FILM | The 8 Fest: 2012 Festival
A little festival for small films, The 8 Fest's 5th annual festival to celebrate small gauge films opens at the Trash Palace Cinema this evening. North America's only festival to exclusively showcase films on smaller formats such as Super 8, 8mm and 9.5mm, The 8 Fest will feature films covering a 70-year period, including classics, contemporary use of smaller formats and even home videos. 8 programs will be run throughout the festival on topics like animation and Super 8 as well as workshops with various filmmakers like John Kneller. This little festival of small films is short but sweet; it closes Sunday.
Trash Palace Cinema (89B Niagara Street) 6:30PM $5 per film, $25 festival pass

FOOD | Winterlicious
The holidays have come and gone but the annual hibernation has been put on hold--yes, even for the penny pinchers — because today marks the beginning of Winterlicious! With 175 of the city's top restaurants participating this year, Toronto foodies of all palettes and tastes can sample the cuisines of the best local spots from Benihana to Boiler House to Edward Levesque's Kitchen for reasonably low prices. Reservations are always recommended for the prix fixe menus up for offer so be sure to book ahead and visit www.toronto.ca/winterlicious for full details on participating restaurants. Winterlicious ends February 9th. Happy eating!
Various locations across Toronto 11AM

DESIGN | Come Up To My Room 2012
Alternative design will take over the Gladstone Hotel over the next four days in the form of room installations and public space projects. The 9th annual design event Come Up To My Room opens to the public this afternoon with works by artists like DarkLab, Wendy W. Fok, Fugitive Glue and merk on the exhibition floor. Public space projects by archiTEXT and Void Engineering will also be prominently featured amongst the many parties and discussions on topics like disposability that will happen throughout the weekend. In conjunction with Toronto design week, this event closes January 29th.
Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West) 12PM $10

ART | Opening Reception: Constructed View
Constructed View observes the disconnect between memory and truth, perception and conception. In this exhibit curated by Patrick Macaulay, 8 artists confront the dilemma they face each time they create: How to represent an event or an object in a way that is truthful to its reality. Some will push the boundaries into another truth while others attempt to reconstruct through photographs, paintings and print-based works. The exhibit opens tonight with a reception at Harbourfront Centre where it will be on display until mid-April.
Harbourfront Centre (235 Queens Quay West) 5:30PM Free

MUSIC | A$AP Rocky
Making his Canadian debut tonight at The Opera House, emerging Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky is surrounded by buzz following the successful release of his 2011 mixtape Live Love A$AP. Recently signed to Polo Grounds Music and RCA Records, A$AP Rocky has already toured with Drake and has appeared in Vice Magazine as his singles "Purple Swag" and "Peso" were named some of the year's best by The New York Times. The show will be an intimate performance but tickets purchased for The Mod Club show will still be honoured at the new venue. A new block of tickets has been released to see the next big thing in rap but get them A$AP before the show sells out.
The Opera House (735 Queen Street East) 8PM $25

OTHER EVENTS ON OUR RADAR:

• GTWA Coffeehouse: Occupy Debrief
• Vive's DOUBLE VISION Issue Release Party
• Daft Punk Tribute at Wrongbar
• Domestic Vista
• Rocky Horror January- A Night of A Thousand Franks
• The Holiday Crowd Over The Bluffs Debut Record Release Party

Have an event you'd like to plug? Submit your own listing to the blogTO Toronto events calendar or contact us directly.

For Toronto movie showtimes, view our Movie Listings section.

Photo by Lindsey McKague in the blogTO Flickr pool