Is it safe for me to say that this pretty much sums up the life of every student out there right now?
I think so.
Good luck to everyone on their final exams! We’re almost there!
Cinefranco 2010: What to see on Sunday, March 28th
If you missed the opportunity to catch some light comedies at Cinefranco on Saturday, you can still do so tomorrow (Sunday) and all through this week.
BlogUTs picks for Sunday are the light romantic comedy Tricheuse/So Woman! at 7:15PM (reviewed below), the great Costa Gravas’s (director of the chilling but brilliant Missing) drama, East of Eden at 3:00PM, and Le Petit Nicolas, a family-appropriate comedy at 5:15PM, based on the nostalgic children’s books by René Goscinny, which I enjoyed very much as a child.
Tricheuse (or So Woman! by its English title) has a recycled plot, very similar to Peter Weir’s Green Card, which itself was nothing new, about Clemence, who convinces her immigrant piano tuner, Farid, whose name she can’t remember or pronounce, to bring his two daughters to live with her so she can fake being married in order to secure her apartment and a lucrative litigation job which she needs to salvage her career. Since the piano tuner can barely afford electricity, he gets something out of the deal. Of course, they fight initially as their personalities and cultures clash: she is self-absorbed, superficial, and has a proclivity for boy toys, while he is the ultimate family man who cooks and cares for his daughter. But in the end, they fall in love, and all the conventions of a romantic comedy are met.
Tricheuse is a sweet film and a funny film and there are many scenes of mistaken identities worth a watch. For example, when Clemence’s landlord asks what Farid does for a living, she makes up a wild lie that he is a great sculptor; the building then requests that he make a sculpture for the courtyard and so Farid uses bicycles, toasters, and other objects to craft something similar to one of Clemence’s modern art sculptures in her apartment. When Clemence teaches the eldest how to write an essay, her teacher claims that plagiarism must be at work, so Clemence comes into the school to defend her as a parent and a lawyer. There are also moments of drama when Clemence gets Farid’s daughters to open up to her about their mother and they bond, though sometimes these feel a little emotionally forced.
Tricheuse is not a great film, but despite its predictability, it has some unexpected sophistication and turns, which make it a light enjoyable see for a Sunday afternoon.
Cinefranco 2010: Le Coach
What: Cinefranco, the Toronto French Film Festival
When: March 26 – April 3
Where: AMC Yonge & Dundas, right at Dundas subway station
Cost: Students – $8.50, Single Tickets – $10 and can be purchased in person or online. Arrive at least 30 minutes early to ensure tickets are available.
Cinefranco, one of the best small film festivals in Toronto, showcases French cinema from France, Canada, and other French-speaking countries that often won’t play in cinemas outside of France or Quebec. This year the festival has moved to the AMC Yonge & Dundas, a much better venue which provides comfortable seating, great screens, and stadium seating – you can still read the subtitles should someone tall choose to sit in front of you. Past years have showcased such gems as La Naissance des Pieuvres (2008), Ensemble C’est Tout (2008), and Peindre ou Faire L’Amour (2007). This year’s festival offers up a wide variety of films from comedy to drama.
Today’s schedule included a lovely laugh-out-loud comedy from France, Le Coach, about a life coach, Max (Richard Berry) who, in an effort to pay off his large gambling debts, takes on a job to coach a hopeless engineer, Patrick Jean-Paul Rouve), into becoming a good manager who can seal the deal with a difficult and important client. The engineer is a mess – from his bad clothes, to his total push-over attitude, to his tendency to get incredibly frazzled whenever having an important conversation, be it with a boss or a beautiful woman. And since the engineer’s bosses erroneously believe him to be the nephew of the CEO, the life coach is forbidden from revealing his true identity and forced instead to train the engineer under the guise of being a 50-year-old intern doing photocopies. Of course, hilarity ensues. Continue reading “Cinefranco 2010: Le Coach”
Environmentally-friendly coffee in the student ghetto
If you live in the student ghetto below College Street, you may have noticed a new bicycle-themed cafe in the neighbourhood. Located on Cecil street, just east of Spadina and a short hop away from campus, Sonic Cafe has added a burst of bright, spray-painted colour to the street since it opened this winter. And now that spring has finally arrived, Sonic Cafe is ready to launch into full gear.
Owner Anthony D’Arcy created Sonic as a stop for cyclists to come in and tune-up their bikes. The cafe, which is loosely affiliated with Toronto DIY cyclist groups Bike Chain, Bike Pirates, and Bikesauce, will hold a repair stand and tools for tune-ups on its front patio by April .
