DKTM 137

I'm off to take in a matinee soon, so I'll keep this brief. Here's what happened this week.

JC Comes To Toronto.

This week Rue Morgue announced the guest of honour at this year's Festival of Fear would be none other than horror master John Carpenter.

We've been kind of waiting for this for a few years now, as Carpenter is the last marquee name left to visit The Big Smoke in August. Let's just hope he doesn't cancel like he "had to", when his last film The Ward screened TIFF's Midnight Madness in 2010. With Gillian Anderson also appearing at Fan Expo this year, this could be one for the ages!

The Host.

Walking through bookstores circa 2009, I would invariably see this cover staring back at me from the shelves.

It always struck me, yet, for some reason, I never investigated further. What was it about? Did the title refer to some sort of parasite, or a sinister dinner party? Anyway, I eventually forgot about it until I saw the teaser for the upcoming movie adaptation on Twitch.

I did not even realize it was Stephenie "Twilight" Meyer until I saw that. Partnering her with the director of In Time does not scream something that should interest me, but that teaser is a pretty awesome realization of what made that book cover so entrancing in the first place.

The Bloor Is Back!

Almost a year ago, Toronto's flagship's rep cinema The Bloor closed its doors for lengthy renovations. Now owned by Hot Docs, it officially opened its doors on Mar 16th. As you can see for the pics below, there have been some major changes and a huge technological upgrade - no more shitty sound in the balcony!

The most notable change is that strange window to the lobby seen in that last picture, courtesy of Row Three. I think it is a callback to an older architectural style, but fortunately there is a curtain that is pulled across during showtimes. The screen has also been raised substantially, which presents a problem for the first half-dozen rows on the floor, but the trade-off is that subtitle sightlines have now been dramatically improved. This may be one of the only theatres where the balcony has the best seats in the house.

The film I took in while I was there was the documentary Corman's World about the film career of schlockmeister and consummate businessman Roger Corman. While it lacks the personality of the likeminded docs of Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood, Machete Maidens Unleashed), Corman's World is still a great peek into the world of a filmmaking icon. It was really great to see Hollywood's elite, like Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson and Ron Howard - all of whom owe a huge debt to Corman for jump-starting their careers - talk so highly of him. Even at eighty-three, we see him hard at work on the set of the SyFy production Dinoshark. Here's the trailer for Corman's World below.