BAMCAT.com

Death to Arcades, Top Indie Toronto Video Stores, and Where's Jimmy Hoffa?

It's been a long time since I posted something on BAMCAT. Reason being - I'm doing so much cool stuff for my real job at CityNews.ca lately. Here are three examples:

Game Over: Video Arcades Face Extinction - this was a story written by Michael Talbot at CityNews.ca. Although we could not get video to go with the piece his photos tell the story almost better than video could. It also caused a stir at BlogTO (a great Toronto-based blog) and they even wrote a piece of their own on arcades.

Indie Toronto Video Stores - Suzanne Ellis and I put this five-part series together featuring the best independent video stores in Toronto. Sadly, the day after we profiled Suspect Video it burned to the ground (along with many other historical stores on Queen St. W. in Toronto). Queen Video, Marquee Video, Black Dog Video, and The Film Buff (story on Friday) were all included in the series.

Where's Jimmy Hoffa? Former Mob Driver Weighs in on the Mystery - Meeting Marvin Elkind didn't really affect me until he told us where he believes Jimmy Hoffa is buried. He could be the most interesting person I have ever met as well as the scariest.

Photo of Marvin Elkind by Michael Talbot

That's just three out of almost 50 original pieces we have done in the last month. I'll get back to updating BAMCAT with fun links and videos shortly.

Testing 1, 2, 3

Thanks to a post on TypePad Hacks I just added some JavaScript code to BAMCAT and Criticize This! that will open all external links in a new window (Google Ads excluded). Seems to be working fine on our end, but would like to know if you encounter any issues or annoyances (and with what browser, etc.).

Wanna win the new Harry Potter on HD-DVD?

We're having a Harry Potter contest over on Criticize This!, and you can win a copy of the latest film - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - on Combo HD-DVD!

All you have to do to enter is post a comment on the contest page. It's really that easy. Contest closes at 12:00AM December 11th, 2007 (so hurry and enter).

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Check out my Best (and Worst) of Halloween (the movie series) over at Criticize This!, and enjoy our Halloween themed commandN below (yes, that is Amber as a pirate).

Click To Play

Toronto After Dark Film Festival

We did a story for CityNews today on the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (which kicks off tomorrow and runs until October 25th at the Bloor Cinema). Being one of over 80 film festivals in Toronto, festival director Adam Lopez relies on MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and the blogging community to help get the word out about the fest. His marketing has worked - Toronto After Dark is currently one of the top 5 festivals in the city.

We will be covering the fest for Criticize This! next week. With films like Blood Car, Poultrygeist (a Troma film), Murder Party, The Tripper (David Arquette's directorial debut), and Simon Says (starring Crispin Glover) it may be hard to decide which films to review though.

Watch the preview of the fest below, and check out the full interview Amber did with Adam Lopez over on blip.tv.

More TIFF07 News

We are well into the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF07), so I thought I should post an update of our CityNews.ca coverage.

Last week we interviewed Canadian director Leonard Farlinger about his film All Hat. This is the first festival film for Leonard and he spewed enthusiasm. He was also a decent guy too. We also chatted with Meni Tsirbas about his animated sci-fi film Terra (which looks very cool and I hope I get to see soon). I immediately liked Meni when he pulled out his iPhone (he's a fellow geek).

Suzanne also spoke with actresses Ellen Page (Hard Candy) and Tilda Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia), in between her screening of Jodie Foster's The Brave One, and the party for the Stuart Townsend film Battle in Seattle.

We'll be going strong again this week with a piece on George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (along with a video of his Q&A), an interview with the producers of the Brian De Palma film Redacted (Brian might do an interview too if we're lucky), as well as more reviews and tales of the festival life (so keep watching the blog).

 

CityNews.ca TIFF07 Coverage

I'm producing the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF07) coverage for CityNews.ca. Suzanna Ellis - our wonder-reporter - has a blog setup, lots of original content, reviews, interviews (Tilda Swinton is almost locked), and general how-to do the fest pieces. We'll also be covering some parties and special events happening in the city (thanks to our friends at Peach Stone Media).

Our goal with the coverage is to do it from the ground (not the red carpet) daily during the festival. We have no special access, had to buy our own tickets, are not accredited for press events, and it is just two us working on the site (with Suzanne doing a majority of the work).

TIFF07 kicks off on September 6th and runs until September 15th. If you have any news to share with regards to the fest during that time please drop us a line at tiff@citynews.ca.

 

Don't do it Owen!

I've been at the cottage for the last few days with nothing but dial-up Internet (too slow to actually use) and no TV! So when I returned today to news that Owen Wilson tried to commit suicide I was horrified! Owen is one of my favourite actors. I loved him in Wedding Crashers and Zoolander, enjoyed his performance in The Royal Tennenbaums, and from the trailer for The Darjeeling Limited, I think I'm going to have to add this to my list!

Owen - if you're listening - please don't do it! You are too good an actor (and person) to off yourself. You're young, you have a big career ahead of you, and friends/family who care (I'm sure Luke cares). From a fan, DON'T DO IT!

 

Are you a Change Agent?

Changents is a new site that connects people trying to make a difference in this world (or as they call them - Change Agents).

From the site:

Changents brings attitude, entertainment, community, good corporate citizen sponsors and results together in one place.

For a better explanation watch this video on their site. It's an interesting idea, and has a pretty slick looking site. I'll be watching what they do in the future.

 

Jesse Imeson arrested

Last week I posted about accused murderer Jesse Imeson (Canada's Most Wanted). Reports are now coming in that Jesse was caught near the Ontario/Quebec border last night. More details at CityNews.ca.