This Week in Film rounds up noteworthy new releases in theatres, as well as key DVD / Blu-Ray releases, festivals, and other cinema-related events happening in Toronto.

This Week in Rep Cinema features second run and classic film selections from cinemas such as The Fox, The Revue, The Royal, Toronto Underground Cinema, the Projection Booth, TIFF Bell Lightbox and more.

It's pretty quiet on the rep cinema front this week, as January, or as I like to call it "Oh crap, I haven't watched half the acclaimed releases from 2011!" begins. Throughout this month, while rep cinemas will be falling all over themselves to screen whatever will be deemed the 'sleeper hit' at the Oscars this year, I'll also try to recommend some classics wherever they pop up. But these are the dog days of January after all.

This Week in Film rounds up noteworthy new releases in theatres, as well as key DVD / Blu-Ray releases, festivals, and other cinema-related events happening in Toronto.

This Week in Rep Cinema features second run and classic film selections from cinemas such as The Fox, The Revue, The Royal, Toronto Underground Cinema, the Projection Booth, TIFF Bell Lightbox and more.

The Royal Cinema in a rare, hopefully seasonal turn has become a regular old second-run cinema, screening Puss in Boots, Drive, Moneyball and The Immortals. But they aren't alone. The Revue and the Fox are bare as well, with the former screening Puss in Boots, J. Edgar and Ides of March while the Fox throws in Like Crazy. Yawn. So what it comes down to, is this week will just be selections from the Projection Booth and the Lightbox, as the latter continues to show everybody just what a dedicated movie-plex can do, flexing it's muscles with some amazing holiday programming.

I'm not sure how others feel, but the balmy weather has put a bit of a damper on my holiday spirit. Not that I'm complaining much — it's actually boozy egg-nog that gets me festive rather than frozen precipitation — but I get the sense that I could use a bit of kickstart to save me from going all Scrooge on everybody. This holiday-themed timelapse sequence from Ben Lean is a good start. Juxtaposing shots from the Distillery District's Christmas Market and the shopping frenzy at the Eaton Centre, it's a timely little reminder that somewhere out there the holiday machine is in full gear and that my egg-nog will do just fine as far festivity goes.

Check it out.

The term "viral" is thrown around a bit too loosely nowadays, especially when it comes to videos related to a specific city. So I'm going to avoid using that tag for the offerings below, even if in some cases you could make the argument that they deserve it. Most of these would be more like local viruses that spread within a given community, in this case Toronto.