Toronto After Dark: Short Sharp Shocks in Summary

October 31, 2011 By 1 Comment

It’s only fitting that October 31st sees this final blog post about Toronto After Dark Film Festival as Thursday saw the celluloid creature rewind back in to it’s movie canister grave for another year.

Small, mighty and messed up, these were my pick of the bloody bunch of stumpy shorts.

Taking small bites out of your cinema psyche each feature has had a red right hand man supporting the feature presentation as well as a separate programme showcasing the world.

Before these shorts another mini courtesy message from Fan Expo visiting icons instructed us to power down our pagers.  Funnily only Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) & Richard  Crouse (Film Critic Hero) were the only stars to follow the script & add a f-bomb.

After the 5th birthday bumper contest last year where a multitude of  film makers were asked to submit small trail intros featuring 5′s, the most memorable – under age Alien love’s author, Chris Nash returned to provide year 6 with all of them as well as two longer  pieces.

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Toronto After Dark: Brawls & Bowels

October 22, 2011 By 3 Comments

Tis the season to be gory as Toronto After Dark Film Festival rolled like a severed head down Spadina to it’s new home a little closer to hell at the Underground Cinema for it’s 6th year. Horror, Cult movies, Sci-fi & Action in the order of preference had me chomping at the bit like a classic Romero zombie for Thursday’s opening night.

Riding the wave of anticipation in a line shaped like a game of snake on a Nokia phone everyone seemed surprisingly calm to be packed along side one another waiting to flood the theatre. A gift from above in the shape of a roof was more than welcome adjustment from queuing outside the former Bloor Cinema site for the nocturnal viewing veterans.

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October Movie Round Up

October 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

BUSTED! So I didn’t actually watch anything in the last week. Toronto felt like several surreal movie sets strung together by hoards of people over the weekend at Nuit Blanche by which attending left very little time or desire to see a film.  As the chill of fall accompanied the art on the street here’s a look forward to what October has to offer.

5th: GREEN SCREENS presents FORCE OF NATURE: THE DAVID SUZUKI MOVIE – NFB Mediatheque (Free Screening)

12th – 16th: Planet In Focus – The twelfth night sees the twelfth annual Environmental Film Festival kick off.  Fellow photojunkies might stand a chance of winning two all access passes by submitting your favourite Toronto city landscape with a brief description.  http://planetinfocus.org/contest/

18th: Little Terrors – Projection Booth East – 9 shorts to get the blood pumping & following with the Toronto premiere of Aussie short Axed.

19th: A WORLD OF SHORTS presents FRIGHT NIGHT – NFB Mediatheque – Ninjas was the scariest WTF movie at the CFC World of Short Festival earlier in the year. I Dare you to see it!

20th – 27th: Toronto After Dark Film Festival – Toronto Underground Cinema
The 6th wicked year of horror/sci/gore gets a little closer to hell in a new home.

21st: Reel Asian presents Night Market Hero – Innis Town Hall (Free Screening)
Missing the atmosphere from the T&T Waterfront Night Market? Looks like it’s captured on film with a crazy action story to go alongside instead of smelly tofu.

27th: Film School Confidential presents Shivers – Revue Cinema (Free Screening) – Horn inducing Canadian parasites, the perfect date movie. Is that a pierogi in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

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