet breathtakingly beautiful web in the History of Love. Her second novel tells the story of precocious 14-year old Alma Singer, busily trying to cope with the loss of her father and her mother's depression. Across town there's Leo Gursky, a Holocaust survivor, writer and man desperately afraid to die alone. Their lives are brought together by a book that miraculously survived war and genocide. The end product is a......

A brief aside; The London Film Festival is currently running and our sister site Londonist are covering it, and have already given a sterling review to one of our favourites from TIFF, Reprise. You might want to check it out. But back here on home turf (well, if not Toronto’s, at least making our way across the Atlantic as far as Nova Scotia) Trailer Park Boys has made it to the big screen, and the......

The publicity around Death Of A President is much better than the film itself, and this is what's generating the latest buzz: it's an ad for the faux-documentary that both our national newspapers declined to run. According to an article in today's Star, a modified version of the ad will run in that paper which will clearly indicate that it's a theatrical release. CanWest says that their ten other major dailies also rejected the ad.......

A quiet night in yesterday, but then we did go and see four films... Sleeping Dogs - Terrance Odette's latest feature is the story of a blind, bitter alcoholic who escapes from his rehabilitation unit to save his dog, which he believes is about to be put down at the city pound on his brother's orders. This is a subtle film with a small scope, and while the performances are excellent, there really doesn't feel......

Special Presentations 10:30am - The Last King of Scotland (Paramount 2) - See our day 4 round-up. 6:00pm – The Fountain (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) Contemporary World Cinema 11:45am Offside (Paramount 1) Real to Reel 12:00pm – The Killer Within (ROM Theatre) Dialogues 2:30pm – La Haine (Al Green Theatre) Midnight Madness 4:45pm – Black Sheep (Paramount 1) Gala 6:30pm - Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing (Roy Thompson Hall) Mavericks 8:30pm – Vanguard Cinema:......

A slightly quieter day, day four, but then it was a Sunday. We didn't really see much on the press and industry schedule that we thought was a good bet during the afternoon so we hit the Canadian Film Centre barbecue, held in the grounds of the Windfields, the home of the Canadian Film Centre. A fair bus trip away, much like a lot of the festival it involved a lot of queueing (this time......

Gala 11:30am - Babel (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) 1:30pm - Never Say Goodbye (Roy Thompson Hall) 6:30pm - For Your Consideration (Roy Thompson Hall) Short Cuts Canada 11:45am – Programme 4 (Cumberland 3) – See our Short Cuts coverage. 5:45pm – Programme 1 (Cumberland 3) – See our Short Cuts coverage. Featuring Ninth Street Chronicles and Patterns 2&3! Special Presentations 3:00pm - Pan’s Labrynth (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) 9:00pm - The Last King of Scotland......

This year’s Short Cuts Canada selection was given a rather short shrift by Now magazine, but having seen a selection of the shorts, we consider their opinion rather short-sighted (“cut that short right now”– Ed.). A word to the wise: Much like the Wavelengths programme, we've seen several of the films but not all of them, so there may be many gems still hidden. After all, part of the fun of a programme like Short......

Unlike usual, this isn't a post about a single programme at TIFF, but we’re going to let this one slip by as it used to be the Planet Africa programme, and the selection is really, really good this year. There’s the world premiere of Kevin MacDonald’s The Last King of Scotland, the adaptation of Giles Foden’s celebrated book about a Scottish doctor that accidentally becomes friends with Idi Amin while on a medical mission to......

Couple of big, big press releases from the hard working TIFF press office today, with a slate of film announcements in their Gala and Special Presentation programmes. The big announcement in the Gala programme is undoubtedly the world premiere of For Your Consideration, Christopher Guest’s latest moc-moc-a-doc. A comedic look at the film industry featuring all the Guest regulars (plus, urgh, Ricky Gervais), we hope to see Toronto’s own Catherine O’Hara and (co-writer) Eugene Levy......

Theatre people often get a bum deal. Humiliating auditions, selling the car for acting classes or singing lessons or to fund a play, producing blood, sweat and tear-filled work and for what? To end up emotionally drained, penniless and with nothing but a collection of tap shoes and wigs to keep them warm at night? So is life on the stage. And, damn it, they deserve recognition for it. They got it last night......

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? Well, it’s not like the European Union Film Festival, or the Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival are......

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......

The Last Mogul, the story of MGM's Lew Wasserman, or He Who Never Wrote Anything Down, opens today, and though the previews for this movie are absolutely horrendous (boring talking heads, worse music), we're inclined to say that we won't mind if it's a bit dry. Toast is a bit dry, and we eat it on a regular basis. But movie mogul machinations are something that we don't get to eat for breakfast every day.......

Pierre Berton, quintessential Canadian, author of 44 books including The Last Spike, television journalist, and marijuana advocate, has passed away yesterday in Toronto. The CBC reports the cause as heart failure. Watch, listen or read any responsible Canadian news agency for tributes.........