month : 01/2016 39 results
4Score

Metaphysics on a small scale

Movie review: Anomalisa Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson create an existential nightmare that lets the viewer play god while the human comedy looks smaller, and more magical, than ever  

You never leave high school, or Heathers

Podcast: Pop This! The '80s cult movie about homicidal high school students left a mark on the pop culture psyche, and Pop This picks at the scars three decades later. Featuring Lisa Christiansen and Andrea Warner. Produced by Andrea Gin. A sampling of what you might hear in Episode 10: Exhuming the legacy of Heathers We think this one thing will make us happy, but when we acquire it, it's a tornado of terribleness. There is some truth to the idea that you never leave high school. Back in 1988, we couldn't go to the Internet to check things out. Winona Ryder fought tooth and nail to get this part. I do think Heathers is brilliant. What kind of parent lets their kid do the Exorcist? Murder is not cool. Veronica is the only multidimensional character in the movie. I find it doesn't ring as true to me now. I felt it pushed the stereotype women are all bitches and will get you. Do you love Harold and Maude, too? I am excited about Zealander ...

Gut food is good food

Recipe: Asian Chicken and Cabbage Salad Feeding your intestinal microbes doesn't take courage, just a gut sense and some simple recipes, such as this Asian salad full of flora-friendly ingredients By Louise Crosby I’m not one to make a long list of New Year’s resolutions, but there are a couple of things I’d like to accomplish in 2016. One is to clean out my attic, the other is to feed my microbes. Yes, microbes. All of a sudden, it seems, there are new books and TV shows about the bacteria that live in our intestines. Scientists have discovered they play a crucial role in our health, affecting everything from how we digest our food to the strength of our immune system and our outlook on life. Imbalances in our flora have been linked to disease, obesity, and depression. But how we feed these microorganisms is key: junk food kills them off, but a diet high in high-fibre fruits and vegetables, complex carbohydrates, nuts, seeds, probiotics, prebiotics, and fermented ...

Baptized in dishwater

Mob Rule: Part 42 On the run and low on funds, Jack and Vanessa hunker down in a roadside diner and discover the unsung joys of a short-order life and red-eye gravy By John Armstrong I have to say, if you’ve ever complained that you had no time to ponder life’s mysteries, get a job as a dishwasher in a busy lunchroom. Once you get into the swing of it, your hands learn the job and most of your mind is free to contemplate and wander where it will. It’s also sort of a non-stop process — a room full of hungry customers can dirty plates and cups just as fast as you can wash them so you soon forget any crazy ideas like “catching up” and just settle into a machinelike routine of dip, scrub, rinse, stack and repeat. The kitchen clock was on the wall behind me so I had no clue what time it was and I was honestly surprised when Cooter tapped my shoulder and said, “Hang up your brush. Time to eat.” It was just past three and Lurlene had hung the closed sign on the ...
4Score

The Revenant is raw tension

Movie review: The Revenant Leonardo DiCaprio undergoes a horrendous series of trials — including that famous bear attack — in Alejandro G. Inarritu's masterful tale of survival

David Bowie’s Top Ten movies

Tribute: David Bowie As the world mourns the loss of an icon who changed pop music, let's not forget David Bowie's impressive, and sometimes abysmal, body of work on the big screen because it was all part of a greater performance By Katherine Monk VANCOUVER - The I-5 was a ribbon of wet blackness that emerged, intermittently, with each croaking swipe of the wipers. It was going to be a long drive from Vancouver to Tacoma, and in late October rain without someone to talk to, it was going to feel even longer. No one wanted to see Bowie with me. Not this tour, at any rate. My partner was a former music promoter. After a lifetime of walking around with a headset and a deck of laminates around her neck, she had no desire to be a plus-one in press seats. Besides, it was the Outside tour. A 1995 conceptual opera featuring Nine Inch Nails and Bowie playing the character of Nathan Adler, a man who judges the worthiness of art in a post-apocalyptic future, the Outside tour proved ...

Wine Pairings for your Failed New Year’s Resolutions

Pop Culture Decoder Choosing the right wine to toast your success at failure!  

Stalls, but no loitering

Mob Rule: Part 41 On the run from old Joe Kennedy and the D.C. spin parade, Jack and Vanessa hole up in Savannah in a vain search for relief By John Armstrong I was prepared when we got to Savannah, not that it did me any good. There were two pay phones, one out of order and the other in use by a man with two old cloth shopping bags at his feet who looked as badly off as we were. I shuffled and danced and muttered behind him in an agony of impatience but he just stood there saying “Ummm-hmmm” every few seconds. By his reaction, whatever they were telling him wasn’t terribly exciting but he seemed determined to hear all of it. At one point he pulled the phone away and I thought he was going to hang up but he was just changing ears. I was anxious to get the phone but I was also hopping back and forth on my feet while I waited because our bus had no toilet on it, and it had been a long time since Tallahassee. I considered solving both problems at once, just unzipping right ...
2Score

The Forest gets lost walking in circles

Movie review: The Forest Natalie Dormer takes a long walk in a forest full of strange fruit in Jason Zada's Japanese take on Little Red Riding Hood  
3Score

Movie review: The Joy of capitalism

A woman invents a miracle mop and finds herself knee-deep in screwball dysfunction in David O. Russell's uneven fable about working-class America