Ryan McNeil
Thought I’d give the weekly blog round-up a slight twist this week. My first thought was to make it an all Canadian click-fest given that it’s the Canada Day long weekend up here in The Great White North. But then I thought about getting a touch more specific.
Y’all have heard me make mention once or twice about Toronto Movie Blogger Pub Night. It’s been on the go for nearly two years now at a once-a-month clip, and I thought it might be cool to feature posts from people who frequent this cinematic coffee clatch.
Before I do that though, a recent email with Fletch reminded me…if you can, I vote that you fine folks try to start these sorts of things in your own areas. The people you get-together with don’t have to be bloggers exactly…just other people with a passion for film (there’s a cinema employee and a film programmer or two in our own midst).
Try to get it going. As fun as the online community is, getting to sit across the table and discuss/argue/mock a month’s worth of flicks is infinitely more fun. For now, get a taste of who was at my table…
For your reading fulfillment, I give you…
The whole shindig is very much the brainchild of Shannon the Movie Moxie. She’s a Twi-Hard, but we love her anyway. Speaking of which, she had to duck out earlier than usual to catch a midnight screening of ECLIPSE.
One highlight of the meet-up for me was getting to finally meet and have a drink with CS from Big Thoughts, who finally came out to our little get-together. Take a look at his piece on a new Canadian film called YEAR OF THE CARNIVORE.
Joe at Black Sheep is always fun to catch up with, we got to talking about various reasons why the FAME remake sucked. Here’s his review on CYRUS, which might just be what I see this weekend.
After a few beers, I decided to start yelling random titles across the table to Kurt from Row Three, looking for a non-verbal yay or nay. Something tells me this wasn’t nearly as funny to many others and I can promise that it won’t happen again. Anyway, here’s Kurt’s review of AGORA.
Managed to get Bob from Eternal Sunshine all aghast at the fact that I’ve never seen BOTTLE ROCKET. I also believe I promised I’d see it by the next meet-up…a promise which I managed to forget this afternoon at Blockbuster. Oops. Anyway, I’ve often mentioned how I love Bob’s screencap method of enticing you into seeing a film. As exhibit A, look at this post on HE WALKED BY NIGHT.
Finally, there’s Chris, the writer of a swell Japanese Film site called J-Film Pow-Wow. Chris has actually parlayed the whole thing into a film festival called the Shinsedai Cinema Festival. He’s been looking a bit stressed lately, but I’m sure he’ll be more relaxed when his festival is over.
Enjoy!