BROWSE AROUND: Search by Neighborhood | Slideshows
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
“This,” Boston-based vocalist Laura Grill enthuses, “will be my third year coming up for the jazz festival.”
Well, not strictly for the festival. For while you may see Grill in the audience at Confederation Park or the National Arts Centre this weekend, the New England Conservatory alumnus has her own show to do. The songwriter’s expressive vocal style ensures jazz will be a factor at her Raw Sugar performance, but Grill prefers to think she’s more than a little bit folk.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, SCREEN>>by Razor Sharp
Don’t drink the Kool Aid, kids. Sure, sure, every critic worth his or her pepper and salt is gushing all over this one. But they are wrong. Dead wrong.
Let me explain. Yes, Terrence Malick makes grand cinematic gestures. Yes, Terrence Malick makes films so infrequently, each and every release is cause for celebration. Yes Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life won the prestigious Palme d’Or prize at the very prestigious Cannes Film Festival. That win seems to have spawned a Cannes-Do reaction. Everyone agrees: this, indeed, is one fabulous film.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, SCREEN>>by Razor Sharp
Way, way back, when I was a misguided youth up to no good, I procured a seedy collection of raunchy grindhouse trailers slapped onto a video cassette that promised (in bright, exploding fonts), to appease my guilty pleasure. It came in a plain brown wrapper and might as well have been delivered by the wino down the block. I couldn’t have been more giddy.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, STAGE>>By Holly Gordon
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Steve Baylin
He sings down and out songs for hard times or no times, and everything in between. Rock and roll anthems about the bruised, the battered and the desolate in disguise.He testifies with sweat soaked shout outs from streets of heartache and back alley banquets, all the while tangling with angels of mercy, lost souls in hell and black iron gates with a tombstone glow.
Pittsburgh’s favourite rock and roots ringer Bill Toms ― heart permanently affixed to sleeve ― has for nearly three decades spun many a dour and disconsolate tale of Steel City solitary sin, sadness and the search for salvation, with gut-level grandeur.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
Jeremy Greenspan reflects on Banana Ripple, the disco delight that closes It’s All True, his and fellow Junior Boy Matt Didemus’s latest full-length dancefloor-filler. At nine minutes and boasting numerous mood shifts, it’s an epic built layer upon layer.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, SCREEN>>by Razor Sharp
Covering six grueling months on a tour of duty with a group of fresh-faced Danes, Armadillo is an engrossing document on the futile war effort against the Taliban. What the hell are Danes doing in Afghanistan, you may ask. Well, what the hell is anyone doing in Afghanistan, should be the question. Like any good war movie, this one has a rag tag bunch of disparate innocents, eager for a chance at grown-up adventure.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, SCREEN>>by Razor Sharp
Earthling is one crazy cosmic adventure: a low budget sci-fi horror thriller that features spiky asteroids, slimy slugs and acne gone wild. That all sounds like a Tim Burton splash fest, which it is not. Clay Liford’s little shop of horrors is more about nuance and suspense than gore, telling a convoluted story I’m still trying to wrap my sorry ass brain around.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, SCREEN>>by Razor Sharp
Can you say Taulukauppiaat? Me neither, so The Painting Sellers will have to do. The Finnish language can be a challenge, but the daily struggle depicted to excellent effect in this hour long drama, is universal.
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, SCREEN>>by Allan Wigney
At 37, Denis Côté admits to feeling slightly uncomfortable at career retrospectives. The Montreal-based film critic turned filmmaker stresses he is “only starting… looking for some sort of signature.” But, he concedes, “Apparently, it’s already there.”
THE WEEKEND GUIDE, MUSIC>>by Allan Wigney
The refined gentleman on the other end of the phone speaks in a unique accent, the result of a childhood spent in Ottawa, teen years completed in London, England, and an adulthood spent mostly in the south of Wales. His attitude is nearly as unique: that of a musician proud to call himself a cult artist, and content to carry on in the name of “all these people who preceded me to the other side.”
Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet uses video projection design to send its dancers down the rabbit hole.
Local photographer Joy Kardish preserves, and reveals, all-but-forgotten spaces.
The 2011 visual and media arts laureates speak for themselves at the National Gallery group exhibition.
The renowned Japanese percussion ensemble, celebrating its 30th year, comes to the NAC March 7.
