No matter how much we study the TIFF program book, there will always be people who know the festival lineup better than we ever will: the programmers. That's why we asked several of them to share some of the hidden gems and can't-miss films they helped select for this year's festival.

Here are 18 must-see films at television shows at TIFF 2016, according to its programmers.

CAMERON BAILEY (PLATFORM)

Lady Macbeth
It's set early in the 19th century, but this domestic drama written by Alice Birch and directed by Will Oldroyd feels like the most contemporary, feminist film in the festival. Ferocious, disciplined, and a complete pleasure to watch.

Moonlight
Find your place on the bandwagon. Everybody's going to be talking about Barry Jenkins's gorgeous portrait of a queer African-American man's coming-of-age. Watching it felt like seeing Todd Haynes, Andrea Arnold and Steve McQueen for the first time.

Daguerrotype
Artful Japanese horror made Kiyoshi Kurosawa's reputation but he made Daguerrotype entirely in France, injecting that nation's early experiments in photography with a hint of the ghostly. Masterful filmmaking.

PIERS HANDLING (SPECIAL PRESENTATION)

Souvenir
The great Isabelle Huppert plays a worker in a meat packing plant who is hiding a secret in this tender and touching film. It's not until an extroverted new employee joins the team that we realize what kind of a past she has had.

The Duelist
Shot in IMAX, this Russian period drama is a muscular piece of filmmaking that centres on the story of a man who is hired as a surrogate to fight duels for nobles who challenge others to fights. But, behind this story is another, much deeper one, that propels the dashing duelist to do what he does.

Toni Erdmann
A German comedy may sound like an oxymoron but this one is pulling it off with consummate ease. The story focuses around a father and daughter. The daughter is a young professional, the father a bearish prankster. When he sees his daughter floundering, dad intervenes in the most unexpected, offbeat, and disruptive way.

DANIS GOULET (SHORT CUTS)

A Funeral for Lightning (Short Cuts Programme 3)
Prism-award-winning Emily Kai Bock has directed music videos for Arcade Fire, Lorde and Grimes -- and brings her rich visual style to rural Tennessee to craft an achingly gorgeous and atmospheric portrait of a young woman's disillusionment with her husband's empty promises of an idyllic life off-the-grid. Breathtaking.

Mutants (TIFF Short Cuts Programme 5)
A teenager is just trying to make it through the summer of 1996. Mullets, baseball, hormones, scandal -- and a mad dash on a riding lawnmower. What more do you need?

Bargain (TIFF Short Cuts Programme 6)
In this Korean one shot wonder, a young woman in a school uniform barters with a man (in graphic detail) about the terms of their impending illicit rendezvous in a motel room. But nothing is what it seems in this cunning and audacious thriller -- and the twists just keep on twisting.

ANDREA PICARD (WAVELENGTHS)

The Death of Louis XIV (La Mort de Louis XIV)
Albert Serra's The Death of Louis XIV stars French cinema legend Jean-Pierre Léaud from 400 Blows fame. Though it's a gorgeously photographed and sumptuously designed period piece based on meticulous historical research, the film harbours many of Serra's iconoclastic hallmarks and is alternatively captivating and strange from hushed beginning to end.

The Human Surge (El Auge del Humano)
Hailed as the most ambitious feature debut, Eduardo Williams' The Human Surge lives up to its expectations. A category-defying film about today -economic precarity, globalization, movement and technology-the film is a wandering ethno-fiction that plunges us into worlds of distraction and pleasure seeking from Argentina via Mozambique and the Philippines.

What's New
The latest amazing short video work by acclaimed German artist Nina Könnemann. Playful, clever and really funny, What's New is the result of Könnemann's longterm voyeurism in which she observed men relieving themselves behind a Berlin billboard, whose marketing might seems to be triggered from behind the scenes.

MICHAEL LERMAN (PRIMETIME)

nirvanna the band the show
In a logic defying feat of self-reflexivity, the newest project from the team behind The Dirties and Operation Avalanche places it's narratives in the real world, getting spontaneous reactions from the general public while crafting a hilarious narrative. The show has the energy of the greatest slacker comedies and the wit of the most subversive satires.

Tuko Macho
For the unique experience of interacting with the plot of an episodic show alone, it's worth coming to this event. Smart, thought-provoking material is mixed with reality TV sensibilities to create a chilling experience that says more about the viewer than any other television work out there.

Transparent Season 3
If you haven't already jumped on this train, it's really about time. And what better way to do it with the newest and best season yet premiering at TIFF?

JANE SCHOETTLE (DISCOVERY/CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA)

Katie Says Goodbye (Discovery)
In an unforgettable performance, Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) portrays seventeen year old Katie, a small town diner waitress and part-time prostitute who has aspirations for bigger things. She places her trust in the wrong set of people, but even a sad, violent confrontation with them is not the end of her story.

In Between (Bar Bahar) (Contemporary World Cinema )
In a remarkable debut, filmmaker Maysaloun Hamoud explores the unique challenges faced by a trio of Palestinian women living and working in Tel Aviv, caught between contemporary urban life and the more traditional structures of their families. Pulsing with energy and emotion, the film provides a portrait of female friendship that is unforgettable.

Tramps (Contemporary World Cinema)
From writer/director Adam Leon (Gimme The Loot) Tramps is part crime thriller, part Rom-Com, and part road movie, in which Danny (Callum Turner) and Ellie (Grace Van Patten) make unlikely adversaries who find they actually have a lot in common.

Which of the programmers' picks are you most looking forward to seeing at TIFF 2016? Let us know in the comments.

