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The Goods

The Style File

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POLL: White carpet style, Rachel McAdams edition

Rachel McAdams at the L.A. premiere of The Vow (Image: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Entertainment)

Remember when we told you about The Vow? You know, that movie where Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams play a married couple who get into a car accident, then suffer through a painstaking adjustment period where the wife has amnesia and the husband can’t handle it? It premiered in L.A. this week, and we noticed McAdams on the red white carpet sporting new bangs—we think she’s looking fairly elegant, with the exception of her somewhat caked-on makeup (surely her Pomellato and Philip Press jewellery would have been enough of a contrast to her demure Vivienne Westwood dress). How did McAdams fare sartorially at The Vow’s L.A. premiere? Have your say in our poll after the jump.


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The Hype

From the Print Edition

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The Conversation: Arsinée Khanjian and Megan Follows on collaborating with loved ones

The place: Caffe Doria at Yonge and Roxborough. The people: actors Arsinée Khanjian and Megan Follows. The subject: collaborating with loved ones

The Conversation: The Family Business

Before Anne of Green Gables made her a teen star, Megan Follows (above right) was known as the youngest in a family of theatre people that included actor-director Ted Follows, her father, and actor Dawn Greenhalgh, her mother. They separated when Follows was young but continued to collaborate occasionally. In the decades since, Megan has worked with various members of her acting clan, including in an all-Follows production of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever. This month, she stars as the wife of Odysseus in the stage adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s tartly revisionist The Penelopiad. Arsinée Khanjian also knows the perils and joys of working with family: her best-known roles have been in the films Exotica and Ararat, both directed by her husband, Atom Egoyan. This month, Egoyan directs her onstage for the first time ever in Cruel and Tender, by the British playwright Martin Crimp and based on a work by Sophocles. Like Follows in Penelopiad, Khanjian plays the wife of a soldier who brings his work home with him—in this case, a terrorism-fighting general who may be doing more harm than good. We invited the two to Caffe Doria in Rosedale and listened in as they chatted about mixing the personal and the professional.

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The Hype

To-Do List

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The Pick: Gary Hustwit’s Design Trilogy, three docs full of hot typefaces, beautiful objects and glorious city porn


Gary Hustwit has a knack for taking seemingly mundane subject matter—an ubiquitous sans-serif typeface, for example, or a potato peeler—and using it as a lens for riveting sociological insight. We first fell for Hustwit’s delightfully nerdy brand of filmmaking in 2007 with Helvetica, his fascinating look at the passionate, pedantic world of typography. He followed that up with Objectified, a documentary on the equally specialized sphere of packaging and industrial design. This year, he completes the trilogy with Urbanized, which zooms out on city planning and infrastructure, and which will be screening along with its companion films this week at the Lightbox.

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The Hype

From the Print Edition

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See, hear, read: our local experts share the books, music and movies they’re craving this month

They love it. We want it. Three red-hot releases

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles“Ever since the late 1980s, somebody has been embedding tiles displaying cryptic messages about Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and the planet Jupiter in city streets all over the U.S. In 2005, the artist Justin Duerr began an exhaustive search for that somebody, and his quest was documented by director Jon Foy. The resulting film is a gripping investigative documentary—one of the best of the year.”
—Mark Hanson Staffer at Bay Street Video

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
directed by Jon Foy
(Jan. 31)


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The Hype

From the Print Edition

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Spotlight: Sarah Gadon is a model of restraint in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method

Sarah Gadon

Cinderella stories are among Hollywood’s most clichéd and hollow myths. Yet they keep happening, both onscreen and off. Sarah Gadon should know: in less than a year, the 24-year-old Toronto actor has gone from guest stints on such shows as Being Erica and Murdoch Mysteries to starring in major movies alongside the likes of Michael Fassbender and Robert Pattinson.

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The Hype

To-Do List

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The one thing you should see this week: a filmmaker who revels in his demons

This week’s pick: Guillermo del Toro at the TIFF Bell Lightbox

For psychologists like Bruno Bettelheim, fantasy and fairy tales are a necessary part of a child’s development, a way to symbolically vanquish death, abandonment and familial conflict. For filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who’s appearing this Thursday at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, the obsession with monsters runs a little deeper. The demons that populate his world are welcome alternatives to the horrors of the known world, both an escape and a means of understanding humanity’s moral complexity. 

