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Ryan Gosling portrays the Invisible Man for the New York Times

Screengrab of the New York magazine feature

Any and every publication can (and does) make a “best of” list, but the New York Times magazine has taken it a step further by featuring every hot film star of 2011 as a vamp, crook or killer in a video directed by Alex Prager. Some of the best include Brad Pitt’s Cosmo Kramer-channeled “Eraserhead,” Jessica Chastain’s fire starter (she’s a redhead, if you didn’t know) and the most beloved Ontarian, Ryan Gosling, portraying the Invisible Man. Check out the slideshow on the Times website, and make sure not to miss Mia Wasikowska taking an axe to a room full of mirrors (one of our personal favourites). We suggest skipping Gary Oldman’s puppet boy, because it just creeps us out.

The Hype

From the Print Edition

November 16, 2011 | 1:00 pm

The Conversation: artist-illustrators Gary Taxali and Graham Roumieu on art, wine and wolverines

(Image: Daniel Ehrenworth)

The place: The Gem on Davenport.
The people: artist-illustrators Gary Taxali and Graham Roumieu.
The subjects: art, wine and wolverines

Gary Taxali’s quirky, handcrafted illustrations, reminiscent of early 20th-century advertising and comics, have graced the pages of Esquire, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, as well as several book and rock album covers (his collaboration with singer Aimee Mann earned him a Grammy nomination). The high art crowd loves him, too: his work has appeared at the Whitney and the ROM, and he was a featured artist at the Made in Polaroid 50/50/50 exhibition in New York earlier this fall. Graham Roumieu (above, right) creates droll weekly editorial cartoons for the Globe and Mail and often illustrates for the New York Times and The Walrus. He’s best known, however, for his Bigfoot books—wry, raunchy tomes about a sasquatch who just wants to be understood. Both have new books out: two European publishers have assembled collections of Taxali’s work, while Roumieu recently collaborated with Douglas Coupland on Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People, which features, among other nefarious creatures, a homicidal juice box. We met the pair for drinks at The Gem and listened in as they chatted about the state of their art. Click here for Taxali and Roumieu’s conversation »

The Informer

Opine for Business

October 18, 2011 | 11:35 am

Paul Krugman squares off against Lawrence Summers on the economy at the next instalment of the Munk Debates

While the Occupy protestors entrenched in St. James Park are proof enough that times are bad, four high-profile economists are set to debate whether we’re clawing our way out of the recession or if we are, indeed, truly sunk. “Be it resolved, North America faces a Japan-style era of high unemployment and slow growth” is the topic of November’s Munk Debates, in which New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Gluskin Sheff’s David Rosenberg argue for and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers and Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer argue against. These titans have more Wall Street cred than Scrooge McDuck, so the discussion should be one to watch—and maybe by the end we’ll know whether we’re in brioche or gruel for the next decade. Read more at the Munk Debates website »

The Informer

The New Normal

October 4, 2011 | 3:05 pm

Greenbuild Conference and Expo makes its Canadian debut this week with Thomas Friedman, Maroon 5 and (for some reason) Kim Campbell

The International Greenbuild Conference and Expo is Toronto from October 4 to 7, marking the Canadian debut of the world’s largest conference dedicated to green building. The three-day fête includes educational sessions, a film festival, a job fair and tours of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)–certified projects in the city (also, networking—lots of it). The official opening will kick off at the Air Canada Centre with keynote speakers Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, Cokie Roberts of ABC News, Dr. Paul Farmer of Harvard University and former prime minister Kim Campbell (we smell a sitcom!), followed by a Maroon 5 concert. Heck, if Adam Levine isn’t reason enough to start thinking green, we’re not sure what is. More info at the Greenbuild website »

The Informer

Gimme Shelter

September 28, 2011 | 1:35 pm

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House of the Week: $1.4 million for a charming Rosedale starter home

ADDRESS: 298 Glen Road

NEIGHBOURHOOD: Rosedale–Moore Park

AGENT: Joseph Robert and Kevin Crigger, Royal LePage J&D Division, Brokerage

PRICE: $1,389,000

THE PLACE: Steps from Chorley Park and a short walk to the Evergreen Brick Works, this four-bedroom house may be smallish for Rosedale at 2,442 square feet but it’s also a quality starter home for the (extremely) upwardly mobile.

The Hype

To-Do List

June 22, 2011 | 11:30 am

The one thing you should see this week: a charming documentary about a man on a bike with a camera

This week’s pick: Bill Cunningham New York

Sporting a blue workman’s jacket and a wide smile, 82-year-old Bill Cunningham can most often be found teetering through the streets of Manhattan on a red bicycle, snapping photos of unsuspecting pedestrians.

