Articles & Interviews
Barry Levinson didn’t set out to save the world with his new eco-horror film, but he is hoping to save Chesapeake Bay. For Levinson’s new movie, The Bay (just released on DVD and online in Canada) the Academy-Award winning director (Rain Man) who’s also a three time nominee for best screenplay (…And Justice for All, Avalon and Diner) [...]
So just another typical day posing for a photo with Sports Illustrated supermodel, Kate Upton… I mean Ania Korkh, the 22-year-old rhythmic gymnastics coach (and college student) dubbed “Kate Upton’s doppelganger” whose life turned upside down courtesy of a round of super-silliness on the Twittersphere. Korkh’s friends kept telling her she looked a bit like [...]
Sad showing for BC film and TV creators at the Canadian Screen Awards. BC feature films were shut out of the nominations and other than some well-deserved love for Continuum (although where were the nods for the cast?) the nominations list should be tagged on as an addendum to the Save BC Film petition, which [...]
So I’m currently having conversations about how to spread the word about my next play — the stage version of Never Shoot a Stampede Queen (opening soon at a theatre near you if you’re near Kamloops or Vancouver and, hopefully, Williams Lake) and I remembered this column I wrote about doing PR in the days before [...]
So at the end of June after Maggie Langrick, the Entertainment Editor at The Sun, discovered her theatre critic Peter Birnie was taking a buyout I agreed to do “a few stories” for the paper. Almost 100 stories later I’m kinda shocked at how much fun I’ve had with my return to the madness that [...]
When I was at university I remember a prof — probably the late, great Peter Loeffler — telling me about a famous review of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger by Kenneth Tynan where the legendary critic wrote. ”I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger.” I [...]
After shooting Diamonds are Forever Sean Connery vowed he’d never play the role of James Bond again and, when he did, the producers took a not so subtle jab at his return to the role by titling the film, Never Say Never Again. After The Eagles broke up they said they’d tour again “when Hell [...]
One of the world’s biggest movie stars is in two films at the cineplexes this weekend and even if you’re one of the six people in North America who hasn’t checked out Samuel L. Jackson in The Avengers yet, I’m hoping you’ll be buying tickets to his other movie — The Samaritan. A few years [...]
Duncan Keith. 5 Games. So what? I get that this looks like a big deal by NHL standards because this is the first superstar Keith has been suspended for headhunting, but I’d be more inclined to take it seriously if it included the stipulation that in the event the Canucks meet the Hawks in the [...]
And the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to… Does anyone think it’s not going to the magical black and white silent movie? For the last fifteen years or so I’ve covered the Toronto International Film Festival for The Georgia Straight and for the last decade I’ve shared interview duties with Vancouver’s dean of movie [...]
Is Wall Street killing the environment? That’d be one of the big questions posed in the new documentary, Surviving Progress, which opens Friday Dec. 2 at the always funky and fascinating Rio in Vancouver and the Cumberland Four in Toronto. And considering what’s been happening lately in Zuccotti Park and around the world it’s tough [...]
In 1998, I was writing a weekly humour column that was self-syndicated in several newspapers in western Canada. For about two years I riffed on a mix of politics and pop culture and as someone who started reading Adbusters with the magazine’s debut, how could I not write about Buy Nothing Day or — as [...]
I’ve done a few stories about Occupy Wall Street architect Kalle Lasn over the years — most recently for The Tyee. Here’s an interview from 2009 when Kalle and I met in his Vancouver office to talk about the creation of Culture Jamming, his court victory and his future plans… How Adbusters Grew on Trees [...]
One of the highlights of covering the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival was going for lunch with French actor André Wilms (Europa Europa). I’m not a big European film buff, so not only am I not particularly familiar with Wilms’ oeuvre, if not for spellcheck I’d be afraid to even use the word, “oeuvre.” But [...]
(A version of this story was originally published in The Vancouver Sun in 1997 when Clifford Olson was applying for parole under Canada’s “faint hope” clause. I’ve resisted the temptation to update it — although if I can find a piece I wrote about how Olson changed Vancouver for the uglier I’ll post that too.) [...]
This is my election night piece from thetyee.ca And the big winner last night… Preston Manning. When Preston created the Reform Party in a Vancouver hotel in 1987, he set out to remake Canada, and to challenge a Progressive Conservative party he felt was more progressive than conservative. But even though he crafted Reform’s commandments, [...]
And from out of left field… or should I say centre left field… Last night I posted a blog with my thoughts on the election. This morning a friend from Philadelphia was prompted to respond. She’s an author and academic who recently wrote a book on public intellectuals. We spoke today when I asked her [...]
Hi all. Mark here with a very important message for our Canadian readers… VOTE. Seriously… VOTE. Did you catch that? VOTE!!! These days the Prime Minister of Canada has a brand new sheen… kind of a Charlie Sheen if you listen closely… Since this is The Green Chain blog I thought I should alert you [...]
Author Snapshot: Mark Leiren-Young (By Linda L. Richards) If you live in Vancouver, it’s next to impossible that you don’t know Mark Leiren-Young’s name. For one thing, it’s a distinctive double-barreled moniker: you remember it once you’ve seen it. Especially since, again if you live in that city and you happen to read, you’ll have [...]