HOME February 10, 2012 The Magazine | Digital Edition | Subscribe | Newsletters
Advertisement
The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
The problem with this season is there’s simply too much to do. Too many tortured opera divas. Too many ballerinas with toe cramps. Too many new sitcoms set in psychiatric offices. Too many touring exhibits of curiosities once touched by now-dead silver screen stars. Too many washed-up TV actors with a surprise talent for stage comedy. It’s all too, too much.
Our coping strategy: pick 10. Here, recommendations for an absolutely satisfying, perfectly proportioned fall
Norman Jewison, Barbara Amiel having a brief conversation in between songs (Image: David Pike)
Earlier this week, Kate Alexander and David Daniels opened the doors of their contemporary Casa Loma residence to an intimate crowd of 200 guests for an evening dedicated to the Acting Up Stage Company. As executive producer of the company, Daniels hoped to use the event to give patrons a taste of the company’s work by staging a series of performances from Both Sides Now—a musical featuring songs by Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. “I want tonight to give you shivers down your spine in the way only music can,” exclaimed artistic producer Mitchell Marcus, who greeted guests in the front foyer. Among the crowd were Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall (in town for Private Lives), director Norman Jewison, Barbara Amiel, actor Don McKellar and musical guests Arlene Duncan (Little Mosque on the Prairie), Marcus Nance and Bruce Dow.
Read the rest of this entry »
The impish comedy men Don McKellar and Bob Martin can’t get enough of the crazy—or of each other. Twitch City, the cult sitcom about an agoraphobic television addict? McKellar starred and shared the writing with Martin. Slings and Arrows, the behind-the-scenes satire about a theatre festival headed by an artistic director perpetually on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Martin wrote, McKellar co-starred. The Drowsy Chaperone, the wedding present–turned–Fringe hit–turned–Broadway show about a musical-obsessed shut-in? Martin starred, Martin and McKellar wrote, and they both won Tonys.
(Image: Lia Grainger)
We saw Canadian actor, writer and director Don McKellar waiting outside the Winter Garden Theatre yesterday for the premiere of The Eye of the Storm. Thankfully we didn’t spot him today, or we couldn’t make this hilarious Last Night reference. Then again, would that be the end of the world?
Find this story on our Star Spotting Map, where we plot the locations of celebrities spotted around Toronto. Send us your tips: tips@torontolife.com
Read the rest of this entry »
At first, the Canadian offerings at TIFF 2011 seemed meagre, what with Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz and David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method serving as the big Canadian draws among the special presentations and galas. But yesterday, TIFF announced some additions to the list of Canadian content, including work by Bruce Macdonald, Mike Clattenburg and Guy Maddin, not to mention a teen vampire suspense thriller (The Moth Diaries) and a movie about a man who finds out he’s the father of more than 500 children (Sisters and Brothers). We also mustn’t forget the big stars, like Cory Monteith of Glee, Scott Speedman, Isabella Rossellini, Lily Cole, Don McKellar, Stephen Hawking, Margaret Atwood and David Suzuki, each of whom appears in one or more of the Canadian films at TIFF this year. Find out about all of the newly announced Canadian films after the jump.
Denis Gagnon F/W 2011 at Fashion week, Nelson Takkiruq sculpture and Dr. Jane Goodall
1. INUIT MODERN
This brand new exhibit draws from a huge collection of Inuit art acquired by real estate developer Samuel Sarick and his wife, Esther, featuring 175 contemporary works by artists like David Ruben Piqtoukun, Kenojuak Ashevak, Karoo Ashevak and Lucy Tasseor. Budget-friendly bonus: if you’re under 25, this is the last weekend to take advantage of the AGO’s Maharaja exhibition offer, which gets you into the entire gallery for free. April 2 to August 21. $19.50. Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St. W., 416-979-6648, ago.net.
2. LG FASHION WEEK Read the rest of this entry »
It’s enough to exhaust even the most dedicated fashionista: the past couple days have been a flurry of fashion shows, after parties and boldface name–laden events, and the week before that was much the same (Rogue Fashion Week included off-site shows by Mark Fast, Greta Constantine and Ezra Constantine and the much-anticipated return of Arthur Mendonça). It all winds down this weekend, but before the city’s couture kids head home for some much-needed rest, they’ll be hitting the last of the shows (including Diepo and Line Knitwear) and hoping to score some advice from Jeanne Beker, who’s signing copies of Strutting It!, her behind-the-scenes guide to making it in the biz, on Friday. To April 2. $40–50 per show, day pass $200. Heritage Court, Exhibition Place, 105 Princes’ Blvd., lgfashionweek.ca.
Read the rest of this entry »
This August, comic book nerds across the city flocked to opening-night screenings of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, eager to catch a glimpse of their favourite local comic book given the big-screen treatment. Unfortunately for the film’s producers and its star, Michael Cera, local packed houses were the exception, not the norm. The adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley‘s comic about a Toronto kid who must do battle with his crush’s exes was one of this summer’s notable box office flops. It brought in around $45 million, far short of its $60 million production budget.
To anyone who grew up watching Road to Avonlea or had children during the show’s seven-season run, the death of beloved actor Jackie Burroughs on Wednesday came as a shock. Burroughs, who lived in Toronto, was 71 and suffering from gastric cancer. In honour of the Canadian legend, we’ve compiled our favourite moments from her career.
Terry and Dean are back in Fubar II (Image: TIFF.net)
TIFF co-directors Piers Handling and Cameron Bailey announced this year’s Canadian lineup yesterday to a room of film industry and media types noshing on little plates of poutine at the Royal York. Among the 858 Canadian films submitted for consideration, 72 were selected to screen at the 35th film festival.
Read the rest of this entry »
Concert movies are great, but they often lack a narrative; so in their cinematic ode to Toronto and Broken Social Scene, This Movie Is Broken, director Bruce McDonald and writer Don McKellar created a story set during a show. Filmed during last summer’s garbage strike, the movie (opening on June 25) follows Bruno (Greg Calderone) as he attempts to win over his long-time crush, Carolyn Rush (Georgina Reilly), by taking her to the BSS show at Harbourfront before she moves away. Lovelorn angst, longing subtext and sprawling band footage abound. Here at The Hype, we believe the only thing that goes better with a concert than unrequited love is booze (perhaps some agave tequila, which we hear the band drinks on tour). Thus, we present the This Movie Is Drunken Drinking Game, after the jump.
Greg Calderone and Georgina Reilly in This Movie is Broken (Image: Norman Wong)
Kevin Drew playing Kevin Drew (Image: Esparta Palma)
In a thrilling bit of method acting, Broken Social Scene stars as Broken Social Scene in Bruce McDonald’s latest flick. This Movie Is Broken, which premieres this week at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, blurs the border between fiction and reality, mixing a love story with a typical concert movie, as viewers follow two characters to a real Broken Social Scene show.
“Part of the fun was that it all had to be filmed that day,” said Don McKellar, who helped write the script and shouldered some directing duties with McDonald. “The intersection of drama and a real concert was the chief selling point, but of course on the practical side it presented a huge logistical challenge.” According to McKellar, directing the actors while simultaneously capturing live concert footage made for a lot of yelling, running through crowds and getting people to save spots, though we suppose that’s typical behaviour at a concert.
Read the rest of this entry »
Stellar McKellar pleases his fans at TIFF (Photo by Karon Liu)
Don’t get us wrong. We’re fans of Don McKellar, but it’s hard to see him as Canada’s version of Clooney, as the Montreal Gazette declares, or even as the nation’s “ultimate male role model.” (We’re pretty sure Sidney Crosby is the Canuck who’s setting young male hearts aflutter.) Cooking With Stella, the new comedy from Dilip Mehta, co-written with his sister Deepa, opens this week. In it, McKellar plays the husband of Maya (Lisa Ray), who struggles to accept class differences when the couple moves to India—with, presumably, hilarious results.
But it’s not just the Gazette gushing over Stellar McKellar’s artistic chops. Dilip is doing his fair share, too, telling the National Post:
Had I made him into the Terminator, if he was a surgeon or if he was a CIA operative, I’d say no problem. I asked him to play the quintessential Canadian; not naive, simple, a little apologetic, nice. To act that is not simple.
Read the rest of this entry »
Don McKellar misses Bette Midler (Photo by Karon Liu)
Don McKellar is out to find romance on a modern day cellphone—and if that means being shady in a hotel room, so be it. This is the basic concept of Imaginary Lovers, an art installation consisting of four monitors showing films that McKellar has directed as part of TIFF’s Future Projections series. McKellar also kicked off the festival as a governor for the Talent Lab, had a role in Leslie, My Name Is Evil (the trippy Christian murder film) and starred in Dilip Mehta’s gala premiere, Cooking With Stella. Really, Don, next year you need to step it up.
Considering McKellar’s schedule is so barren, we thought we’d sit down with him and discuss loneliness and love—the themes that intertwine in his voyeuristic videos, most of which feature women of the world professing their love via grainy cellphones.
Read the rest of this entry »
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
© 2012. All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly prohibited. Toronto Life is a registered trademark of Toronto Life Publishing Company Limited
Follow Toronto Life on Twitter, Facebook and via RSS