FILM | Doc Now
Canada's premiere documentary film festival Hot Docs wrapped up another successful year last month, but before the filmmakers featured in that festival made it to the big time they slaved away on student films like the ones you'll see at Doc Now, Ryerson's showcase of documentary movies and visual art. For the next three weeks Doc Now will be screening the work of graduates from the school's Documentary Media program who are hoping to further cement Canada's reputation for great documetary filmmaking. The festival's trailer gives you glimpse of what's on offer, with films taking as their subjects everything from cute kids to gay conservatives to one woman's fight to save her family farm. Runs til June 26.
Various venues and times, check schedule for full details

BOOKS AND LIT | Rower's Pub Reading Series: Lorna Crozier, Patrick Lane, Sachiko Murakami
A quiet little pub on Harbord Street best known its menu of creative variations on old favourites, Harbord House is also home to a monthly reading series that brings together the best local writers in an intimate setting. Tonight the Rower's Pub Reading Series plays host to three of Canada's finest poets in Lorna Crozier, Patrick Lane and Sachiko Murakami. Crozier and Lane have a few years on Murakami and dozens of awards between them, but she's already proven to be no slouch and in 2008 was nominated for the Governor General's award for her first book of poetry called The Invisibility Exhibit.
Harbord House, 150 Harbord Street, Free, 7:30 pm

FILM | Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita shocked readers' sensibilities when it was first published, scandalizing 1950s America for its frank and sometimes funny portrayal of one man's lust for an underage girl. Such was the controversy around the book that when Stanley Kubrick decided to make a film adaptation of it in 1962, the movie's posters carried the tagline "How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?" Totally unclassifiable and utterly unpornographic, Kubrick's film solidified his reputation as a director of unrivaled talent and features remarkable performances by James Mason as the pedophile protagonist Humbert Humbert and Peter Sellers as his rival Clare Quilty. Shot in beautiful black and white with incredible cinematography, the movie is best seen on a big screen. The film screens tonight and next Tuesday at TIFF Cinematheque's Jackman Hall.
Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West, $10.14 general, $5.90 students, 7 pm

BOOKS AND LIT | Unique Lives and Experience: Laura Bush
As far as unique experiences go, being married to George W. Bush has got to be one of the weirdest. Not only would you have to cope with the stress of being the First Lady to the most disliked president of all time, but you'd live in constant fear of being widowed by a wayward pretzel. Like her predecessors in the White House, Mrs. Bush is of course much more than just a wife and mother, and used the time W. was in office to start international programs to improve the health and education of women around the world. She comes to Roy Thomson Hall tonight to discuss her life's work and her new autobiography Spoken from the Heart as part of the Unique Lives and Experiences women's lecture series.
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe Street, $30 - $75, 7:30 pm

FILM | Silverstein - Decade Premiere Screening
Longevity isn't an easy thing for bands to achieve these days, but Burlington quintet Silverstein have survived ten years on the front lines of Canada's pop punk scene, selling hundreds of thousands of records largely on the strength of word-of-mouth and nonstop touring that's taken them to 26 countries. To mark their tenth anniversary the boys played a raucous four-night stand at the El Mocambo in March, taking footage which would become the concert film Decade. Directed by music video veteran Robby Starbuck, the movie screens for the first time ever tonight at the Royal Cinema and includes 22 live songs in front of a very enthusiastic El Mo crowd.
Royal Cinema, 608 College Street, $10, 9 pm

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Photo: "Kansas City Wizards vs Toronto FC" by ChrisFizik, member of the blogTO Flickr Pool.