Bell Manor PARK

Thursdays
August 8 to 22, 2019

Toronto Outdoor Picture Show heads to Etobicoke for the fourth and final location of its summer-long Dynamic Duos programme in parks across the city. On Thursday evenings in August, residents of the Bell Manor Park community will enjoy a family-friendly film series exploring themes of partnership, friendship, coupledom, rivalry, mistaken identity, and other dualities in a wide variety of cinematic two-handers.

Pack a blanket and a great picnic for some wonderful evenings under the stars!

Dynamic Duos is co-curated by Artistic & Executive Director Emily Reid and programming contributors Tom Dorey, Nataleah Hunter-Young, and TOPS co-founder Felan Parker. You can support Toronto Outdoor Picture Show's cultural investment in communities with a donation, and support our non-profit partners at Bell Manor Park, Arts Etobicoke and Stonegate Community Health Centre.

Poster Artwork by José Garcia of Zoca Studio Inc. — Poster Artwork by
José Garcia of Zoca Studio Inc.

This evening’s programme of animated stories about food and family centres on Brad Bird’s Ratatouille, the charming tale of a talking rat and an inept young chef who team up to make a name for themselves in Paris by mastering the art of French cuisine. The film is fun for all ages, offering both slapstick hijinks and a sophisticated consideration of artistic creativity, collaboration, and criticism.

Ratatouille’s meticulous depictions of food preparation and eating helped inspire the more recent Pixar short, Bao, Chinese-Canadian animator Domee Shi’s recent Oscar-winning fable of a lonely, aging mother in Toronto’s Chinatown who manifests herself a son out of a pork bun. Fellow Torontonian animator Melody Wang’s The Casebook of Nips & Porkington rounds out the evening, following a dynamic duo of cat and pig detectives as they attempt to retrieve a stolen egg in a world artfully rendered in old-timey newsprint.

THURSDAY AUGUST 8

Ratatouille

Directed by Brad Bird & Jan Pinkava, 2007

Short films:
Bao, dir. Domee Shi, 2018

and The Casebook Of Nips & Porkington, dir. Melody Wang, 2015

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In honour of the late, great Nora Ephron, a filmmaker who made an accomplished career of creating iconic on-screen duos, TOPS will screen the classic ‘90s romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail. Kathleen and Frank - one an independent children’s bookstore owner and the other an executive at a major bookstore chain that’s putting the little guy out of business - have been communicating under pseudonyms for weeks through internet chat. But when the the soon-to-be rivals meet in person, not realizing the connection, an online-offline love-hate flurry of events builds anticipation for the truly earned “happily ever after.” An updated take on the 1940s screwball comedy, the film features an online dating origin-story and an always-welcome reminder that all is fair in love and war.

Featuring beautiful animation by creators Pazit Cahlon and Hector Herrera and charming narration by Gordon Pinsent, Typesetter Blues will be paired with You’ve Got Mail to tell another bookish tale of hopeful romance between coworkers.

THURSDAY AUGUST 15

You've Got Mail

Directed by Nora Ephron, 1998

Short film:
Typesetter Blues, dir. by Pazit Cahlon & Hector Herrera, 2012

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Interview with filmmakers Pazit Cahlon and Hector Herrera

Toronto Outdoor Picture Show’s Dynamic Duos series will conclude with Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length silent film, and one of cinema’s greatest examples of silent comedy. The Kid follows “The Tramp,” a blundering boyish vagabond played by Chaplin, as he stumbles upon an abandoned baby who he takes under his wing. Jumping forward a few years, The Tramp and The Kid live in perfect harmony, pulling joint cons around town together and often only narrowly escaping arrest until, one day, The Kid’s mother sets out looking for him. Full of the laughs and tears we know to expect from a Chaplin gem, this acclaimed slice of early cinema is a heartwarming portrayal of well-intentioned mischief in the name of loyalty and love.

Screening with The Kid is Winnifred Jong’s short comedy Milk, about a grandmother and granddaughter’s comic miscommunication over the household grocery list, and Richard B. Pierre’s quirky ode to silent slapstick comedy, Squeaky Shoe, in which we learn why two squeaks are better than one.