Are you on spring break? Are you (or possibly your kids) too old for the new live-action Cinderella, and too well-informed to see The Cobbler? Well, the programmers at TIFF Bell Lightbox have you covered, booking a solid week of Walt Disney matinees.
Starting tomorrow (Saturday) with The Little Mermaid and continuing to March 22, the series offers rare big-screen presentations of Dumbo, The Aristocats, The Sword In The Stone, The Rescuers (and its sequel, The Rescuers Down Under) and Robin Hood, as well as the live-action cult favourites Tron and Flight Of The Navigator. Click the links for dates and showtimes, and be advised, cinephiles: Tron and The Black Hole will be presented in glorious 70mm.
It’s a pretty impressive lineup, and even more so given TIFF’s remarkable ability to book Disney titles in the first place. The studio is notoriously tight-fisted with its library, and its most prized treasures rarely show up unless they’re advertising a remastered DVD or Blu-ray release. Hell, I wasn’t even sure a large-format print of Tron still existed. (A previously announced 70mm presentation of The Black Hole was cancelled due to print availability issues, so TIFF will be screening Tron twice.) But they do, and the Lightbox has them – for one screening apiece.
If this is something you want to see, buy your tickets as soon as you can and make plans to leave work early on the appropriate days. (Tron screens Tuesday and Wednesday at 4 pm.) Seriously, this opportunity may never come around again.
Also, you should consider taking the kids out to Roncesvalles for an afternoon show of Paddington. The Revue Cinema is running daily matinees of the unexpectedly marvelous family film from Saturday straight through next weekend, with Rob Marshall’s less than marvelous Into The Woods and Gabe Polsky’s fun hockey documentary Red Army also on the bill. You can find the full schedule here.
And seriously, whatever you do, kids or no kids, make sure to take a walk in the sun this week. We’ve all earned it.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
