Before today, I'd never been to a set sale; they're wonderful things where movie productions sell off their excess props and wardrobe. I'd gotten wind of today's sale for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, a film starring Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman that was shot here in Toronto (but we'll have to wait until it's release in 2007 to see it), and found my way there in the studio district shortly after the opening of the sale.

It was like visiting a yard sale from some bargain hunter's wildest fantasy: prop rockets ships; manhole-sized lemon slices made of fibreglass; 2 metre tall chairs which could double as lifeguard outposts; costumes and wardrobe to suit a Barnum & Bailey production.

Spotted this trio on Eglinton East. I quickly developed an intense urge for Doublemint gum and denim.

Looking to avoid the annual blockbuster deluge? Summer's arrived and so has the new season at the Cinematheque where it's business as usual with another excellent lineup for the film connoisseur: Polish "sociopolitical critiques"; kung fu mayhem; Bollywood method-acting; and Lynch + Hopper. What a lineup!

June brings a retrospective of the films of Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski who is best recognized by newer audiences for his Trois Couleurs trilogy Bleu, Blanc, and Rouge. Those who wish to explore more of this "eloquent conjoiner of metaphysical mystery" should put time aside to attend his Decalogue series which is 10 hour-long episodes filmed as a modern adaptation of the Ten Commandments.

Calling all Gen-Xers and 80's aficionados! The Monster Squad, I repeat, The Monster Squad, will be shown Thursday night at the Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor W).

The good people from Rue Morgue Magazine are responsible for bringing this piece of nostalgia to the theatre. This creature feature has never been released on DVD so here's your chance to see it on a 35mm print. Perhaps excelled only by The Goonies as a slice of 80's cinematic fluff made for 12 year olds, The Monster Squad is best viewed through whimsical eyes misted by inebriants. The ghoulish fun begins at 9:30.
[image liberated from punkstuff.com]

Pre-show announcements are made at the latest Hot Doc presentation. The lights dim. The opening Hot Doc animated sequence plays. Cut to...Models twirling on a catwalk. The onscreen audience, rich and bored, perks up at a new arrival rising up out of a dark pool. Water glistens and sheens off of slick curves. The new Cadillac is here! Hurrah!

And the real-life audience erupts into a chorus of hisses and boos. Others take it up and the house goes wild with enthusiastic jeering mixed with clapping and laughter. This same ritual has happened at every Hot Doc film I've attended and I look forward to it continuing over this last weekend of the festival. It's a great way to begin a film - presenting an audible middle finger in protest of the practice of corporate commercials preceding documentaries (the subjects of which often decry the big-business monster).

"It was the middle of winter in New Jersey, and we had been filming all day. Richard, our subject, was weary, but he still had so much to do. In his care were 1600 turtles and tortoises, most of them endangered, and every one of them needed food and fresh water. " - Eric Daniel Metzgar

What can one person do when not only species but entire families of creatures are at risk of total extinction? In The Chances of the World Changing we see that Richard Ogust chose to turn his Manhattan apartment into a miniature ark, building "assurance colonies", small collections of turtles (many of which are extinct in the wild), which, hopefully, are large enough to maintain the integrity of the breeding populations. But it isn't as easy as all that...