Toronto whoring out as New York

I love Toronto. I'm proud to call myself a Torontorian, just look at the banner I have at the top: me and Toronto. It's where I was born and raised and it'll forever be where I call home.

So on Monday's review of Kick-Ass, I mentioned how it bugged me seeing Toronto pose as New York City. It happens all the time and I'm sure we've all seen many movies with Toronto in disguise whether we were aware of it or not. Besides the cheesiness of it, it never really bothered me. But after watching Kick-Ass it seemed kind of embarrassing and I realized something new: Toronto is a whore.

Let me explain. Prostitutes are people who take money in exchange for sexual deeds to fulfill one's fantasies. In a way, isn't Toronto doing the exact same thing? We're really selling ourselves short. I feel as though our city is telling movie studios, "Hey! You there! Come on in! Film your movies here! Just pay your taxes and we'll be whatever you want us to be!". We're whoring ourselves out.

And really, we don't even do a good job of creating said fantasy. I was listening to the iFanboy podcast this weekend on their review of Kick-Ass. They all loved the movie, but they too thought using Toronto was pretty ridiculous. Especially in the aerial shots. I mean you can cut out prominent landmarks like the CN Tower or the Rogers Center, but you can't hide the skyline. I mean just look at the two skylines in the picture above. Toronto is no New York. It's not only the skyline, it's in the buildings too. When you walk around Manhattan you can't help but notice how much character there is in the look of the buildings. It's like each one has a specific identity. That's the flaw I find with downtown Toronto. The buildings are boring looking. Everything is vanilla and homogeneous. They lack the character that Manhattan has and you can't hide it when you're shooting a movie downtown.

That's all I have to say. It never used to bug me but when it's so blatant like this, I just can't ignore it. But I think our city is going to make strides in the future. My friend Keith was telling me about a movie called Chloe, an American movie that's based in Toronto and which identifies itself as Toronto. This summer, Scott Pilgrim VS the World is coming out and it's based in Toronto as well. I hope this trend continues. Come on Toronto, let's not be a fantasy anymore. Let's make Hollywood love us for who we are.

Comments

Beka said…

This is why we want to watch Chloe. We don't sell ourselves out in that one!

April 21, 2010 at 10:32 PM

Mark Waid's IRREDEEMABLE (Issues #1-7)

(Note: be warned that this review is on the spoiler heavy side, so read at your own discretion if you don't want the story spoiled.) Since I was a teenager, I always had this dream that I would become a quirky movie director and I'd make a bunch of crappy little horror movies to start with, but that my first big movie would be this anti-superhero movie. I dreamed up of an Apocalypse Now -like movie using existing Marvel superheroes where Captain America would go mad, slaughtering the innocent and go into hiding somewhere 'up the river'. There would be a detective like character (possibly superhero) that would be after him, interviewing his former teammates to find out what made the all-American hero go mad. Imagine my surprise when I started reading Irredeemable . Although not exactly the story in my dreams, it's pretty close. I started reading the series this past weekend upon the glowing review that those geeks over at iFanboy put up a few weeks ago. As far a

DTV Madness: Jack Brooks - M.S. and Gingerdead Man 2

Okay, honestly, I think this will be the last DTV post for a while. One man can only take so much shit. I'm only human, I have feelings too. These two movies pushed my limit. I'm going to be in DTV-detox for the next month or so. Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer I thought that with a title like this, it couldn't fail. I thought that with a poster like they had, it couldn't fail. Then I realized something... I failed. I failed in thinking that this movie had any hope. I was expecting some fun horror, mixed with comedy in sort of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of fashion with a bumbling hero and smart quips. I mean, with a title like Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer , was I wrong in expecting a variety of monsters get slayed as the title suggests? It didn't help much that the monsters looked uber cheesy. They looked like something right out of a Power Rangers episode. But to their credit, at least they stuck with practical make-up and effects rather than CG. The mo

Finally, the Xbox 360!!

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I received an Xbox 360 for Christmas from my dad. A great present it was! I've had 3 weeks to enjoy it so I guess I can give you my impressions of it now. First the controller. In truth, I haven't felt a controller this comfortable in my gaming life before. As a child who grew up on the 8-bit generation, with just a directional pad and 2 buttons, there was quite a learning curve getting used to using two analog sticks at the same time. You might say, "Hey Lam, how bout the PS2? You have that machine, and that has analog sticks". True, but of the twenty or so games I have for that, all of them used either only 1 analog stick, or allowed the option to switch on to the directional pad. Using 2 sticks at the same time was at first just uncomfortable. This made for all sorts of trouble as I was playing Gears of War . Luckily for me, I had computer controlled teammates that watched my back. I love the Media Center capabilities

The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

Search This Blog