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Movies & TV

After the Oscar comedown

Okay, so you’ve come to terms with the Oscar nominations and you’ve already seen Selma. What else is there to do, movie-wise, in this town?

Well, if you’re in an experimental mood you might want to head down to Innis Town Hall tonight (Friday, January 16) for Intimacies: Exploring The Line Between Performance And Life, an evening with Toronto filmmaker Ingrid Veninger and the cast of her most recent feature The Animal Project.

The program includes a screening of the movie, introduced by Veninger, followed by a discussion and Q&A moderated by Kay Armatage. The show starts at 7 pm admission is free, though registration is required. I’m a fan of Veninger’s lo-fi approach to drama – “intimacies” really is the best word to capture what she does – and if you’re at all curious about local filmmaking on a modest budget, this is a night you won’t want to miss.

If you’re in a more cerebral frame of mind – and you’re bristling at the Academy’s refusal to consider David Fincher’s Gone Girl beyond nominating Rosamund Pike for best actress – maybe drop by the Miles Nadal JCC on Monday (January 19) and catch a lecture on Fincher’s 2007 mystery Zodiac by Toronto film critic Adam Nayman? It’s the first of two “pop-up film lectures” this month, the topics chosen in an online vote. (The second, set for January 26, will focus on Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.)

The lecture runs from 7 pm to 9 pm admission is $12, or $6 for students and Toronto Jewish Film Society subscribers if you’re looking for a deep dive into cinema that continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure, I’d suggest attending both evenings.

And if you’re looking for something that is not at all cinema-related, but features me yammering at people, I’ve been talked into joining Ali Hassan, Rhiannon Archer, Ari Goldkind, Daniela Saioni and Michael John Derbecker at The Ossington Wednesday night (January 21) on Dare Storytelling’s latest program of rarely-told tales.

The theme is “vulnerability”, and given that I’ve never done anything like this before, there’s an excellent chance I will just end up talking about how I’ve never done anything like this before, and then wetting myself in terror. Doesn’t that sound like something you’d want to see?

normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner

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