Thursdays
July 4 TO 25, 2019

For the fourth year of our Corktown Common series, Toronto Outdoor Picture Show invites attendees to enjoy four weekly screenings this July in the glow of our brand-new, magnificent, much larger screen. At this east-side iteration of the Dynamic Duos programme, join us for some of the most iconic two-handers of cult, queer, family and Indigenous cinema.

Pack your favourite blanket and join us for alfresco movies and an unbeatable view of Toronto's skyline!

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.

Is there a more iconic cinematic duo than young Elliot and the titular extra-terrestrial in Steven Spielberg’s near-perfect sci-fi adventure E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial? Although today it’s hard to separate the film from its status as a pop cultural phenomenon and aesthetic touchstone for numerous more recent films and TV shows (most notably Stranger Things, which premieres its third season on this same date - watch it when you get home!), its central story of loneliness, friendship, and communication across barriers still resonates in this timeless film.

Toronto-based Cree/Métis filmmaker Danis Goulet’s short film Wakening depicts a more unnerving and sinister dynamic between human and other, as a wandering warrior in a dystopian future city seeks the help of the mysterious and powerful Weetigo.

THURSDAY JULY 4

E.T.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, 1982

Short film: 
Wakening, dir. Danis Goulet, 2013

Maori-Jewish auteur Taika Waititi’s family dramedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople follows the adventures of young, rebellious Ricki, an Indigenous foster child, and his grumpy white lumberjack “uncle” Hec, who is reluctantly left to care for him. Afraid of being forced back into the system, Ricki runs into the New Zealand bush ready to fend for himself and Hec heads out after him, setting off a manhunt. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is, at once, a heartening tale of the unexpected connection between two wayward wanderers and a reality check on the living legacy of colonization and its continued impacts on Indigenous peoples the world over.

In the quirky backwoods stop-motion short film The Guest, by Anishinabe director Nick Rodgers, a well-meaning trapper brings a furry friend back to his cabin but realizes once he starts to feed him that, like Ricki, his new companion is indomitable.

THURSDAY JULY 11

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Directed by Taika Waititi, 2016

Short film: 
The Guest
dir. Nick Rodgers, 2015

Starring real-life father-daughter duo Ryan and Tatum O’Neal (the youngest ever Oscar winner for her performance here), Paper Moon follows Moses Pray, a wandering con man, and the very clever 9-year-old orphan who might be his child, Addie Loggins. Set in Kansas during the Great Depression, Moses is reluctantly enlisted to take Addie to her only known kin following the death of her mother. But on the way, she catches him in a lie and, in an unlikely turn of events, the two wind up as grudging partners in crime. Part comedic drama and part road movie, the strength of this black and white nod to decades past is in its astute and clear-sighted social comment on the ravages of poverty, via the mouths of babes.

In Katerine Martineau’s French-language short film Waiting for Lou (En Attendant Lou), a granddaughter’s quest for freedom meets that of her temporarily indisposed grandmother and together they team up, like Moses and Addie, to dream their way out.

THURSDAY JULY 18

Paper Moon

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich, 1973

Short film: 
Waiting For Lou
(En Attendant Lou)
dir Katerine Martineau, 2017

Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot remains one of cinema’s most beloved comedies, and a queer camp classic. Produced without the approval of the old Hollywood Production Code because of its depiction of crossdressing and allusions to homosexuality, the film still feels ahead of its time. Some Like It Hot pairs the comedic talents of the riotously neurotic Jack Lemmon with deadpan Tony Curtis. After they witness a mob massacre, musicians Joe and Jerry dress in drag and blend in with a train car overtaken by an all-female band led by a never-more charming Marilyn Monroe. Underlying the non-stop laughs is a deeper meditation on the differing ways society treats male- and female-identified people.

Hope Thompson’s Switch is a stylized and delightfully campy lesbian film noir that transports us to Toronto’s gritty 1949 past. It tells the story of two women switchboard operators carrying on an “illicit” affair, with drama that leads to double-crosses and murder.

THURSDAY JULY 25

Some Like It Hot

Directed by
Billy Wilder, 1959

Short film: Switch
dir. Hope Thompson, 1999

Corktown Common Park, Toronto

Eats & Treats @ 7pm. Films @ sundown.
Free (Suggested donation $10)
BYOBlanket
Films will be screened with captioning
Please see the accessibility features of Corktown Common
Free yoga class @ 7pm with YOGAthletix

Thursdays July 4 to 25
scheduled rain date Aug 1
 

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