Film still from Moonlight

What's open and closed on Labour Day 2016 in Toronto.

GENERAL

Closed

• Government offices and banks
• Libraries
• No mail delivery

TRANSIT

• The TTC will operate on holiday service schedule with a start time of 6 a.m.

FOOD

Closed

• Major chains, like No Frills, Fresh Co., Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, T&T, Arz Fine Foods and Whole Foods will be closed with few confirmed exceptions listed below.

Open

• Metro (444 Yonge St.) - closing at 11 p.m. on Sunday, September 4 and reopening at 9 a.m. on Monday, September 5
• Loblaws (60 Carlton St.) - 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Pusateri's (57 Yorkville Ave.) - 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; (Bayview Village) - 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; (25 The West Mall) - 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Sobey's Urban Fresh (777 Bay St., Suite 427) - 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• T&T Supermarket (7070 Warden Ave.) - 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.; (9255 Woodbine Ave.) 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Whole Foods Yorkville (87 Avenue Rd.) - 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Fresh & Wild (69 Spadina Ave.) 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; (2294 Bloor St. W.) 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Bloor Street Market (55 Bloor St. W.) - 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Rabba Fine Food (various locations) - open 24 hours
• Food Depot (155 Dupont St. at Davenport) - open 24 hours
• Bloor Superfresh (384 Bloor St. W.). - open 24 hours
• Kitchen Table (10 Queens Quay West) - 6 a.m. to 12 a.m., (389 Spadina Rd.) - 7 a.m. to 12 a.m., (595 Bay St., at Atrium on Bay) - 8 a.m to 12 a.m., (705 King St. W.) - 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.

DRINK

Closed

• The Beer Store and LCBO stores.

Open

• For a complete list of indie bottle shops in Toronto, see this directory. Holiday hours are provided where applicable, but we advise calling ahead to confirm.

MALLS

Open

• Eaton Centre (220 Yonge St.) - 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Square One Shopping Centre (100 City Centre Dr.) - 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Vaughan Mills (1 Bass Pro Mills Dr., Vaughan) - 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Pacific Mall (4300 Steeles Ave. E.) - 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Closed

• Dufferin Mall
• Yorkdale
• Sherway Gardens
• Fairview Mall
• Scarborough Town Centre
• Bayview Village

ATTRACTIONS

Closed

• The Art Gallery of Ontario

Open

• Canadian National Exhibition - 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• The Ontario Science Centre (770 Don Mills Rd.) - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• The Royal Ontario Museum(100 Queen's Park) -10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Canada's Wonderland (9580 Jane St.) - 10am to 8pm
• Ripley's Aquarium of Canada (288 Bremner Blvd.) - 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• The Toronto Zoo (2000 Meadowvale Rd.) - 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Movie theatres are open citywide.

Did I miss anything? Add it to the comments below.

Photo by Jesse Milns

Nothing heralds the end of summer in Toronto quite like the roar of fighter jets flying overhead.

If anyone actually enjoys the air show, they're not doing a great job defending it online. For many of us, it's an annoyance, especially for our furry friends. And along with the noise, some say it's triggering for Toronto newcomers.

Instead of simply complaining about the air show via the usual social channels (i.e. Twitter) one hater took it to the next level by editing the Canadian International Air Show's Wikipedia page. While the entry should talk about the annual event's illustrious history, it now more clearly illustrates just what Toronto thinks of it.

"The Canadian International Air Show (CIAS) is an annual horror show that has been tormenting local residents and ruining the last long weekend of the summer at the conclusion of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) in Toronto since 1949," it reads.

There's a bit of an edit war going on behind the scenes, as the page has been altered to reflect these satirical changes a few times before being updated for neutrality. Too bad it can't just be left in its humorous but accurate state.

What do you think of the Air Show? Let us know in the comments.

Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood ranks high when it comes to nightlife. The area is home to an impressive assortment of watering holes, snack bars and live music venues that are popular destinations for drinking and dancing.

Here are my picks for the top 5 bars in Parkdale.

Shameful Tiki Room
Tiki culture is alive and well in Parkdale at both Miss Things and this dimly lit time warp of a bar where the soundtrack ranges from surf rock to rockabilly. The menu boasts massive punch bowls and Spam-infused snack foods.

Parts & Labour
The restaurant on the main floor is home to Matty Matheson's menu of cheeseburgers, beef tartare and brunch. But it's party central on the lower level as the basement bar plays host to live bands and DJs.

The Yukon
Buck-a-shuck oysters, theme nights and DJ'd house parties are regular occurrences at this low-key bar. The drink list is cheap with featured cocktails hovering around the $10 mark.

Pharmacy
This quirky and eclectic bar replaced a former pharmacy/methadone clinic on the southwestern edge of Parkdale. It's now a cozy space that serves craft beers and a broad selection of spirits.

Grand Electric
A rotating selection of beer and a lineup of excellent cocktails share the spotlight with a menu of tacos and Mexican snacks at this popular Parkdale bar. Margaritas, bourbonade and mojitos fuel the fun vibes.

Thanks to Grolsch for sponsoring this post

Photo of the Shameful Tiki Room by Jesse Milns.

$3 million buys you a lot of condo in Toronto. In fact, everything over the $2.5 million mark is heads and tails above what even those who have a couple million to throw around can afford. Luxuries like high end kitchen appliances, pimped out patios, and stunning views come as standard issue for these units.

Here's what a $3 million condo looks like in Toronto.

