With Canada Day here and gone, and the American holiday this weekend, the big-budgets are quiet this week. Will Smith's latest film has been out for 2 days now and Wall-E is still dominating the cinemas. Therefore, this might be a good weekend to catch up on films you may have missed, whether contemporary or classic. We've got emperors, detectives, ghosts, pregnant teens, cowboys and a block party, all this and more after the jump.

(Due to a technical glitch, This Week in Film is slightly late, but just as great!)
Nothing strikes me as better on a muggy, hot, smoggy summer weekend, than to sit in a cool cinema and watch some films. That's why this week in film consists of Southern belles, knights, the boy born in the manger next to Jesus, a homeless superhero, a robot who reminds me of Johnny 5 and a doc about Antarctica. Pretty much something for everybody, just to give you some examples of what films can distract you from the summer heat. This and so much more after the jump.

Cinephiles rejoice; Toronto has not only one, but two free outdoor movie screenings running this summer. The free films at Dundas Square have officially met their programming match as the Harbourfront Centre has released their Fido Free Flicks that run through July and early August.

The unfortunate problem? Both series are screening their films on the exact same days! Read on for the films which will hopefully be varied enough from the Dundas Square offerings so you can decide whether you feel in the mood for love, teenage pregnancy, political comedy or Annie Hall.

If you're like me and missed Hot Docs this year, there's no need to spend the year moping away. The National Film Board Cinema is bringing the best of the fest to theaters over the next two months so that you can enjoy award-winning films over the summer.

The series kicked off this weekend with a screening of Tracey Deer's Club Native, and continues over the next few weeks with five more critically-acclaimed and audience-pleasing films from various Toronto festivals (including Hot Docs and TIFF) that you may have missed the first time they rolled around.

This week in film is a mish-mash of movies we've already featured, reviewed or anticipated, with a few new additions along the way. The surprising thing about this week is the overall focus on Canadian directors, old and new. I promise this is an unintended consequence, but delightful nonetheless. Of the new and surprising releases this week is Toronto director Sam Dunn's Global Metal. This and more, after the jump.

This Friday evening, the Cinematheque Ontario hosts a sit-down with Canadian director Peter Lynch to discuss what really makes Lynch tick, his cinematic inspirations and what led him to document the unique characters (fictional or real) that his films have featured in the last 14 years. The lecture will be followed by a screening of Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend, which Lynch promises will tie into his lecture somehow. Knowing his works, I believe it.

This lecture is the first in a special programme dedicated to the Toronto director which will screen all of his work to date. The programme is entitled Weird Science: The Idiosyncratic Archaeology of Peter Lynch and while we've interviewed him before, this time blogTO had the opportunity to ask Lynch a few more questions about his work as a whole and found his answers to be a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the man who brought us Cyberman and Project Grizzly.