TIFF – Sheryl Kirby

Paris Is Burning, Clara Bow, and Zelda Fitzgerald – Musings, Monday, February 27, 2017

A still from the lost reels of Get Your Man.

Bear with while I try something new.

Nowadays, so many people start blogs and then abandon them because they feel they have nothing to say. Even if we’re blogging about a popular subject such as food, odds are someone’s already said it before. That recipe, that interview, that perfect Instagrammable shot – they’re all already out there, so why bother?

But what about if blogging went back to a form of journaling? You know, like how we all started with LiveJournal some 15 years ago. I know what you’re thinking – because I didn’t really care about reading other people’s journals back then either. But some people do. There are writers, Alan Bennett for instance, who have made a hugely successful career simply by publishing their daily diaries in book form. I’ll confess that I don’t find Bennett especially scintillating, but I get the point of his work and of his desire to publicly document his life.

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Film Review – Northern Soul

Northern Soul is a little film by director Elaine Constantine that came and went without so much as a whisper. Released in the UK in 2014, Northern Soul debuted in North America at TIFF in September 2015 and opened to a limited release in October, disappearing the following week.

In as much as the plot was formulaic, Northern Soul the film mostly flew under the mainstream radar because so few people (especially in North America) know what Northern Soul music actually is.

Northern Soul grew out of Mod, separated from its skinhead twin in style and sound but with much of the same working class attitude. In the wake of Motown and other successful US R&B labels of the 1960s, many smaller, much more obscure labels began recording, pressing extremely limited quantities of discs by artists who would, for the most part, remain unknown. In northern England in the late 1960s and early 1970s, while everyone else was listening to prog rock, pub bands and more psychedelic-oriented mainstream rock, working class kids in the north were listening to soul music, competing to find the most rare and obscure titles. DJs would travel to the US specifically to comb record stores to find even more rare discs.

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Shut Yo’ Mouth – Stuff I Wrote This Week – December 17th, 2011

Caplansky’s hosts the 2nd annual Latkepalooza

Celebrate the flavours of cinema

Brockton General hosts a Swiss Hunter’s night

Grab and Go on Dundas West

Viva Tastings hosts a holiday open house

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Shut Yo’ Mouth – Stuff I Wrote This Week – September 17, 2011

David Rocco creates a new menu for the Roosevelt Room.

An Italian wine dinner at Vertical.

Luma lunchbox turns TIFF into a picnic.

New York Subway reopens.

Whose sticky toffee will reign supreme?

Art & Drinks – a gallery attached to a cafe, attached to a locavore deli.

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Oliver & Bonacini at the Bell Lightbox – Ready For Their Close-Up

The biggest opening of this year’s film festival isn’t taking place on the movie screens. Instead, it’s all about where movie stars and movie goers will be dining. Torontonians have been watching the Bell Lightbox reach for the sky for the past couple of years, and when it was announced that Oliver & Bonacini would be running the onsite restaurants, both food lovers and movie fans were excited. What a great way to have dinner and a movie.

O&B Canteen, located at street level, opened in mid-August and is already receiving rave reviews. The 3,500 square foot space, designed by KPMB architects (who also designed the rest of the Bell Lightbox) seats 90 at banquettes and communal tables and another 70 on the streetside patio.

Officially opening today [Editor’s Note – Original info indicated that Luma would open today, but a representative from O&B has informed me that it doesn’t actually open until Sunday], Luma is a more upscale destination, seating 230 with room for another 50 on the terrace. The space is huge (8,000 square feet) and boasts marble walls, oak tables, leather chairs and a wall of windows that look down onto King Street West or up at the skyline and the CN Tower.

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Seeing Stars

And with a sigh of relief – this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is over.

How I hate the damned thing.

It’s not that I don’t like the movies, or that I don’t appreciate what goes into them, but TIFF seems more and more about the “celebrities” each year than the actual films. Who’s wearing what, who ate where? One publication even had a bathroom broadcast, reporting on the washroom habits of visiting celebrities.

I find the obsession with the stars so very strange. Sure, when you’re a teenager, it’s natural to be obsessed with the cute rock star… but I always assumed being star-struck was something we grew out of as adults, secure in the knowledge that the stars are just like the rest of us, and would prefer to be treated as such.

I had the misfortune to find myself on a King streetcar on the evening that George Clooney’s new film was premiering at Roy Thompson Hall. There was a crowd outside as we rolled past and as everyone gawked to see who might be there, someone let out a scream. They had caught sight of George Clooney and within seconds there were people screeching, yelling things out the windows and generally making fools of themselves, unaware or unconcerned that he couldn’t actually hear them.

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