$3,200,000 at Yonge and Gerrard
It's all about the view at this 77th floor penthouse at Aura. The design is entirely pedestrian and almost dated despite its young age, but the allure is living at the top of what is Canada's tallest residential building right now. Maintenance fees come in at $1,495 a month.

$2,990,000 in Yorkville
This 3,000 square foot unit at 10 Bellair St. in Yorkville is only a one bedroom plus den, but that just means that it feels incredibly spacious. There's no illusions about this being designed to suit a family. As the decor confirms, it's for empty nesters. Maintenance fees are $2,657.42 a month.

$3,199,000 near Church and Wellesley
This pimped out penthouse covers 3,200 square feet with three bedrooms and a den. It's highly stylish, but there's enough room for kids for the ultimate in urban family living. You better like to cook, though. It'd be a shame to waste the Wolf oven and range. The outdoor space is also immaculate. Maintenance fees are $2,470.64 a month.

$3,128,000 in a Yorkville townhouse
If high rise living isn't your thing, $3 million will also buy an extremely nice townhouse in the heart of Yorkville. This modern space only sports two bedrooms, so it won't work for a family of size, but the location will be a major draw for young professionals with a single child. Luxury features include a private terrace, heated marble floors, and Miele appliances. Maintenance fees are $1,882.51 a month.

$3,599,000 at Yonge and Eglinton
Those willing and able to rise above the $3 million mark will get even more space. This penthouse at Yonge and Eglinton is 3,700 square feet with sweeping views of the city from most of its rooms. It has three bedrooms and a whopping five bathrooms, so no guest will ever have to hold it. There's also three terraces and a gas line for a barbecue. Maintenance fees are $2,153 a month.

Would you buy any of these condos if you had the money? Let us know in the comments.

The best nachos in Toronto are the ultimate bar food. They're perfect for sharing over beer with friends, and these piles of deliciousness stand out thanks to the harmonious union of chips, cheese and veg in each and every bite.

These are the best nachos in Toronto.

White squirrels just got a whole lot easier to spot thanks to a giant mural in a laneway next to Trinity Bellwoods Park. Toronto's Lovebot team are behind the simple, but effective laneway mural behind Nadege and the Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Church.

Placed at the back end of the cafe and pastry shop, those hanging around in the southeast corner of the park have a good angle to take in its iconic animal representative. It's also a vast improvement over the drab aesthetics of an alley that's usually used as a shortcut for cars and dog walkers.

The squirrel's kaleidoscopic eyes keep a watchful eye over the passersby, as it sits on a traditional Lovebot heart. Hopefully it inspires a new army of real white squirrels that take over the park. Failing that, it helps to solidify our fascination with the creatures.

Photos by Derek Flack.

Sometimes it's nice to fill your TIFF schedule with films that come pre-vetted and arrive at the festival already crowned and celebrated as exceptional stories. Not only are they often excellent works of art, but sometimes it's fun to be able to weigh in on whether all the buzz was merited or just overblown hype.

Either way, here are the top five already award-winning films you can see at TIFF 2016.

The Birth of a Nation
Nate Parker's directorial debut about a slave in 1831 who led a rebellion against a plantation won not just the top U.S. Grand Jury Prize, but also the Audience Award, at the Sundance Film Festival. If the buzz is to be believed, it won't be the last awards it'll pick up in the coming months.

I, Daniel Blake
The Cannes Film Festival really, really likes Ken Loach, handing a second film of his the Palme d'Or. This one is about a sick carpenter who loses financial support from the government because he can no longer work before he fights to get it back.

Fire at Sea
The winner of the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, this observational documentary offers us a glimpse at the migrant crisis occurring in Europe as thousands of refugees try to find safety and freedom in new homes.

It's Only the End of the World
Only two years after Mommy won the Jury Prize at Cannes, Quebecois wunderkind Xavier Dolan won the Grand Prix award this year the festival in France. This time for his dysfunctional family drama starring Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel) about a young author who returns home for the first time in 12 years to try to tell his family he is dying.

Godless
This Bulgarian film about a physiotherapist who is struggling to live her life in a poor town until she meets a patient who inspires hope in her again is a double winner. Not only did it win the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival, it also won Best Actress for Irena Ivanova.

Which award-winning films are you most looking forward to seeing at TIFF 2016? Let us know in the comments.

Film Still It's Only the End of the World

There's no shortage of places to wet your whistle in Toronto, but why not add one more? When you throw in the fact that they've barely just opened, only operating a few days a week for the moment, and have brewmasters on board from Black Oak, and also serve warm octopus salad and braised beef, you've got yourself a recipe for a great late summer evening.

Read my profile of Radical Road Brewing in the restaurants section.

The 1980s were an up and down decade for Toronto architecture. The rise of the modern Financial District that started in the late 1960s continued with major additions like Scotia Plaza and BCE Place, and the city was bestowed one if its great icons in the form of the SkyDome, but beyond these highlights, it was a transitional period for local architecture.

Here are my picks for the top Toronto buildings from the 1980s.

Roy Thomson Hall (1982)
Is it me, or is Roy Thomson Hall one of Toronto's most overlooked buildings. The circular concert hall designed by Arthur Erickson with Mathers and Haldenby is instantly recognizable and helped to establish this section of King West as the Entertainment District. The building's acoustics were upgraded in the early 2000s, but it's always featured a stunning interior from an aesthetic standpoint.

SkyDome (1989)
The most enduring bit of architecture from the 1980s came at the very end of the decade when Rod Robbie's state of the art sports stadium dazzled a city accustomed to aged venues like Maple Leaf Gardens and Exhibition Stadium. The stadium seemed to fall out of favour through the 2000s, but as the Jays fortunes have turned, so too has our admiration for their home.