The Dish

Aprons & Icons

May 13, 2011 | 12:25 pm

Mark Bittman returns to Toronto, compares it to Queens (in a good way)

Author and New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman passed through Hogtown for a brief visit on Tuesday. Last time Bittman visited was for a book tour hosted by The Stop Community Food Centre; it was on that trip that he discovered that in Canada, we sell milk in a bag. After the jump, four things we learned from his visit this time:

The Dish

Foodie Follies

April 19, 2011 | 9:14 am

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All-night foodie raves are the latest street food trend unlikely to appear in Toronto

(Image: samthor)

It’s no secret that when it comes to street food, Torontonians are a little behind the curve. So when a new curbside craze sweeps across the U.S. and Europe, bypassing Toronto entirely, we’re not exactly surprised. This time around? Late night “food raves,” like San Francisco’s Underground Market, which started with eight vendors in a friend’s apartment and has ballooned into something much bigger.

The Informer

Election Whoas

April 14, 2011 | 4:05 pm

Reaction Roundup: what is the international press saying about the Canadian election?

Canada’s affairs rarely arouse excitement in the media outside of our own borders—Michael Kinsley famously declared the most boring headline ever to be “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative”—but that usually changes when we decide to join a war or hold an election. Then we can usually reply on the foreign press to pay attention for at least a little while. That being the case, we set out to see what the international media is saying about Canada’s 41^st election. Turns out, not much.

The Hype

From the Print Edition

March 29, 2011 | 9:33 am

In his first novel, The Free World, David Bezmozgis finds beauty in a layover from hell

(Image: Spencer Heyfron)

David Bezmozgis’s debut, the 2004 collection Natasha and Other Stories, was an unlikely success, given its targeted subject: Toronto’s ex-Soviet Jewish community. It won a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, made the New York Times Notable Books of the Year list, was blurbed by both Jeffrey Eugenides and T. Coraghessan Boyle, and earned a “scary good” from Esquire. His first novel, The Free World, which comes out this month, has already been excerpted in the New Yorker, and the magazine recently anointed Bezmozgis one of its “20 Under 40.” The Free World works as a kind of thematic prequel to Natasha. It’s set during an obscure historical episode in the late 1970s, when thousands of Jewish families emigrating from Russia, Latvia and other Soviet republics were forced to sit and wait in Italy for months while countries such as Canada deliberated on whether to let them in. Bezmozgis—who was born in Latvia 38 years ago and grew up at the north end of Bathurst Street—is not the first author to mine the plights of his immigrant cohort or the story of its arrival. But he is up to a lot more than simply dramatizing family albums. His tale of one clan’s extended layover in Rome and its outskirts is laced with cultural and historical ironies, dark comedy, heartbreak and outbursts of violence. Though Bezmozgis is far from a stylistic innovator—not for him the bravura set pieces or genre bending in vogue among many of his peers—his prose has an almost cold-blooded elegance. Even as he drills down further into the past of one small group, Bezmozgis is doing what all great writers do: building an entire world in fiction.

The Informer

Mediaocracy

March 17, 2011 | 4:43 pm

4 Comments

New York Times uses Canada as “giant guinea pig” to test-market its new pay wall

Lucky us. Canadians will be the first readers in the world to bemoan experience the New York Times’s new (and much discussed) on-line pay wall—if only for two weeks, before the program goes global on March 28. Why do Canadians have to pay before any one else? The Times Web site states, “We want to ensure as smooth a transition as possible for our millions of readers. We are launching in Canada first… in order to fine-tune the customer experience before the global launch.” Um, thanks?

The Informer

The New Normal

March 17, 2011 | 3:33 pm

Could a Tea Party–esque movement be good for Toronto?

A Tea Party protest in Texas (Image: Susan E. Adams)

With federal and provincial elections looming, there’s a good chance that Torontonians will have conservative leaders all the way to the top—mayor, premier, prime minister. In the Liberal fortress that is Toronto, that could be seen as cause for alarm, or even despair (if nothing else, it’s a huge change from 2003 to 2006, when we had David Miller, Dalton McGuinty and Paul Martin running things). But maybe it shouldn’t be. Ed Glaeser, writing in the New York Times, says that there’s a lot the Tea Party can offer cities in the U.S., and some of his arguments are just as relevant to Tim Hudak and Stephen Harper as they try and break into Toronto.

The Goods

Business of Fashion

March 16, 2011 | 3:32 pm

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Joe Fresh’s anticipated New York opening excites tourists, not analysts

Joe Fresh is making the move to New York this fall, but some skeptics suggest that the Mimran dynasty may have to pull back to Canada sooner than anticipated. Analysts seem mixed on the potential success of yet another fast fashion retailer. The Financial Post notes that companies who moved south of the border (among the fallen are Danier, Harry Rosen, Tristan, La Senza and Brown’s Shoes) haven’t always been welcome, while the New York Times highlights a boom in tourist traffic around Joe’s chosen 5th Avenue and 43rd Street location.