Sunday, November 7, 2010

Red (2010), Robert Schwentke.

When I moved out of Toronto it felt like a bit of a relief only because I had always felt adrift, unsettled and unfulfilled while living there.  Recognizing that it was not the city's fault, I made a mental inventory of everything about it that delighted me:  the Hungarian schnitzel, the rep theatres... and the Toronto Reference Library!  If you ask me, the Toronto Reference Library is Canada's unofficial national library: a funky 70s design by architect Raymond Moriyama lined in cozy orange carpeting and draped with spider plants (plants!), it features Logan's Run elevators and an infinite spots to sit and ogle.  The collection is massive and accessible.  For the most part, nobody has to go and get anything for you from behind closed doors (through it's also primarily non-circulating, so you can't take anything home).  It's a living cover spread of Architectural Digest from 1977, complete with anything you'd ever want to read -- and the air is fresh!    

 The Toronto Reference Library.  Photo by Scienceduck, 2007.


Red is a sweet-natured, fun, if slightly predictable adventure movie.  They also went out of their way (scenes were filmed on location in New Orleans, New York and Chicago) to shoot one weenie library scene in the Toronto Reference Library (which they needed to disguise as an American library - why would the CIA agents be looking for Bruce Willis in Canada?).  Clearly, these are location scouts that know their stuff!

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