SkyWalk (1989)
SkyWalk was built to help ferry people from Union Station to the CN Tower and SkyDome, but it's more than just a covered bridge. The curved metal and glass roof has caught the attention of just about anyone who ever walked through here, and made the ritual of attending a game at the Dome all the more memorable. The Union Pearson Express now uses the structure.

Scotia Plaza (1988)
Scotia Plaza was the most significant skyscraper built in the 1980s, and it's aged very well since then. It's an elegant building with a major heritage element in the form of the preserved Beaux-Arts Bank of Nova Scotia Building, but it's the 14-storey atrium and Red Napoleon Granite exterior that are the real show stoppers. Credit to WZMH Architects for a masterpiece of an office tower.

Queen's Quay Terminal (1983)
This adaptive re-use project from Ziedler Architects in 1983 was a big deal coming on the heels of two decades where historic buildings were treated with considerable disdain. Formerly known as the Toronto Terminal Warehouse and functioning as a cold storage warehouse, it was converted to a mixed use building with four extra storeys as part of the early revitalization of Queens Quay.

Sun Life Centre (1984)
We may not love those angular lines so much these days, but the fact that photographers still flock to the Sun Life Centre to capture intriguing reflections and near-abstract images is a testament to WZMH's design chops here. One suspects that if it were taller, we would class it up there with the major offices surrounding King and Bay.

Exchange Tower (1981)
Another one from WZMH Architects who really dominated the Financial District over this decade, Exchange Tower is noteworthy for its restraint. This is a classic glass office tower that recalls the modernist designs of the 1960s. In a decade that produced some monstrous buildings, its understated beauty is worth kudos.

Standard Life Centre (1984)
Designed by Arthur C.F. Lau, this 26-storey modernist office tower also tends to fly under the radar, but that's a shame because it's one of Toronto's finest examples of the form at this height range. The various rectangular segments and criss-cross window frames provide just the right amount of ornamentation to catch the eye.

35 The Esplanade (1988)
The location of the building is a bit strange as it would have more presence if the street to its south had more traffic, but nevertheless, it's a rare example of a modern building made in a historical style that doesn't completely fake. This Flat Iron-style structure was built right before Toronto was consumed with glass condo, and it's throwback style is all the more refreshing for it.

Citibank Place (1983)
One of the late buildings to come out of John B. Parkin and Associates, Citibank Place (now Citigroup Place) hovers between modernism and postmodernism. In fact, you might be inclined to put it in one group or the other depending on what angle you look at it from. From the north is my favourite, where it shows off the glass centrepiece that bridges both sides of the steel-coloured building.

What did I miss? Add your suggestions in the comments.

Photos by Ben Roffelsen, Lori Whelan, PJMixer, twurdemann, Zeidler Architects, Oxford Properties, Cameron MacMaster, and the Toronto Archives.

Saturday Dinette's been sitting at the corner of Logan and Gerrard for the past two years. The area, just east of East Chinatown and north of Leslieville, is still relatively sleepy. But over the past of couple of year's it's been waking up.

"I lived in Williamsburg before it was like Williamsburg," says Saturday Dinette's Suzanne Barr. "And so for me, when I got to this neighbourhood, it almost took me back to that time."

Numerous Toronto neighbourhoods, including West Queen West, have been compared to Brooklyn. And while this stretch of Gerrard Street East may never become as trendy as Toronto's west side, a number of restauranteurs and business owners are starting to move into the area's long-shuttered storefronts because they see its potential.

And no one knows that better than Johnson Yeh. He opened Mad Dog Cafe more than five years ago after losing his job in the corporate world. He lives in the area with his family and while at the Beer Store one day, he noticed the building at 817 Gerrard was for sale. He bought it and transformed it into a bustling neighbourhood hotspot.

Yeh admits that some of his friends thought he was crazy. "It was tough to be the first one here. It was very, very tough," he says. But the community warmed to his cafe, especially when he began serving both breakfast and brunch.

He notes his cafe is usually packed on weekends, but there are plenty of patrons working inside and sprawled out on the patio when I visit on a sunny weekday morning.

The patio does however seem a bit noisy when I'm around because of the renovations happening next door at 819 Gerrard. Deborah Gourgy, who works for JSM Corporation, bought the building this summer. She lives in the neighbourhood and wants to increase the amenities on Gerrard.

"We've got Mad Dog and the Dinette already. They've kind of started the revitalization of that whole strip and so we're hoping to continue it," she says, noting how the street-facing storefront hasn't been occupied for about 15 years.

She's hoping to have a locally owned restaurant move in to that space with either offices or residential units above it.

Hailed Coffee is another neighbourhood newcomer. Owner Salim Bamakhrama opened his coffee shop about nine weeks ago just a few doors down from Saturday Dinette, but there's nothing between these two trendy-looking places, except for a shuttered storefront with peeling Pepto-pink painted trim.

Bamakhrama describes his part of Gerrard as an intersection of four cultures, which is fitting considering it borders East Chinatown, Little India, the Danforth and Leslieville. But he also saw an opportunity in this seemingly under-serviced, yet heavily populated area.

So far, he's gotten a warm welcome, from both residents and his fellow restauranteurs. "Any improvement to the aesthetic of the street is met with a lot of welcome and warmth from the community."

And with new businesses continuing to move in, it seems like on Gerrard, the times really are a-changin'.

