Toronto After Dark Film Festival Announces First 8 Titles

The Toronto After Dark Film Festival showcases the best in horror, cult and sci-fi films from around the world.  The festival has announced the first 8 titles on this year’s schedule, and there are some great ones.

• Trick ‘R’ Treat (Dir. Michael Dougherty, USA)
• Grace (Dir. Paul Solet, Canada)
• Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (Dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura, Japan)
• Franklyn (Dir. Gerald McMorrow, UK)
• The Forbidden Door (Dir. Joko Anwar, Indonesia)
• Embodiment of Evil (Dir. José Mojica Marins, Brazil)
• Black (Dir. Pierre Laffargue, France)
• Someone’s Knocking at the Door (Dir. Chad Ferrin, USA)

After Dark just gets better and better each year, you won’t see most of these films anywhere else.  The Toronto After Dark Film Festival runs from August 14th to the 21st.  Passes are available for purchase and single tickets go on sale starting  July 29th.  For more info make sure to check out the official Toronto After Dark Film Fest site.

Ubisoft to Open Toronto Studio

French developer Ubisoft announced plans to open a major game development studio in Toronto.  Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat; who will head the new Toronto studio, held a press conference earlier today with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to make the announcement.  The provincial government is set to invest $263 million over 10 years with Ubisoft investing another $500 million.  Mallat said the focus of the new studio will be to develop Triple-A titles; something his current Montreal studio is no stranger to, having developed the Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed franchises in the past.

This is huge news for the city.  The studio is expected to employ upwards of 800 people and will be located in the heart of downtown Toronto.  We’ll post more details as they become available.

Via CBC

Art-O-Bot: Oeming, Manupul, and Reilly

What is Art-O-Bot? Quite simply they’re a series of profiles of comic book artists, our way of helping you discover new and talented local artists, as well as highlighting the great work being done by established artists.

Any comic artist qualifies, though we hope to focus on artists in Toronto and Canada.  We’ll do our best to keep it that way, but great art must be seen no matter what the country of origin.

In this inaugural post, we feature Michael Avon Oeming, Francis Manupul and Rob Reilly. Read the rest of this entry »

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus Trailer

Once in a while a film so stupid and at the same time so incredibly awesome will come along that you know you have to see it.  What do you get when you mix B-movie icon Lorenzo Lamas and 80’s pop star Debbie Gibson with humongous prehistoric sea creatures? Well that’s easy: you get the movie Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus!

Words cannot describe how ridiculous and amazing this movie looks—which is probably why they’ve released a trailer for this straight-to-DVD schlock fest. Snakes on a Plane, eat your heart out.

Shock and Awe: The Grindhouse Experience Returns to The Fox Theatre

The Fox Theatre recently announced that the all-night grindhouse marathon Shock and Awe will be returning next month. The event starts on June 13th at 11:30 and runs until 10:30 the next day.

The event will feature some amazingly bad/awesome films from the 60’s through the 80’s all presented in 35mm, including Swinging Pussycats, Hell’s Angels on Wheels, Return of the Living Dead and a mystery film. It’s sure to be an awesome time and tickets are $25 in advance.

For full details visit the Shock and Awe page on Facebook.

Complete lineup of films after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Ryerson University Film Festival at The Royal

The Ryerson University Film Festival is an annual showcase for graduating students of the School of Image Arts in Toronto.  The festival features many films, including the thesis works completed by students in their final year.

The festival is a great opportunity to check out some up and coming local filmmakers.  One such local filmmaker is friend of Dork Shelf, Chris Ritvo—who wrote and directed the hilarious short films that were used to promote the festival.  RUFF runs from May 14th to 16th at the Royal Cinema.

Check out Chris Ritvo’s short film Shark Boat after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations to Jeff Brown and Kiara Barrett

Dork Shelf co-founder and all around awesome guy Jeff Brown was married to the wonderful Kiara Barrett yesterday.  Congratulations to the happy couple and have a great honeymoon!

There are many better pictures of the ceremony, but sadly this was the best one my camera phone could provide.  Good luck kids!

