Pop Culture Decoder: Mom Boobs

Laying bare the effects that parenthood can have on the pointer sisters By Misty Harris You know how after performing a lot of hard work, you exhale all remaining volume from your chest, slump over and just surrender to gravity? The same goes for breasts after having a child. My breasts, anyway. Like weary warriors retreating from battle, they have been deflated. First, there were the rigours of pregnancy, which saw the twins change size more times than Jonah Hill. Then there were nine months of breastfeeding a tiny human, who paid them roughly the same respect a cheetah does a gazelle. And, finally, there was the post-nursing weight fluctuation, which saw my lady lumps take on so many different appearances, they’ve been cast in the next Transformers movie. But because this is a column about decoding, specifics are needed. With that in mind, let’s abandon all propriety and break down the reasons that “mom boobs” are a thing.* Biology: Although breastfeeding ...
2.5Score

Spielberg burns Bridge of Spies with boredom

Movie Review: Bridge of Spies Cold War thriller warmed over: Tom Hanks shuffles his favourite deck of characters to take on the role of a real life insurance lawyer who ends up tangled in the concertina wire of East-West tensions  
3.5Score

Hacking into Steve Jobs

Danny Boyle's biopic makes elegant bid to open Jobs's console Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet create all the dynamic tension required to propel Aaron Sorkin's minimalist screenplay into epic terrain, but the film is an inspiring success and a frustrating failure at the same time -- much like the man himself, writes Katherine Monk

The Sick Days: Part 7

Dressing like a lady and other lessons for a cub reporter Looking back, an essential lesson for female journalism students should have been how to deal with sexist notions that our almost entirely male professors held, and that existed in the newsrooms we would soon walk into By Shelley Page In journalism school, we learned how to shape a story into an inverted pyramid, ask open-ended questions and be fair-minded. What if we wanted to get a big important man to talk and we were female? Well, I learned that lesson in my fourth-year investigative reporting class after I was told to interview Liberal Senator Colin Kenny for a book being written by one of my instructors, John Sawatsky. I was nervous and Kenny was impatient and gave short, unhelpful answers. Although it was bitterly cold outside, he opened his window and seemed to lean into the howling winter wind. My tape recorder barely picked up his answers. Back on campus, I told Sawatsky and Professor Joe Scanlon, ...

Summer tentpoles hit home entertainment

What's new on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming services With Avengers, Tomorrowland and San Andreas hitting the small screen in October, now everyone can get a sniff of the dogs of summer   By Katherine Monk   Me and Earl and the Dying Girl 4/5 Stars Directed by: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. Starring: Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon emerged as the breakout director of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival thanks to this touching and cinematically vibrant exploration of high school life that pushes the dramatic needle into the red zone. Unlike other teen traumas that pivot on locker room taunts, mean girls and backstabbing bad apples, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl takes all that generic teen angst and throws it against the brick wall of mortality. Greg (Thomas Mann) is an ordinary high school senior looking to make it to graduation without getting noticed, but when his mother (Connie Britton) asks him to befriend Rachel (Olivia Cooke) after ...

Mob Rule: Part 9

A family reunion ends with gunfire The mob bosses hope a friendly get-together at the Waldorf will defuse mounting tensions and expose the enemy, but the plan for peace is shattered like a ballroom chandelier, 'spraying shards like shrapnel from a crystal grenade' By John Armstrong I didn’t have a chance to phone Vanessa the next day until it was after 6 p.m. and when I did steal a minute, she wasn’t in. From the moment I stepped through the doors at work at eight that morning I’d been running back and forth from the Waldorf to the phone at my desk, overseeing arrangements for the meeting that night. The catering alone was a nightmare, given that many of the family Bosses were elderly and needed special foods – one could have no salt, another could have no dairy, another was allergic to shellfish, or nuts or something else – and then there was the problem of seating. Many of them were allergic to each other. Despite the long history of peace up to this point, there ...

Spawn a love affair with Maple Mustard Grilled Salmon

Maple Mustard Grilled Salmon makes for a hearty treat that's easy to prepare and doesn't require many ingredients By Louise Crosby Many are the times I’ve wracked my brain for something quick and easy to make for dinner, and this salmon recipe has often sprung to mind. It’s tweaked only slightly from Chef Michael Smith,  FoodTV host, cookbook author, and “official food ambassador for Prince Edward Island.” (Watch the Food Network and you can’t miss him.)  I’ve made it a million times. The recipe is simple to prepare, doesn’t require a lot of ingredients, and lends itself to innovation; dress it up with a pinch of curry or chili powder, or take it in an entirely different direction with some chopped parsley and dill. Substitute honey for the maple syrup, marinate for the allotted time or skip this step altogether, grill it on the barbecue or pop it into a hot oven. Whichever path you take, it will be delicious, especially served with crispy roasted ...

The Sick Days: Part 6

Sweet Young Thing Seeks Star Job Like crows trying to snag the choicest flesh off a dead squirrel, we crowded around the program head hoping to snag the choicest assignments for our first week. By Shelley Page Does it matter more who we were then or what we went on to do? Graduates from my summer reporting program at the Toronto Star became Editor-in-Chief of the Globe and Mail; a best-selling author of crime fiction; a prominent columnist; foreign correspondents; a journalism professor; a rock critic; and a Pulitzer Prize winner. But almost three decades ago, we sized each other up around a long table in the Print Room, the bar on the ground floor of the Toronto Star building at One Yonge Street. There were 18 of us, mostly in our twenties. Four were women. Two others were from Carleton; both were guys, one a very good friend. At 21, I was the youngest, but one of the few who had daily newspaper experience. Amid us mostly scrappy j-school graduates, was a summer ...

Ramin Bahrani forecloses on 99 Homes

People: Rahmin Bahrani The writer-director of Man Push Cart returns with 99 Homes, another story about social justice and an economic system that he says creates Donald Trumps, rewards greed and fails to protect families By Katherine Monk After directing Man Push Cart a decade ago, the late great Roger Ebert described director Ramin Bahrani as one of the most important new voices in cinema, hailing his ability to see the outsider and sympathize with those silently struggling to find their way. His low-budget dramatic debut focused on a former Pakistani rock star who ended up selling food on the streets of Manhattan, and his more recent At Any Price starring Zac Efron took on the reality of genetically modified crops and their effect on America’s family farms. He is unapologetic about his interest in themes concerning social justice, but Bahrani’s most recent feature, 99 Homes, may be the most trenchant piece of social commentary he’s made so far as it brings us ...

Adios, Buena Vista Social Club

The venerated Cuban act made famous by Ry Cooder's chart-topping recording are on their final tour, but even as octogenarians, the surviving legends send chills through the nervous system By Rod Mickleburgh It was a magical night, mixed with a heavy dose of poignancy, as the vaunted Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club made its final appearance in Vancouver. There will be no more tours. Many of the aging Cuban music stars we got to know and love from Ry Cooder’s venture to Havana in the 1990’s are no longer with us. Only five Buena Vista originals are left, and one of them, the incomparable diva Omara Portuondo, will soon be 85. She could barely walk onto the stage at the Chan Centre. As soon as the music started up, however, her fountain of youth kicked in, transfixing us still with the haunting power of her voice and an aching ability to caress the lyrics. Spanish really is the loving tongue. For most of her short set, we were on our feet, showering her with the adulation ...