Photos by: Natta Summerky, Amy Grief, @dorbalcita and Hector Vasquez.

If you had to chose one song that perfectly describes how you got to where you are today, what would that song be? For Toronto's Members Only, it's Gwen McCrae's "Keep The Fire Burning."

The song is a disco and R&B classic and basically an instruction sheet on how to succeed in love and on the dance floor. This is the spark that started the eternal flame that is Members Only. Paul Johnson and Adam Beck began as a duo around 2007/2008 after meeting through a mutual friend and needing a roommate. It's a "tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme," Johnson says.

"In Montreal we were offered a weekly Monday night residency, and suddenly felt like we needed a name," Johnson, who works in film (both behind and front of the camera) as a day job, says. McCrae also works in film, and sometimes they work together, as was the case on the MMVA-nominated video for Keys N' Krates "Save Me" that they co-directed.

"We were both into wearing Members Only jackets at the time, and went with that, not expecting to have to live with it for the next eight years."

Clearly the guys were more than a fall/spring fashion trend. The membership idea goes beyond clothing. "In a way it's sort of befitting to the style of music that we play and the legacy of dance music we draw inspiration from.

"Many early disco and house parties were actually 'Members Only' events, where you had to be a card carrying member to enter the venue."

Members Only parties definitely aren't that type of thing today. Evening Standard is a residency they've held down for five years at The Drake. Johnson and McCrae love DJing and have a good time doing it, but also work very hard at it, inspiring other DJs and crews in the city with their open approach to musical selection and party vibe.

"If you look at some of our first guests - Eli Escobar, Hunee, Justin Vandervolgen, Todd Terje, Soul Clap, Jacques Renault, CFCF - I'd say musically things are still rooted in the same world," Johnson says. "It's just that most of those people have gone on to have very large careers, while we still tend to focus on bringing in new names or lesser known figures."

They aim for something that ends up being friendly on the wallet for the promoter and more exciting for the partier. And while crowds are forever changing, especially over a five year party period, people are "are still all there for the same reason and appreciate the guests we bring in and the music we play," he says.

"We haven't really had to cater to trends and change what we do, which has been nice, to be older and still cool with the kids."

But what is that keeps people coming back? How are these two men, who look like they could be your long-lost cousin at a house party, or your slightly cool younger uncles who stayed back after the rest of the family turned in for the night, able to gain the respect of so many in the scene and draw crowds of fun dance music lovers?

"If you've never been, the easiest way to summarize it is that we play music made for dancing," Johnson explains. "It's disco, it's house, it's everything in between, it's Prince, it's techno, it's Whitney, it's the sound of tomorrow, but is it Balearic?"

They're parties are loose and fun, loud and friendly. The mix is masterful and the song choices are purely based on keeping the fire burning. They're not so much interested in trends, but more what takes the fun level to un-measurable heights.

"[DJing] gives us an excuse to experience pure joy for a night in a way that still engages our brain, and have a real nice time," Johnson says. "Does Toronto need 'Members Only'?... Only if people can't live without not being able to hear Chris Rea, Kerri Chandler, Junior Byron, Maurice Fulton and everything else in between in a single night. Which most likely, they can."

Photo courtesy of MembersOnly.

Last-minute Labour Day getaways from Toronto can be frustrating to plan given that it seems as though every single resort and small town in Ontario is completely booked on the last long weekend of summer. You can always try one of the many day trips from the city, but if you have your heart set on getting away overnight, there are still some places where you can make that happen.

Here are 5 last-minute Labour Day weekend getaways from Toronto.

Camp out on Crown land
You don't need to book at a provincial park to go camping in an around Toronto. You just need to know where to find some scenic Crown Land, where you're allowed to set up shop for up to 21 days. One of the best bets is the Torrance Barrens Dark Sky Preserve near Gravenhurst. It's a gorgeous stretch of land, and there's no need for reservations!

Lounge on the Beach in Cobourg
There aren't many beach weekends left this year, so why not spend your days on the sandy shores of Lake Ontario? Cobourg has one of the nicest beaches near Toronto, and plenty of accommodations to choose from. You can also stay overnight in nearby in Port Hope and soak up its small town charm. If you can't find a hotel, this one can also be done as a day trip.

Bid goodbye to summer in wine country
It might be predictable, but if you're hankering to get away at the last minute, a trip to Niagara is hard to beat. The inventory of hotel and motel rooms is never completely full (though prices are higher on long weekends), and you don't even need to do all the kitschy stuff. Stay overnight at the Falls and drive around wine country during the day.

Use Kitchener/Waterloo/Guelph as a home base to explore Southern Ontario
The problem with last minute getaways is finding decent overnight accommodations. Popular small towns like Elora and Fergus tend to get all booked up quite early, but if you head to a larger town like Kitchener-Waterloo or Guelph, you can then use it as a home base for exploring an entire region, which is arguably more fun anyway.

Ditch Muskoka for a true northern adventure
Vacation destinations near Toronto like Muskoka are an absolutely zoo on Labour Day weekend, and you're not likely to find a single room available for an overnight stay. If, however, you head further north to North Bay, finding a hotel/motel is easy, and the landscape is even more stunning. Day trips to numerous beaches and northern Algonquin Park are fun and easy from here.

What did I miss? Add your suggestions in the comments.

Photo by Will on Flickr.

Free events in Toronto this week include textiles, a bicycle sound festival and an extremely cool day of DJs, dance and runway at Lawrence Park. Because we're currently mid-TIFF, this money saving gathering of coolness will make sure you can afford groceries next week.