Not only is Sonic’s coffee organic and fair-trade, it’s environmentally friendly, too. Most local bean roasters emit a highly carcinogenic product, roasting their beans in residential areas with no emissions standard. Sonic is different. “We get our beans from this old Italian fellow who was an engineer before he entered his family’s coffee business. He built this absolutely amazing roaster. It’s highly efficient and has controls that you don’t see in a local roaster. You end up with a bean that is organically grown, fairly traded, and environmentally roasted,” says D’Arcy.
Continue reading “Environmentally-friendly coffee in the student ghetto”
Entrepreneurial Heaven!
Listen up all you young and aspiring entrepreneurs out there! The Young Social Entrepreneurs of Canada (YSEC) has great opportunities coming up this week just for you. Take a look to see what they have in store:
Young Social Entrepreneurs Pitch Competition
On March 25th from 6-9PM, YSEC will be hosting a pitch competition for young social entrepreneurs at the Centre for Social Innovation. With judges from organizations such as the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, they’ll be selecting a winner from our exciting three finalist projects. The $1,000 interest-free loan prize is funded by Canada’s first for-youth-by-youth social entrepreneurship fund – YSEC’s Social Finance Chain. Winners will also receive 5 hours of free consulting through The Institute of Entrepreneurship and Community Innovation at George Brown College.
After the pitch competition, there will be a typical YSEC MeetUP with a chance to network and catch up with other young social entrepreneurs.
When: March 25, 2010 @ 6-9PM
Where: Centre for Social Innovation
215 Spadina Avenue, 4th floor
Tickets: $10 online, $12 at the door, free for YSEC members.
Read about the re:Vision Conference after the jump!
Twestival Toronto
It’s a Twesti-whaaaat? It’s a Twestival! …A global fundraising event that is bringing together the online Twitter community from hundreds of cities around the world to support and celebrate a good cause. And yes, it’s coming to Toronto! This Thursday, March 25th at Tryst Nightclub, join hundreds of Torontonians as they rally behind Concern Worldwide, raising funds for an international humanitarian organization dedicated to reducing suffering and ending extreme poverty. Organized 100% by volunteers, the team behind Twestival Toronto ensures that 100% of all tickets and sponsorships go directly to Concern Worldwide.
Now I know the question that’s hanging on all of your minds… “I don’t have Twitter, can I still go?”. Of course you can! You don’t need to be on any social networking site to go out and support a cause that you believe in! So this Thursday, take a break from your studying blues (you know you want to!) to kick back and meet some cool new peeps all while supporting a more than worthy cause!
- When: Thu, March 25, 2010 1:00 AM – 1:00 AM
- Where: Tryst Nightclub
- More Info/Ticket Purchase: http://www.twestivalto.com/
U of T News in a Nutshell – March 2010
We read the news so that you don’t have to!
UTSC students voted in favor of contributing money to build a “high-performance athletic facility” on their campus for the 2010 Pan Am Games. The facility will include two Olympic-sized swimming pools and a dive tank. Full-time students will be paying $40/semester and part-time students $8/semester. However these numbers will go up significantly to $140/semester and $28/semester in 2014, which is when the facility is supposed to open. A representative of the campaign against the levy says that students were fooled into paying for the construction when it would have been opened regardless.
A construction worker and recent immigrant from Turkey, Hilit Mutlu, passed away last week after falling 10 meters through UTSC’s new Instructional Center. Sadly, the incident was cited as “preventable.”
On a lighter note (I guess), the UTSU election was a rather dramatic event, with a lot of controversy and both sides — “Change” and “Stronger Together” — harassing campaigning all over campus for days. Stronger Together came out on top, winning all of the executive positions. The voter turnout was approximately only 16.4%.
After years of student complaints regarding marks appearing late on ROSI, U of T is finally doing something about it by transitioning to electronic mark submission (professors currently have the option to submit marks on paper). Now if they could only address all of the other problems we have with ROSI…
As of this year’s admission cycle, 250 spaces in PhD programs will be cut, while 500 spaces in Masters programs will be created. The change was decided after receiving demands from students, though the details of how this will affect each department are not mentioned.
In the year 2008, U of T lost $1.5 billion from its pension and endowment funds — nearly 30% of its total value. The U of T Asset Management Corporation invested in high-risk assets and suffered the worst losses out of all other Canadian Universities with more conservative investments.