// Category Archive for: Issues

Live The Life You’re Dreaming Of

It’s been ten years now, so I automatically assume everyone knows the story. But I should probably tell it again. First, I fell in love with Sloan. Then, I fell in love with Shaun.

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Five Reasons We Love Nathan Fillion

By Lisa Anderson

Nathan Fillion as
Mal Reynolds on Firefly

Few Canadian actors have been as beloved in the 21st century than Nathan Fillion. He’s perhaps best known for his role as spaceship smuggler captain and war veteran Malcolm Reynolds, in Joss Whedon’s short-lived but influential Firefly series. It’s true enough that Browncoats (Firefly fans) still love their Captain; he even unintentionally set off an online fundraising firestorm last year by suggesting that he would buy the rights to the show and distribute it for free if he had enough money. There are many other reasons that Nathan Fillion has as many fans as he does, though—even aside from being handsome and seeming friendly and funny in interviews and at conventions. Here are are just a few.
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Top Ten: Jim Carrey’s Most Humorous Characters

By Julie Finley

Jim Carrey: some people love him . . . some people hate him. I would fall into the “love” category, although I don’t love every single role he has played. But the ones I do adore, I REALLY love because no one could ever pull it off quite like him!

Sadly, there are people who actually claim that he’s “Not Funny!” or “Stupid!” I honestly do not know how anyone could NOT find at least one of his characters humorous, but some people are just assholes that lack a sense of humor. So, if you are one of those types, don’t even bother to read this! If you do have a healthy sense of humor, but have only paid attention to one or two characters he’s played, read on (or if you just appreciate the guy, this will be of interest)!

I’ve compiled a list of my favorite comedic roles he’s portrayed over the years. This list will not include his dramatic or more serious roles. He is a great dramatic actor, but comedy is truly his forte, and I really wish someone in Hollywood would write an incredible comedy film script that could bring his finest talents back into the spotlight. It’s been a while since he’s been in a rip-roaring hilarious feature, and I blame that on the absolute garbage that has come out of Hollywood in the past 10+ years. I think the last really great comedies I’ve seen were anything involving Sacha Baron Cohen, Bad Santa, The Forty Year Old Virgin, and Stepbrothers. Everything else has been totally lame, and I am sick of seeing the same five actors in the same roles over and over again!

With that said, here are my favorites, and I will note: these are original characters developed by Jim, not impersonations (which he is incredible at doing, but these are his own creations).
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Paul Gross in the Performance of My Lifetime

By Michelle Patterson

Paul Gross wasn’t about to change just my perceptions of what makes good Art good (the kind with a capital “A”) and what makes bad art bad (the kind that makes you wince at the attempt of it in the first place). “Why aren’t these people afraid of failure,” I’d think to myself. “What made them think that they could do this?”
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What Would The ’70s Have Done Without Donald Sutherland?

By Charlie M.

The Seventies were lucky to have Donald Sutherland. A quick look at his filmography suggests that whatever genre you’re interested in, there’s an iconic ’70s film with Sutherland at the heart of it. From comedy to sci-fi, from horror to war movie, like a human landmark, you can use him to orientate yourself around cult films of the era. His charisma is, in part, due to the fact there’s no other actor who looks quite like him—he’s magnetically sexy rather than conventionally attractive. More brutally, film director Fellini described him as “a sperm-filled waxwork with the eyes of a masturbator.”
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The Talented Mr. Rennie

By Melissa Bratcher

At a certain point in my life, I made anyone who spent any amount of time at my house watch the movie Hard Core Logo. This continued for a couple of years. I couldn’t articulate what I liked best about it, but it seemed important that every one of my friends be exposed to it. I love the relationship of Joe and Billy, unhinged John and the ridiculous Pipefitter, as well as the Joey Ramone cameo. The music was good, the story was engrossing, and I loved it.

Hard Core Logo, 1996

I think, though, the thing I liked best was Callum Keith Rennie. He was completely mesmerizing. Handsome, rangy, and angular, but he was more than that. He had intensity, a barely subdued violence just bubbling under the surface. Every time he showed up, he was the most interesting person on the screen.

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Waiting For Sloan Songs: Top Ten

By Melissa Bratcher

Photo © Marshall Angus

Sloan was the most recent band for whom I’ve had an all encompassing mania. I had been obsessed with bands before (Blur, The Dandy Warhols, The Monkees, Bay City Rollers), and the gripping excitement and absolute fervor that I felt about those bands washed over me when I found Sloan. I miss feeling that way about them. Passion fades, mania recedes like a tide, and I settled into simple, less enthusiastic fandom.

That said, when asked to come up with a top Sloan songs list, I had to. Then I realized, all of my favorite Sloan songs are Jay Ferguson songs and that’s not terribly interesting to anyone but me and possibly Jay Ferguson. So there’s a bit of a problem. It’s not that I don’t appreciate Chris Murphy’s clever, wordplay-riddled tunes, or Patrick Pentland’s balls-out rockers, or Andrew Scott’s more esoteric leanings, but hey, I’m a Jay girl. I love that his songs sound like proper timeless pop songs. And his voice is perfect for them.

In the interest of fairness, however, I have risen above. In no particular order, my Top Ten Sloan songs:

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The Barenaked Ladies Made Me Do It

By Charlie M.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the phrase “we broke up over irreconcilable musical differences” is a euphemism for “I was close to stabbing them to death with a pencil.” But can it ever be literally true? Is it possible to fall swiftly and irreversibly out of sync with a person simply because of a discord in melodic taste?
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Behold Their Majesties, The Wainwright-McGarrigles

By Alex Arnott

When the theme of this issue—Canadiana—was decided upon, I knew that I had to write about the Wainwrights and McGarrigles. Oh, who am I kidding? There’s another word for the Wainwright-McGarrigle clan, and I’m sure it’s already floating around inside the heads of those readers who know them. It starts with a D and ends with a Y.

Rufus Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle, and Martha Wainwright

It should be admitted upfront that the questionable patriarch in this family, Loudon Wainwright III, is not in fact a Canadian. Patriarchs aren’t everything, and I am certain that the surviving family members of this clan would agree. Anyway, there are countless articles detailing the history of those Wainwright-McGarrigles (I liked this one), but this is not one of them.
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Oh! Canada (You Pretty Things)

By Christian Lipski

Nick Gilder and Tal Bachman: Great White Northerners and purveyors of melodic sound since 1975; both are identified by one song, but have equally engaging back catalogs. More popular in Canada than further south, they both suffered from a severe lack of regard by listeners everywhere. Much more than their singles, and at the same time those singles’ very equal.
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