Here are my picks for free events in Toronto this week.

Dan Mangan (September 5, Union Station)
The Union Summer Market is sadly closing up shop for the season after a terrific time all around. Surrounded by 18 food vendors, catch this free show from Command Sisters at 12:30 p.m. and then folk darling Dan Mangan at 2 p.m.

Hard Twist (September 8, Gladstone Hotel)
The Gladstone's annual group fibre art show celebrates 11 years! It's a show of textile-based art, invites artists to give us their own spin on spin. This one's become an important annual event within the Canadian textile art community.

Toronto Bicycle Music Festival (September 10, Evergreen Brickworks)
The 7th annual TBMF starts at Brickworks at 11 a.m. and finishes at Prairie Drive Park at 6 p.m. It's kind of like a mobile concert. Enjoy a glorious bike right with music and dance performances in between! Jason Collett, Lido Pimienta and Nhapitapi are just a few names.

Cabbagetown Festival (September 10, Cabbagetown)
One of the final mega-street-festivals of the year takes over Cabbagetown! Make sure you're there Saturday at 11 a.m. for the opening ceremony featuring Newchoir then stick around for a show from TDot Batu, an Afro-Brazilian rhythmic group. Food, arts, craft, shops and drinks all weekend all over the place.

Parks & Wreck (September 11, Lawrence Park)
Officially the coolest free event this week, this is a one day outdoor event aimed to gather the Toronto street-dance community and local residents at Lawrence Park. "The day includes free workshops in the morning and battles, featuring the styles of House, Waacking, and Popping, as well as showcases throughout the day." DJs Dirty Dale, Fly Lady and M4RS spin.

Did I miss an amazing free event this week? Let us all know about it in the comments.

Photo from the Tune Your Ride Facebook page.

Imagine a musical genre with no rules, no real notes to read, no restraint. A genre where even if you're completely tone deaf or if you were that kid in grade five choir who sang louder than everyone else, you'd feel right at home.

This genre exists. It's beautiful in its own way and while some will first hear it and think "what in the hell is this noise?" others will be moved, open their mouths and join in.

The genre is called Shape Note singing, and it's one of the oldest forms in American music history.

"Everyone experiences it differently," Frank Griggs says. He's been participating in Shape Note "singings" since he was in high school and now helps with Toronto events.

He's travelled through the US and Europe singing as well. "It can be a very moving experience. [It's] really loud, you're singing harmonies with a big group of people, there's reverberations and over tones and you can feel things. People ascribe whatever they want to those feelings."

It all began in the late 1700s in churches in the American colonies. Musical notes were assigned shapes (triangle is fa, square is la and the circle is so and the diamond is mi) so that people who couldn't read music could join in. Essentially when you sing a song, you're reading shapes.

All the songs come from one book called the Sacred Harp, which is like the genre's bible. The words are dark, they're usually super religious, and there's a lot Jesus. "It was the pop music of it's day," Griggs says.

"People were obsessed with the Sacred Harp back then. 'OMG what's your favourite song?' 'OMG I love page 235!' It was pop music in a sense." Then the trend suddenly ended.

"It fell out of fashion in New England because European classical music was introduced," Frances Miller says. Miller is an ethno-musicologist, a trained singer and a Shape Note participant and organizer. " The genre was looked at as a low brow musical form in the way people thought about punk. It's beautiful you; just need to look at it in a different way."

It was not until the 20th century that the American folk tradition adopted it, mostly ignored its deep religious roots and started the Shape Note resurgence. It's not really associated with a church or a religion anymore. It hasn't stopped since and is now sung by Sacred Harp groups literally all over the planet.

Miller was struck by Shape Note for the first time after stumbling upon a 1942 recording of The Alabama Sacred Harp Singers' "Present Joys" recorded by Alan Lomax.

"They were singing four part melodies, which just happen to interweave and as a singer I recognized that it was an incredibly challenging thing to do without any music training. I was so confused."

So why is it so popular today? There are groups all over the world (find them all here), and the Toronto group is a popular one with singing sessions every month and larger meet ups a couple times a year. What makes this fluid, loud, lawless genre so appealing?

"When I first went to the Toronto group, having no clue about the words and understanding the fact that most people in Toronto signing it are not religious," Miller says. "They were singing about hell fire and 'we're just passing through this life and waiting to die,' and I was just like oh God."

But she kept going back.

"Often it's just a cathartic experience singing with these people," she says. "Singing often times as loud as you can. It's very therapeutic.

"Even if you don't believe in what you're singing, there's still this euphoric feeling that overtakes and there's some sort of rhythmic coming together that could be synching brain waves and pulses... people experience that feeling whether you're religious or not."

It's messy, but at the same time organized in a lovely communal way. People stand in a square and sing into a middle space, not to an audience. You can come and go as you please, and similar to a groups like Choir! Choir! Choir!, but without the pop melodies, it's a space to show up, sing at the top of your lungs and leave feeling great.

"There's no director, no one's really listening to you, and that's the best thing," Griggs says. 'Everyone's singing together as a group, but you're singing loudly and it's more about the act then about the end result."

There's a leader who counts time with every song, but there's definitely no judgement and singers of all levels and non-levels.

"It's a welcoming, non-judgemental space, where you don't need to be able to read music but you will over time," Miller says. "The shapes eventually embed themselves in your mind.

"If you're interested in historical poetry, it feels like they're stepping in the shoes of someone from back then."

All the lovely people you meet and yell/sing with aside, it's also a pretty bad ass, goth-fuelled dark activity for those who need to rebel against something.

"Tim McCready plays in the Good Enough Karaoke band... he regularly comes," Griggs says.

Miller continues, "He was brought there from a metal head who was just like, 'these songs are so dark man, you gotta hear them."

Photo by Thomas Evers from the Toronto Shape Note website.

Every year, the Toronto International Film Festival brings the world to us in the form of the perspectives of some of the greatest filmmakers outside of North America. It's one of the annual joys of the festival to see international films we might not be able to see otherwise.

Here are the top 10 foreign films to see at TIFF 2016.

The Age of Shadows
Director Kim Jee woon knows how to put his mark on genre film, whether it's his twisted serial killer revenge flick I Saw the Devil, or his modern Arnold Schwarzenegger western The Last Stand. His latest, South Korea's official pick for Oscar contention, promises his take on a period piece (1920s Korea during Japanese occupation) and a spy thriller with double agents, double crosses, and espionage.

The Commune
Danish Director Thomas Vinterberg can be overshadowed by his more tempestuous countryman, Lars von Trier, but his work (Celebration, Dear Wendy, The Hunt) is no less worth getting excited about. He's especially gifted with ensembles,Commune is easy to look forward to since it's about a couple in the 1970s who experiment with communal living by inviting a group of people to stay in their home.

Elle
Ever the provocateur, Paul Verhoeven's latest should maintain his reputation. Raped by a burglar, Michèle (Isabelle Huppert) spends the days after not only fantasizing about her assailants return, but exacting revenge. It's potentially controversial subject matter, which, if nothing else, how he'll pull it off.

The Handmaiden
Park Chan-wook doesn't make movies like anybody else. Whether it's a revenge story (Oldboy), a vampire movie, (Thirst) or a Hitchcock homage (Stoker), visually stunning mania and depravity are par for the course. With The Handmaiden he tackles a con-man story in a way only he can: full of violence, graphic sex, and stunning cinematography.

Julieta
Pedro Almodóvar may not be the first person you'd think of to adapt Alice Munro, but it's a perfect fit. The director has long excelled at understanding and portraying nuanced women and their relationships. That talent should serve him especially well for this story (inspired by stories in Munro's Runaway) about a mother whose daughter chooses to cease all contact, and the anguish that leaves behind.

Planetarium
Every year TIFF hosts movies that are odes to cinema. Rebecca Zlotowski's Planetarium is the latest, and one with a particularly enticing angle. The story follows two mediums (Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp) who communicate with ghosts in 1930s Paris, and are recruited by a French film producer for a project full of the greater powers of cinema and (maybe?) the supernatural.

Sadako vs. Kayako
Horror movies occasionally bless us with wonderfully goofy crossovers where genre icons duke it out: Freddy fought Jason, Aliens versed Predators, Frankenstein tussled with the Wolfman. Now, we can add the improbable battle between the respective supernatural young girls in The Ring and The Grudge. No matter who loses, hopefully we viewers will win.

The Salesman
Asghar Farhadi is one of Iran's greatest filmmakers, and anyone who has seen Oscar winner A Seperation knows why. That makes it impossible to pass up a chance to see his latest, which won both Best Screenplay and Actor at Cannes and follows the story of a couple who are acting in a production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman - a play that begins to parallel the couple's own life.

The Unknown Girl
Few filmmakers direct with as much empathy and consistency as Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. Their movies are like salves for your soul, so there's no chance of passing up their latest about a young doctor who refuses service to a nameless girl. The girl is later found dead, and, wracked with guilt, the doctor embarks on a mission to discover who the girl was.

Yourself and Yours
Hong Sang-soo's playful films are always feel-good delights, and perfect palate cleansers for a busy--or emotionally taxing--TIFF schedule. His latest focuses on a painter whose life is in upheaval not just because he's separated from his girlfriend, but because he sees her doppelgangers everywhere. Which, no surprise, sounds delightful.

What foreign films are you most excited to see at TIFF this year? Let us know in the comments.

Film still from the Salesman.

The newest restaurant in the Oliver & Bonacini family is an homage to rustic family dinners done South American-style. Open all day for the convenience of downtown Saks shoppers, the restaurant offers breakfast, lunch, dinner and brunch on weekends.

Read my profile of Lena in the restaurants section.

You could make an argument that Bloor is Toronto's most vibrant street. Sure, it would have to compete with a few others like Yonge and Queen streets, but the array of small businesses, restaurants, and bars that stretch from Avenue Road to Islington Avenue give it great energy.

What's also remarkable about the street is that its retail face remains consistent for much of its length. With a few exceptions like the Mink Mile and the section east of Yonge, Bloor is marked by two and three storey buildings that feature retail at ground level and apartments above. It serves as the main retail strip for at least seven distinct neighbourhoods.

Caught right in the middle of all this hodgepodge urbanism, however, is a section of Bloor that's completely lacking in character. Once you pass St. Helen's Avenue heading west, it's as though you've entered as sort of no man's land, where the retail vanishes and attention to the human scale of the street is forgotten.

This continues until Symington when a little cluster of businesses restores some humanity to the street scape. After that, it gets a bit cold and dreary again leading to the hulking Crossways Towers, but never quite so much as the stretch between St. Helen's and Ruttan Street.

I've passed through this stretch hundreds of times, and it always dampens my mood momentarily. It's ugly, yes - but the real issue is that it's entirely anonymous. It feels like a slice of Toronto that's been forgotten, where the lesson that cities are for people was never learned.

