Tag: TIFF

  • Long Live the New Flesh: David Cronenberg’s Evolution

    Long Live the New Flesh: David Cronenberg’s Evolution

    A progenitor of a genre typically referred to as body horror, Toronto-born and world-renowned auteur David Cronenberg remains one of the most audacious narrative directors working in cinema. Citing literary influences as diverse and incendiary as Vladimir Nabokov and William S. Burroughs (Cronenberg adapted Burroughs’s Naked Lunch), Cronenberg’s films continually blur the line between corporeality and…

  • A Mushroom Trip Worth Taking: A Review of Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England

    A Mushroom Trip Worth Taking: A Review of Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England

    Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England (2013) is a British historical (although revisionist) thriller shot entirely in black-and-white and set during the mid-17th century English Civil War. The film is a gumbo concoction odyssey that breaks free of the historical thriller genre through the use of experimental film techniques: mixing humour, horror and hallucination, with…

  • “Forgive Us Our Trespasses”: A Review of Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners

    “Forgive Us Our Trespasses”: A Review of Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners

    Prisoners is the English-language debut from Quebeçois auteur Denis Villeneuve, known for the Oscar nominated film Incendies (2010), as well as Polytechnique (2009), Maelström (2000), and Enemy (2013, which debuted at TIFF this year). Prisoners is an engrossing thriller situated in a small town in America gripped by recession and despair. The film is carefully…

  • Young writer workshops, Mad Pride, and George Elliott Clarke’s Beat Café: T.O events for July 4-July 20, 2013

    Young writer workshops, Mad Pride, and George Elliott Clarke’s Beat Café: T.O events for July 4-July 20, 2013

    Repair Café Toronto gives household items a new lease on life. Visitors can bring in broken computers, small appliances, small furniture, lamps, clothes, and jewelry and learn how to fix them with the help of volunteer professionals. 10AM-2PM. July 6. Skills For Change (791 St. Clair West, 2nd floor). Free. The 20th Mad Pride Toronto Festival revels…

  • Bookishness: Week of January 23, 2012

    Bookishness: Week of January 23, 2012

    Fewer cardigans than one might expect, but a fair number of spectacles The latest in the Toronto Standard’s Uniform Project: Librarians. CanLit is Sexy Not convinced? Let the CanLit is Sexy tumblr sweet talk its way into your heart (or elsewhere). Definitely safe for work, sadly. Books on film TIFF’s Books on Film returns in February for a second season, featuring Eleanor Wachtel…

  • Bollywood-Hollywood: Nitin Mirani at the Lightbox

    Bollywood-Hollywood: Nitin Mirani at the Lightbox

    For 90 minutes last Sunday afternoon, the TIFF Bell Lightbox set the stage for Dubai-based Nitin Mirani who has a history in business but a penchant for the spotlight and yuk-yuks. The comedy routine itself was built around the theme of the clichés of Bollywood and was a veritable pastiche of 70s film clips, skits…