This Year In Film: Respect to the 'burbs

It may be outside the official boundaries of Toronto, but the 905 has a lot to smile about when it comes to film this year. And in the spirit of giving some love to the entire GTA, in today's installment of our yearly film wrap-up, I want to give some respect to the 'burbs. (I'll drop some respect later in the post to the core too, no worries.)

One of the breakthrough film actors of the year, appearing in critically-acclaimed films like Superbad and Juno, was Brampton's Michael Cera. And though his career has gone Hollywood, the young comedy star is still a GTA-er at heart: Cera still calls Brampton his home, and got his big break on a Tim Hortons ad.

(If you're looking for more Michael Cera goodness, check out his hilarious short video series Clark and Michael.)

One of my favorite Canadian films of the year (that was recently recognized by the TIFF Group as one of Canada's Top Ten of 2007) was Richie Mehta's Amal. Mehta, who grew up in Mississauga, spoke to blogTO's Andrea Nene earlier this year about being one of the filmmakers bringing new life to Canada's film industry.

The star of Mehta's film, Rupinder Nagra, is from Hamilton — not quite a suburb of TO, but close enough — but has performed and trained in Toronto. His performance in Amal stands out as being one of the best performances of the year.

London, Ontario's Ramses Madina was the director of one of my favorite short films of the year, Farmer's Requiem. He also shared some of his thoughts on short film with blogTO after the Toronto International Film Festival.

Of course, the 'burbs may have come up big this year, but that doesn't mean that Toronto proper didn't deserve kudos as well.

I may not have been as big of a fan of Cronenberg's most recent feature film as Johnny, but the Toronto director did have the most entertaining segment in the popular 'film celebrating film', Chacun Son Cinema.

Unlike Matt and Danielle, I didn't have the chance to check out the elaborate setup of the Hulk shoot in Toronto, but Toronto did step in as a central character in one of the most compelling features of the year, Ed Gass-Donnelly's This Beautiful City. Our city certainly did us all proud in its starring role.

The most amusing moment in the Toronto film scene this year, in my humble opinion, was the resounding Y'arrrr that came from TIFF audiences when confronted with piracy warnings. Whether you agree with the sentiment or not, you have to admit that us Toronto cinephiles surely do have a sense of humor.

You've heard what blogTO writers have to say about this year in film, but we want to hear about what your Toronto film highlights were. Drop us a comment and let us know what we've missed!

(Image from IMDB.)