Star Trek Review

As a life long Trekkie, I went into the new J.J. Abrams Trek reboot/sequel with my expectations set to stun—fearing that if I set them to kill I would end up vapourizing myself… whatever that means.  Phaser analogy aside, I knew that J.J Abrams’ vision of Star Trek would be different from that of its original creator Gene Roddenberry. This Star Trek isn’t Roddenberry’s Star Trek; it is a familiar and yet altogether different beast. Many of Roddenberry’s hallmarks remain intact and for better or worse Abrams makes Trek his own with this film. Abrams’ Star Trek is cool, it’s sleek and it’s shiny, but I don’t know if that was what Star Trek was ever about.

Full review after the break. Possible spoilers to follow. Read the rest of this entry »

20th Anniversary Screening of Troll 2 at The Bloor

If you were lucky enough to see the documentary Best Worst Movie at the Hot Docs Film Festival this past week then you know all about the movie Troll 2.

Considered by many as possibly the worst film ever made, Troll 2 was filmed by an Italian director who barely spoke any English and was shot in small town Utah using mostly local actors. The film features a completely nonsensical story, terrible special effects and acting that would make a local elementary school play look like the Royal Shakespeare Company. Troll 2 definitely falls into the so bad it’s good category.

Rue Morgue and the Toronto After Dark Film Fest are presenting a very special 20th anniversary screening of Troll 2 in 35mm on May 12th at The Bloor.

I highly recommend seeing this, you haven’t seen a bad movie until you’ve seen Troll 2. If you don’t believe the movie could be as bad as I’m saying it is, just check out a sampling of Troll 2 after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Canada Gets Exclusive GTA IV Xbox 360 Bundle

Microsoft Canada has announced that Canada will be getting an exclusive Xbox 360 Bundle.  The Grand Theft Auto IV: Limited Anniversary Edition includes the best selling Grand Theft Auto IV and an Xbox 360 Elite console with all the fixings.

The bundle will arrive in stores on May 5th and Future Shop is now taking pre-orders.  It’s about time Canada got an exclusive console bundle.  If you haven’t played GTA IV and don’t own an Xbox 360 then this is the best deal possible.  You get one of the best games of this console generation and the Elite, the best version of the Xbox 360 currently available, what’s not to like?

Via Joystiq.

David Lynch Double Bill at The Fox Theatre

The Fox Theatre has a amazing Double Bill on Tuesday, April 28th, Wild At Heart and Eraserhead from director David Lynch.  If you’ve never seen a David Lynch film, these two flicks are an excellent starter pack.

As Lynch movies go, Wild At Heart could be considered a more mainstream entry into the his filmography, but like any film he’s made it’s wild and weird.  It’s like The Wizard of Oz on meth, with Elvis standing in for Judy Garland. The film also has the distinction of being from a period in Nicholas Cage’s career when he was actually good, so for that fact alone it’s also worth watching.  Cage can be terrible, but when he’s on; like in Wild At Heart, he’s on. Wild At Heart is a road movie that just takes one bizarre turn after another.

After seeing the first film you may wonder how Lynch can top it, but Eraserhead is a much more strange film than Wild At Heart.  I guarantee that you will walk away from this film either disturbed or changed in some way—I know I did after my first viewing.  Eraserhead is absolutely mesmerizing in all of its weird silence; there is very little dialogue and many long shots of, for lack of a better term, some of the oddest and most troubling stuff ever put to film.  You’ll want to look away, but you won’t be able to.  The Fox owns a great original print of Eraserhead, and you won’t get to see it on 35mm anywhere else.

Lynch is known for giving viewers that subtle uncomfortable feeling in the pit of their stomachs.  The films aren’t overtly disturbing, but both Wild at Heart and Eraserhead get under your skin.  Lynch must be seen to be believed.

David Lynch Double Bill @ The Fox Theatre

Check out the trailers for Wild At Heart and Eraserhead after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hot Docs 2009 Picks

The 2009 Hot Docs International Documentary Festival starts next week in Toronto. Showcasing the best in documentary filmmaking from Canada and around the world, Hot Docs is playing some truly great stuff this year. Dork Shelf has compiled a list of the films that we’re planning to see at this years festival and the picks are suitably dorky. These are merely our humble picks, Hot Docs is playing even more amazing documentary films and we encourage you to check out the full Hot Docs Film Fest Schedule.

Dork Shelf’s Hot Docs 2009 Picks after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »