Blu-Ray Review: Gilda

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto residents can watch a special theatrical screening of Gilda at The Royal tonight at 7:30 p.m., presented by the Ladies of Burlesque.

Without Gilda, my life would have been very different. As a naïve young English major at UC Santa Barbara, I registered for a Film Noir class to fulfill a requirement for my degree. I wasn’t new to old cinema; the giant poster of James Dean on my bedroom door and my stash of Gary Cooper movies recorded onto VHS were a testament to that. I didn’t know, however, about German Expressionism, Jim Thompson novels, the word “chiaroscuro,” or how important Citizen Kane was to the development of the noir style. I would soon learn.

Continue reading ‘Blu-Ray Review: Gilda’

TV Review: The X-Files Episode 2, “Founder’s Mutation”

By Jeffery X Martin

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

Boy, do we do things to screw up our children. Some of that can’t be helped; we’re only human, after all. But what if your child isn’t only human? The second episode of Season Ten of The X-Files, “Founder’s Mutation,” is all about the kids.

Continue reading ‘TV Review: The X-Files Episode 2, “Founder’s Mutation”’

Music Review: Lycus, Chasms

By Tim Murr

I don’t know if “beautifully arranged” is a phrase often applied to funereal doom metal, but it certainly applies to the new album from Lycus, Chasms. The four long tracks that make up Chasms play like a four-part symphony of despair at the death of the world.

Continue reading ‘Music Review: Lycus, Chasms’

Today In Pop Culture: The Movie Ratings System and Why We Should Kill It

By Jeffery X Martin

The way we rate movies in America is confusing and arbitrary at best. The stranglehold the Motion Picture Association of America has over artists and the way they present their art is unconscionable. It is an outdated, lopsided system which falls apart when you apply even the least amount of thought to it.

Continue reading ‘Today In Pop Culture: The Movie Ratings System and Why We Should Kill It’

Mexican Wrestling Sensation Lucha Underground: A Primer

By Sachin Hingoo

I’ve always been fascinated by pro wrestling’s ability to tell a story in a non-traditional way. Mixing elements of a stage play, a circus, and a TV show, along with the fact that there are usually no traditional “seasons” makes for some potentially great and potentially horrendous narratives that are equally entertaining to me. Lucha Underground, however, is unlike any other wrestling product that I’ve seen.

Continue reading ‘Mexican Wrestling Sensation Lucha Underground: A Primer’

TV Review: Trailer Park Boys, Drunk, High, And Unemployed–Live In Austin

By Tyler Hodg

Photo credit: http://blog.swearnet.com/

The Trailer Park Boys are a national treasure. While the trio doesn’t represent Canada as a whole, there is just something so Canadian about the show’s approach. Park resident J-Rock even built a car spoiler out of hockey sticks, for maple syrup’s sake.

Yet, somehow, the appeal of Trailer Park Boys extends globally. Following their onstage Netflix specials in Dublin and Minneapolis, the boys have traveled to Texas for a brand-new theater production titled Trailer Park Boys: Drunk, High, and Unemployed–Live In Austin.

Continue reading ‘TV Review: Trailer Park Boys, Drunk, High, And Unemployed–Live In Austin’

Today In Pop Culture: Putting The Screws To The Twist

By Jeffery X Martin

There may not be any expression of emotion purer than the act of dance. Whether it is a formal kind of dance, like ballet, or a child dancing awkwardly in circles for no reason than being alive, the act of dancing wells up from inside and explodes in a flurry of limbs and happiness. Obviously, the best thing to do with something like a dance is ban it, right?

The year was 1962, and the Catholic Diocese in Buffalo, New York, decided to ban the Twist from all Catholic schools in America.

Continue reading ‘Today In Pop Culture: Putting The Screws To The Twist’

Music Review: I Am Thor (Original Soundtrack)

By Tim Murr

Welcome to my fourth Thor review in the last year! I’ve been on a quite a journey of discovery with Jon Mikl Thor. When I reviewed the re-release of his landmark 1983 album, Unchained, my memory of Thor the frontman, was fuzzier than my memory of Thor the guy that was in that Adam West zombie movie.

Since then I’ve reviewed his newest release, Metal Avenger (2015), an album that contained some of his strongest material to date. Then, there was the fantastic documentary, I Am Thor. Rock documentaries are pretty common and usually just a boring fan letter to the subject. Sometimes not even including any of the artist’s music due to rights issues. I Am Thor delivers by being a compelling documentary, chock-full of music from Thor’s entire career and featuring great interviews with many people from Thor’s life.

Continue reading ‘Music Review: I Am Thor (Original Soundtrack)’

Blu-Ray Review: I Am Thor

By Tim Murr

There is no good reason Thor weren’t bigger than KISS. Oh, sure, there were reasons, but not good ones. Starting out in the body building world before moving on to rock and roll, Jon Mikl Thor made a name for himself with feats of strength and great stage presence. His first serious foray into rock as Thor was a glam classic (Keep The Dogs Away, 1977). It should have been huge. It was not.

Continue reading ‘Blu-Ray Review: I Am Thor’

Today in Pop Culture: Can We Trust the Robots?

By Jeffery X Martin

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Some readers may recognize the above conditions as Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. They were first published in 1942 and they formed the basis for all of his stories about robots (and there were a lot).

Continue reading ‘Today in Pop Culture: Can We Trust the Robots?’