Shot in Bombay

This Week in Film: August 14th 2008

This week in film definitely runs the gamut in terms of variety and diversity. We've got an independent Aboriginal-Canadian feature film, shot in 17 days and for a shoestring budget of $25,000, but we also have a documentary about the seedy underbelly of Bollywood, an action-packed screening with some mean green turtles, a romantic romp about lovers in a tumultuous time and...Spaceballs.

Tonight is the night that the Revue Cinema hosts a screening of Bruce McDonald's Hard Core Logo. While this is not only just a great Canadian film meant to get us revved up for Bruce's film Pontypool which can be found at the film festival in a few weeks, the man will also be in attendance for a special question and answer period after the film! Tickets to this special event will be $12 and there will also be a musical component including artists such as The Flatliners, Maximum RNR, The Wooden Sky and Spookey Ruben after the questions are over!

The South Asian Film Festival swoops in at the Bloor and Royal Cinemas this weekend, showing some interesting fare that you may not get a chance to see otherwise. The gritty documentary Shot in Bombay is definitely my pick from the festival, which was previously screened at Hot Docs this past year. The documentary follows the creation of a Bollywood gangster film based off of a real incident of violence between police and a notorious gang in 1992. The development of the film, combined with the parallels between the past and present put the film into context, exposing a somewhat difficult truth about the relationship Bollywood and some of its stars have with major crime. You can see Shot in Bombay at the Bloor Cinema on Friday at 7pm.

This week the Royal Cinema is screening Tkaronto as part of a co-production with the imagiNATIVE film festival. The film is about Ray, a Metis writer in Toronto to pitch a tv series, and Jolene, an Anishnabe artist in Toronto for an important interview with an Elder. The two happen to meet, Before Sunrise-style, while both struggle with the impact that this time in Toronto will inevitably have on their lives. The film will be playing at the Royal throughout the week.

By the way, have I mentioned that the Bloor Cinema also has an unexpected screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Saturday at 2:30pm? Cowabunga dude! Combine that with a Hotshots! Part Deux and Spaceballs on Wednesday and the best place this week for campy nostalgia has been declared!

Yonge and Dundas Square is almost done for the season but not out for the count yet. On Tuesday I rode by Yonge and Dundas Square during the screening of epic film Titanic and not only were all the seats filled, but people were practically pushed to Yonge Street, there were so many attendees. As long as it doesn't rain, as Toronto has been apt to do this summer, I'm sure the tear-jerker The Notebook won't be much different. Not to sound like a broken record, but the film is Tuesday evening at sundown.

Image: Shot in Bombay from Little Bird


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