Though the videogame industry has escaped becoming culture-war fodder during this electoral season, it's certainly seen more than its fair share of vicious attacks in recent years—most of which have originated from the industry’s arch-nemeses Jack Thompson

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So, during this year's Toronto International Film Festival some of the local papers took a good run at the venerable fest. They called it elitist, they called it snobby, they said it had lost touch with its populist roots. I wrote it all off as standard

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Newsflash: Canada is a nation of hotties. Oh wait, we knew that already. But the fact was confirmed when Port Perry, Ontario native Jayde Nicole was named 2008 Playmate of the Year. The title came after the 5'9" brunette first appeared in Playboy' s pages

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Ever since Nintendo upgraded from its original 8-bit look to a “Super” 16-bit, we’ve been regularly fed the line that the most important part of a game is its pixelated prettiness. Ironically, Nintendo would go on to disprove this theory with its DS and

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Considering the drop-off in quality between The Godfather: Part Two and The Godfather: Part Three , one can imagine the result if they had pushed on to a fifth installment. It’s safe to assume that Part Five would be an epic piece of shit, but also, considering

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So, what to do the week after TIFF rolls out of town? Well, hit the theater to catch one of the flicks missed at the big fest, of course. You can’t shake off the tendrils of a beast this huge all that easily, you know, and the release schedule for the

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Here’s an unsexy word: phthalates. They’re ugly little things, and not just because of that unpronounceable quadruple consonant cluster. Added to plastics to aid flexibility, the chemicals known as phthalates have been shown to upset human endocrine systems.

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Yep, that venerable institution of light saber-fueled geekery, is back with another new ep. But times have changed since George Lucas tricked us into getting super-excited over that first prequel movie. I even waited in line for a whole day (on assignment,

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The vast ambition of Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro's epic Che is only fitting, giving the Argentine born revolutionary's iconic status as one of the most recognizable figures of the 20th century. Divided into two parts, Che follows the evolution

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Two words that will be applied with great regularity to Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs : torture porn. The torture part is certainly correct, this is a film loaded with scenes of graphic and unflinching violence. But the porn? No, not at all. There’s not a

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Samantha Bee and Jason Jones are a real life married couple, best known for their awkward comedy stylings on The Daily Show . In Cooper's Camera , they play a trashy suburban married couple to some degree of amusing success. Jones plays Gord, a hapless

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Let's get this out of the way right off the top. When it comes to story, plot, and characters Ong Bak director Prachya Pinkaew's Chocolate is absolutely atrocious. The writing is weak and repetitive, the characters poorly laid out, and some high priced

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Is it too soon to pronounce Slumdog Millionaire this years finest Toronto International Film Festival entry? Of course not! Director Danny Boyle ( Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions, Sunshine ) has not only delivered another masterpiece

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Well, actually, decriminalize it: Sex Professionals of Canada is a 25-year-old group that advocates for the rights and freedoms of sex workers. During its quarter-century tenure, the group has gone head-to-head with the government on numerous occasions,

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According to the prophet Bill Maher, religion, as we know it, is detrimental to society. His tenants are as follows: If you believe in religion you’re an idiot. Believing in religion is akin to being mentally insane. Religious people better smarten up

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Virgin Festival Diary: Day One My day started with MGMT playing to an excited crowd on the main stage, though they started off slow and dull. They opened with, in an odd tongue-in-cheek sarcastic tone, “Hey, Toronto, best crowd EVER.” And proceeded to

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Charlie Kaufman has written some of my favourite movies of recent years. The films are filled with nervous artists unable to realize their life-justifying vision, mostly mired in bad relationships and always chronically deprived of self-esteem. Synecdoche,

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Serbia may be an unlikely source for the next wave of European fantasy films but someone obviously neglected to tell this to the makers of Tears For Sale ( aka Charleston and Vendetta ). A visually stunning bit of work that incorporates and satirizes

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Will Wright’s uber-anticipated Spore finally came out this past weekend (though much to EA’s chagrin, it was cracked by notorious warez release group Reloaded and widely torrented a few days earlier) and PC gamers of all persuasions are no doubt busily

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Over the course of his career Kim Ji Woon has become one of the most unique voices in South Korea. Sure, he doesn't have the name recognition here of Oldboy 's Park Chan Wook, but has Park ever told the tale of a bland businessman turned masked wrestler?

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Sure, sure, it's faint praise to say that JCVD is the high point of Jean Claude Van Damme's career but how about this: Of the two or three hundred films I've seen so far this year - one day I'll start keeping an accurate tally - this is my favorite. It's

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Talk about an odd choice for the Midnight Madness program. Sure, Eden Log 's got genre cred to spare - it's a scifi flick with a heavy creature element, the first directorial effort from a man with AD credits on a ludicrous list of the best French genre

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Where to even begin with AJ Anilla’s Sauna ? A film that raises more questions than it answers, that raises more issues than it resolves, Sauna is a major thinkpiece on the nature of sin and guilt and how both can simply swallow you whole. Impeccably

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Ricky Gervais in a romantic comedy? Ok, I'll admit I had some serious doubts about Ghost Town , but goddamit, this was a great romantic comedy. Not too saccharine, full of acerbic wit and most definitely a trigger for tons of out loud laughs. Gervais

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At first glance the idea of an animated documentary seems odd, maybe even counter-productive. After all, isn't the point of a documentary to get as close to its subject as possible with as little interference from the film maker as possible? And doesn't

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Guy Ritchie has had a few lean years as of late. His wife has assumed near Cher-like levels of past-prime popdom and his recent films have been clunkers to say the least. But then, early this year Ritchie blew me away with his cocky, visually fresh Nike

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The internet is to porn as the Autobahn is to speedometers, and the information superhighway sprouts ever more sexy on-ramps and off-ramps each and every day. In case you haven't heard, Canadians are giant sluts, with a keen national interest in participating

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I can’t believe today is the day we’ve all been waiting for. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve been waiting, because it’s possible that you weren’t even aware. But ever since I updated my Terrance Howard calendar a few months ago, all my calendars have been

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