The most obvious contributing factor to this sense is the one that makes the least sense to complain about. A railway spur passes overhead here, and the space that's been dug out underneath it can't accommodate retail. But there's more to it than that.

Just west of the bridge on the south side is the BeBloor condo, one of the city's ugliest buildings (a point Star architecture critic Christopher Hume agrees with). At a passing glance, it looks like a 1970s-era slab apartment building, but it was actually built in 2006 by the Lorbeth Development Corporation.

As bland as the whole structure is, it's the street level entrance that's really unforgivable. Given how utterly lacking in any attention to design it is, the thought has crossed my mind that the whole condo is actually just a front for some secret government facility or another. It's that bad. The ventilation ducts facing the street are also a nice touch.

Across the street, the scene is no better. Here Bloor is marked by the back side of the Rankin Apartments, which features more ventilation ducts, a single pink door, and three windows at street level. The rest is concrete.

It's a suburban style apartment with its back turned to one of the city's busiest streets. Developments like this are why we now have the Design Review Panel.

The scale of buildings diminishes as you continue west, but the streetscape never enlivens. Brick townhouses don't seem like they should be so foreboding, but these ones are. Pushed right to the edge of the street, they amount to a wall of brick and glass, and seem perpetually unoccupied.

By the time you reach the auto shop at Rattan, you're just happy to see signs of activity on the street. It feels like you're back in Toronto again, even if only because the buildings look like people actually use them.

There's no requirement that all of Toronto be pretty. Practical considerations dictate that some areas will have a utilitarian aesthetic, but this stretch of Bloor is a lesson in poor planning, where a challenging feature in the railway overpass led everyone to give up and say "who cares?"

Photos by Derek Flack.

Individual tickets for the Toronto International Film Festival went on sale this morning. This stress-inducing process began at 9 a.m. today when I started pressing refresh on the TIFF website before realizing I could grab everything on Ticketmaster.

Unlike in previous years, TIFF is now using Ticketmaster as its ticketing distributor. This, however, was a little bit unclear. So I, like many others, started off on the TIFF website before making the switch over to this third-party retailer.

And surprisingly, Ticketmaster proved useful because the TIFF website seemed crashed just after 9 a.m. And while many high-profile films sold out quickly, it was relatively (the key word is relative) easy to gain access to galas and other big world premieres.

Though not everyone was pleased with their experience, if you're going by social media that is. Here's how sleepy Torontonians took out their frustrations this morning.

Did you get all the TIFF tickets you wanted? Let us know in the comments.

Photo by Jesse Milns

Toronto's crop ugliest condos isn't a small group (unlike our most stunning ones). There are scores of anonymous glass towers with little aesthetic appeal that dot the city. Add to these the monstrosities of the first condo boom in the 1980s, and you have a large enough pool that selecting the worst of the worst becomes almost an arbitrary task. But, hey, someone has to do it.

Behold, my picks for the ugliest condos in Toronto.

New York Towers
This faux Deco complex dates back to the early 2000s and remains one of the architecturally despised condo developments in Toronto. Kirkor Architects have been behind some truly awful projects in this city (including this eyesore that was never built), but these are probably the most offensive for the way they defer to New York and stand as monuments to unoriginality.

Bohemian Embassy
You can thank Page & Steele Inc. and IBI Group for this massive missed opportunity on West Queen West. Forgetting the horrible name and marketing campaign, the facade is just a mess. There are quasi-historical elements, but no real attempt to fit the building to this most vibrant street scape in Toronto.

BeBloor Condos
Quick, can you guess when this building was constructed? No it's not a slab from the 1970s. This entirely bland building near Lansdowne and Bloor was completed in 2006 and provides ample fodder for those who say Toronto doesn't given a damn about architecture and design.

Harbour Point Condos
Often referred to as the Ugly Sisters, these three condo towers on Queens Quay are at least partially responsible for the bad architectural reputation the waterfront has for unfriendly buildings that block the rest of the city from the lake. The Huang & Danczkay-designed complex is emblematic of everything we did wrong in the 1980s.

CityPlace
Where to start? CityPlace is is ground zero for bland glass tower design. It'd be silly to pick just one of the towers to highlight here because they all just blend together. Even their names -- Matrix, Apex, Panorama, Luna Vista, etc. -- are yawn-inducing.

Conservatory Towers
This is another nasty bit of work from the the 1980s. Sections of the building are now short term rental properties, but this was originally conceived as a luxury condo in the early 1990s. Looking at it, you get the sense that the building is in the process of regurgitating itself.

Polo Club
Bay Street has a number of awful condos dating back to the 1980s, but it's Polo Club I and II that take the cake, right down to the terribly designed bit of public space at the foot of the second tower. There's a feeling of impending doom when walking by here. Bay Street could have beautiful, but we blew it.

Minto Plaza
Marble touches can't save this WZMH Architects-designed condo from banality. Though the firm did plenty of great work on office buildings during the period leading into the 1990s, this residential offering is just cold and characterless.

Vibe Condos
If there's a condo that exemplifies the banality of the boxy podium/tower design favoured by so many Toronto architects, Vibe is it. It's not so much that it's outright ugly. On the contrary, it just looks like a paint-by-number condo.

Waterpark City
This is another one from Page & Steele. I guess the best way to describe these buildings is that they look like they come out of Minecraft. They're a perfect example of boring glass condo towers that add nothing of interest to the Toronto skyline. Density is good, but it's even better when it comes with attention to detail in design.

What ugly condos did I miss (there are a lot to choose from)? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

Photos via Empty Quarter, Derek Flack, Google Street View, New York Towers.