Passchendaele after party last night at the Drake

by Alex on September 5th, 2008

September’s Sharp man Paul Gross’ World War II epic Passchendaele opened the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival last night. While it’s true that the original aim of the festival, screening exciting new films from around the world, is still firmly in place, glamourous parties and celebrity spotting are other undeniable appeals of the ten day event.

Last night Sharp hosted the Passchendaele after party at the trendy Drake Hotel. While Paul Gross was obviously the man of the hour, other guests included Passchendaele co-star Caroline Dhavernas, Brian Mulroney, and Colin and Justin from HGTV’s Home Heist.

As we nurse the first of many TIFF related hangovers we’d like to thank everyone who came out, to Alliance Atlantis, and the Drake Hotel. And be sure to check with us next week with more pictures from the ef

The Sicilian treatment

by Alex on September 3rd, 2008

With a new lifestyle condominium popping up every other week it’s become impossible not to notice Toronto’s rapid transition from the stuffy “Big Smoke” into Canada’s sexiest Frankencity. And maybe it’s foolish to feel a tinge of sadness when another historic building gets the condo treatment, especially when you consider that most of them were built in the beginning of the twentieth century. And we swear that our current disillusionment has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the fact that the Harvey’s at Yonge and Bloor was recently torn down, and subsequently relegated to the stuff of lunchtime lore, and stories that start with “When I was a kid.”

But, we’re not going to blame Toronto developers for our architectural depression, instead we’re going to point the finger at Vittorio Sgarbi, the mayor of Sicily. It seems mayor Sgarbi has decided to sell-off all the neglected buildings in downtown Sicily for 1 euro a pop. The catch? Anyone who purchases a derelict villa will have two years to renovate it in the traditional Sicilian style, which does not come cheap. Thankfully, the mayor isn’t worried: “We have had a lot of interest and people are already booking up to come down here.” Among the interested parties? Peter Gabriel. This means that in a few years Sicily will look like La Dolce Vita, and Toronto will look like a the Blade Runner set (as envisioned by a committee of lifestyle condominium developers).

To learn more about Sicily and to practice your Italian go here.

Sony Cyber-Shot Just Got Even Better

by Alex on September 2nd, 2008

A lot of people might pine for the analog days of film, but there’s no denying the power of a sweet little digi-cam. And let’s be honest here, even if you did decide to go back to film today, would you even know where to buy film?  Plus, there’s something to be said about vacation pictures so crisp that you can literally count each individual grain of sand on the beach.

Of course one thing that was always lacking on the digital camera was a decent film mode. Shooting a movie is always fun, and it looks great on that tiny screen, but as soon as you watch it on your computer monitor you can barely tell if you were the blur on the right, or if your wife started sporting a beard but forgot to tell you. Well, those days are over. Sony is introducing the a new and improved Cyber-Shot camera with wide and full-screen 720p movie recording at 30 frames per second in fine, standard and VGA recording modes. Which is just complicated way of saying that it can shoot really good movies, and it’ll make your next ski trip look like a Michael Bay production.

For more information on the Cyber-shot go here.

Next Page »