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The Hype

From the Print Edition

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Camera: a who’s who of Canadian cinema gathers at the Lightbox to kick off TIFF’s retrospective of Norman Jewison films

Camera: Norman Jewison Bash

Canadian film honcho Wayne Clarkson with art house icon Atom Egoyan and Lynne St. David-Jewison

August 11, Malaparte.

An air-kissing who’s who of Canadian cinema gathered on the sixth floor of the Lightbox to kick off Justice for All, TIFF’s retrospective of the films of Norman Jewison. One of Hollywood’s most prolific directors, Jewison is the kind of success story this city loves to laud at every opportunity. Following the reception, everyone shuffled downstairs for a screening of Moonstruck, Jewison’s 1987 rom-com. The crowd was also treated to a Q&A with Olympia Dukakis and the screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (both snagged Oscars for the movie). But it was Jewison who got the loudest applause, for dropping a well-aimed F-bomb while recounting an on-set incident: Nicolas Cage demanded a moment to think over a line, and Jewison replied: “Don’t think, just say the fucking line.” Beats watching Moonstruck at home in your PJs for the umpteenth time.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

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TIFF 2011 Roundup: Seven films that we think are bound for box office (or critical) success

For the regular folk in Toronto, TIFF is primarily a time for star spotting, catching films that might not be seen otherwise and soaking up a kind of glitz and glamour that is otherwise rarely seen in Hogtown. But for the film industry, TIFF is big business—it’s where movies get big distribution deals and money (lots of it) exchanges hands. Over 30 titles were picked up from this year’s film festival, and more deals are surely on the way. We picked seven that we think are likely to be good investments, after the jump.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

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TIFF 2011 Roundup: The winners, and the losers, from this year’s installment of the Toronto International Film Festival

(Images: Christopher Drost)

Well, it’s a wrap. Some might suggest that there are no winners and losers at TIFF, and that the festival is a harmonious celebration of filmmaking and the artistic spirit. For our part, we say these people are wrong. Life is a competition, and we’ve got the goods on the stars, the parties, the neighbourhoods, the red carpet galas and the films that came out on top—and on the bottom—this year, after the jump.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

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Apparently, TIFF co-director and CEO Piers Handling isn’t too excited about the state of post-9/11 cinema

TIFF Co-Director and CEO Piers Handling (Image: Josh Jensen)

We’re pretty sure most of the city is having a good time taking in the hype and hoopla surrounding the 10-day celebrity bonanza that is the Toronto International Film Festival. But apparently, TIFF co-director and CEO Piers Handling isn’t nearly as excited about the state of global cinema as the city is about the film festival. In an intriguing—and surprising—column in the Toronto Star late last week, Handling muses about whether or not the events of 9/11 will have a lasting impact on movies, film and cinema, and what that impact might be.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

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Films picked up at TIFF: Steve McQueen’s Shame and Christophe Honore’s Beloved (Les biens-aimes)

TIFF is often lauded as the first place to look for Oscar worthy-films—the festival has previously premiered Precious, No Country for Old Men, The Hurt Locker, Chariots of Fire, and, of course, last year’s King’s Speech, to name a few. Naturally, distributors are always in town for the festival and eager to snatch up the next hot-ticket item. Already Variety is reporting that the first two films to get deals at this year’s festival are Steve McQueen‘s sexual thriller Shame and Christophe Honore’s romantic drama Beloved (Les biens-aimes).

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

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TIFF PHOTO GALLERY: Brad Pitt, skinny Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman talk money and baseball at the Moneyball press conference

The boys were all smiles at the press conference for Moneyball this afternoon at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. Brad Pitt was front and centre as expected, sporting a shaggy haircut and waxing poetic about how unconventional and original this underdog sports movie, based on the Michael Lewis book by the same name, really is. Director Bennett Miller fielded many of the questions and took his time getting to the point. This clearly exasperated a remarkably slender and clean-cut (dare we say, even svelte) Jonah Hill, who felt compelled to interrupt Miller and explain to everybody in the room: “He’s trying to say baseball looks cool.” Also, Hill, seated between newcomer Chris Pratt and Pitt, apparently couldn’t help but exclaim, “You’re so successful [to Pitt] and you’re so not successful [to Pratt], it’s hard to be between them!” Pratt played the part of the starry-eyed newbie to a T, grinning and saying earnestly, “I’m inspired right now, this is so surreal.” Philip Seymour Hoffman for the most part remained thoughtfully silent; when he did interject, it was to astutely sum up one of his fellow actor’s meanderings, or playfully scold Hill by reminding him, “Jonah, this is your chance to be a serious actor.” Ouch. See the gallery, after the jump.

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

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Today at TIFF: The Ides of March gala presentation, Moneyball gala and more

Our daily roundup of opening galas, parties and screenings.

• 9 a.m. RealTV Films social lodge and gifting suite at Spin Toronto

• 12 p.m. Canfar and the TDot TV gifting lounge at the Bata Shoe Museum

• 3:30 p.m. The Right Hand Gal gifting suite at the InterContinental Hotel

• 6 p.m. Friends with Kids special presentation at Ryerson Theatre

• 6:30 p.m. Moneyball gala at Roy Thomson Hall

• 7 p.m. The Ides of March cocktail party at Grey Goose Soho House

• 8 p.m. Kate Spade and Bryce Dallas Howard party at Harbord Room

• 8 p.m. The Artist dinner with Harvey Weinstein at the Roosevelt Room

• 8 p.m. We Need to Talk About Kevin special presentation at the Winter Garden Theatre

• 9 p.m. 360 special presentation at Elgin Theatre

• 9:30 p.m. The Ides of March gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 9:30 p.m. 360 party at Brassaii

• 10 p.m. Trishna special presentation at Princess of Wales Theatre

• 10 p.m. We Need to Talk About Kevin dinner at Grey Goose Soho House

• 10:30 p.m. Toro After Dark and Artists for Peace and Justice party at Ame restaurant

• 11 p.m. Kreayshawn concert at the Roosevelt Room

• 11 p.m. Goodnight Gansevoort at Goodnight

• 11:05 p.m. George Stroumboulopoulos’s Hazelton Takeover party at the Hazelton Hotel

The Hype

TIFF Talk

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SPOTTED: Geoffrey Rush standing outside the Scotiabank Theatre on Richmond Street

After a lucky TIFF volunteer escorted one of the stars of last year’s buzziest films—Cadillac People’s Choice Award–winner The King’s Speech—through the airport yesterday, Now magazine reporter Glenn Sumi photographed everybody’s favourite speech therapist, Geoffrey Rush, waiting in line outside the Scotiabank Theatre this afternoon. Rush is back at TIFF this year to promote Fred Schepisi’s The Eye of The Storm.

Find this story on our Star Spotting Map, where we plot the locations of celebrities spotted around Toronto.

The Hype

To-Do List

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The Weekender: TIFF 2011, Pearl Jam and five other items on our to-do list

The Weekender: TIFF 2011, The Ugly Duckling and Pearl Jam

1. TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Things have changed a little in TIFF-land—there’s a whole extra day, some new programming and an overall westward shift. But luckily for the city’s party monsters, the best things haven’t changed.  There will still be plenty of crash-worthy VIP parties, celebrity sightings at every turn (think Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gerard Butler, U2 and even Madonna) and more movies than it’s possible for one person to see. Get the scoop all festival long at tiff.to. September 8 to 18. Various locations, 416-599-8433, tiff.net.

2. PEARL JAM
These quintessential ’90s rockers may have faced a backlash for being pioneers of what critics described as “synthetic grunge,” but in the 20 years since their first album, Eddie and the boys have become one of the most popular rock bands ever. Movies aren’t made about just any band. September 11 and 12. $69.50. Air Canada Centre, 40 Bay St., 416-870-8000, ticketmaster.ca.

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