************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** There was a time, shortly after the invention of the movie camera, when people went to see movies simply for the sake of spectacle. Watching a man sneeze was considered great fun. Spectacle, according to Aristotle's Poetics, is the lowest form of drama. So the fun couldn't last. Sure every other summer the producers of Independence Day try to revive spectacle as an art form but then Fall comes and studios release their Oscar contenders. For a few brief months we can try to forget a humid summer filled with TTC buses painted black and green proclaiming "size matters." Shudder. For some, the best mental ablution available in Fall is Canada's film festival season. Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver all host international film festivals in September and October. The Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 10 to September 19. Its web site at www.bell.ca/filmfest is a little devoid of important details, like what and its accompanying when and where. The chrome and animated GIFs are in place, though. Oh well. One day archaeologist may find Aristotle's fabled HTML style guide. The web site promises by September 2 to have film dates, times, locations, and a search engine. Search engines can be a wonderful thing for planning your entertainment calendar. I make frequent use of Now magazine's movie site search engine (www.now.com). For pre- or post-flick food, DineNet's Toronto restaurant data base (www.dine.net/cgi- bin/search?location=443) is quite extensive, letting you search by location and cuisine. The location feature should come in handy mid-September. A table at Bistro 990 or any restaurant a 5 limo radius away from Yorkville might be a little hard to get during the film fest. If you're squeamish about trying a new restaurant, Toronto Life magazine maintains an archive of capsule restaurant reviews at its web site (www.tor- lifeline.com/new/tl/restaurant/cframe.html). Not everyone trusts critics, including this critic. For the opinions of the common folk, I like to do a search of the newsgroup tor.eats using the DejaNews search engine (www.dejanews.com). Probably one of the best heads-up for film and film fest information in Toronto, from the everyman perspective, is Don Marks' Swimming Through Celluloid page at www.interlog.com/~lamedog/film. Marks is a Java programmer by day and hardcore film go'er by night. During the Toronto International Film Festival he books off work, becomes a fest rat, and updates his web page with regular dispatches from the film fest front. For someone with a day job on the cutting edge of internet technology, Marks' personal site is pretty minimalist. In my five years on the net, I've noticed a definite inverse relationship between the amount of chrome a web master hangs out and the quality of the actual information provided. The more time you waste mucking around with animated GIFs and stupid Java tricks, the less time you have to crank out good text. While Now and Eye fall over themselves to give the Toronto International Film Festival maximum coverage, Mark gives lesser known film fests that grace our city extensive coverage. Mark was all over August's Fant-Asia Film Festival like a critic on a free buffet. Another excellent source for some lesser known film happenings in Toronto is the Women in Film and Television web site (www.wift.com). The WIFT promotes film-related events and workshops from a female perspective. WIFT members are kicking off the Toronto film festival in style with a "Martini Madness" cocktail party hosted by my page mate (look up, look way up) Sara Waxman. Sounds fun. Wish I was a woman.