At Home Film Festival
My favourite era of pornography is, roughly speaking, the time period that’s now referred to as porn’s Golden Age, approximately from the late 1960s through to the early ’80s. There are two key reasons why porn from this era really appeals to me. First, the actors look like normal human beings. I like to think that this isn’t just because plastic surgery wasn’t yet in vogue. Instead, perhaps the public was a bit more imaginative and willing to allow itself to be seduced by the broad spectrum of regular human bodies? At a time when everyone in the film (porn...
June is finally here, and this month marks the Toronto Film Scene’s Music & Film issue so it’s only appropriate that this edition of At Home Film Festival should highlight some of the best music documentaries available that you may have overlooked while scanning the rental store aisles. That being said, the films that I have chosen this month feature strange, subversive and downright rock n’ roll moments captured by the camera’s unblinking eye. As a young girl, what drew me to music documentaries was the unquenchable desire to be as close as possible to the rock stars I loved....
The horror genre certainly has its own army of devotees who love being terrified by flying gore, shrieking ghosts and lurching monsters. But oddly enough, there’s a whole segment of the population who just don’t get the same kind of high from being scared or maybe thy just don’t quite have the inner fortitude to make it all the way through a feature-length horror movie. Luckily for them, there is a whole host of terrifying, gruesome, spooky and sometimes darkly funny short form horror films out there that can act as an easy-to-swallow introduction to a wary potential fan, while...
Andy Warhol is arguably one of the most recognizable figures in the art world. He transformed images of soup cans and Brillo pads into high art icons. He took Hollywood icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley and made them even bigger symbols. That being said, many people who are familiar with his artwork are unaware of some of the contributions he made to the world of film. Between 1963 and 1968 alone, Warhol made more than 60 films. In addition to that, he did dozens of screen tests starring everyone from huge stars like Bob Dylan to lesser known...
It goes without saying that much of the world’s best animation can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike, no matter who the intended audience is. We need look no further than the current Studio Ghibli retrospective at TIFF Bell Lightbox for examples of some incredibly nuanced, emotionally complex storytelling that has something profound to offer to audiences of all ages. But really, what would be the fun of being an adult, if we didn’t get to have ice cream for dinner, go to bed late, and enjoy some animated films that just aren’t for kids at all?...
f there’s one definitive conclusion that could be reached by observing the interactions of people from Toronto and Montreal, it’s that we here in Canada love us a good old-fashioned friendly rivalry. Most would be quick to point to hockey as the main source of antagonism – somewhere along the line the number of Stanley Cups eclipsed all else as the main indicator of provincial superiority. What is often forgotten however is that the root of this not-always-so-friendly competition lie in our country’s history of bilingualism. The evolution and historical tradition of “nos deux langues officielles” has been strained...
