What makes a political campaign ugly?
Politics: The art of the campaign
You know the gloves are off when someone makes a comparison to Hitler. It's already happened in the race for the Republican nominee, but Rod Mickleburgh reports it can happen anywhere when tempers flare and common sense is thrown under a campaign bus driven by fear.
By Rod Mickleburgh
Forty years ago this month, all these things really happened.
The premier of British Columbia waited for the provincial election results with his wife and kids in a nondescript Coquitlam motel room behind closed drapes, the windows covered over by aluminum foil to discourage possible snipers. Plainclothes members of the RCMP prowled the corridors, making sure no one approached the premier’s room to try and make good on several anonymous death threats Dave Barrett had received.
It was a fitting end to the nastiest, most laced-with-hysteria election campaign in B.C.’s long polarized history.
The man under police guard was Dave Barrett. For the past ...
A direct hit to the head of the NFL
Movie review: Concussion
Thanks to a cast that's just as comfortable with comedy as drama, Peter Landesman's forensic examination of the NFL's inaction on head injuries is more than a preachy lesson in institutional denial, it's a gentle testament to the importance of human compassion
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
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 ...
Squeezing Gervais’s not-so Golden Globes
Podcast: Pop This!
To toasting and roasting Ricky Gervais as returning host of the Golden Globes, an awards show that makes some viewers walk around the house in high heels with a tall glass of pinot
Featuring Lisa Christiansen and Andrea Warner. Produced by Andrea Gin.
A sampling of what you might hear in Episode 9: Looking at The Golden Globes
I will tell you what I genuinely think of Ricky Gervais: I think he is smug, self-congratulatory, fat-shaming...and he can be incredibly boring.... He has a lot of specific self-hatred...
The only human beings who don't want to be liked are sociopaths.
Mad Max.
Rent is not a comedy?
Empire is not nominated in the musical category?
One of the great loves of my life, Spy Magazine... the monocles reviews, that's who I envision as the Hollywood Foreign Press
I have the feeling they are the kind of people who go to Cannes and don't see movies
I love Veep so much. A rare show without a weak link. It messes you ...
Warm, cheesy and super easy
Food: Cauliflower Gratin
A stray cat looking for warmth on a frigid winter's day serves as a furry reminder about the importance of comfort food, such as cauliflower gratin
By Louise Crosby
Late last winter, as the snow was melting, a strange creature appeared at our back door. Turns out it was a cat, or more accurately, half a cat, with bony haunches and huge matted clumps of black fur. He had obviously survived a terrible ordeal, an unusually harsh Canadian winter, apparently with little food. We fed him, of course, and he stuck around, making our back deck his home through the spring, summer and fall. And what an appetite. By late November he was as solid as a little black bear, with a good, thick coat.
We called him Charlie because he’s male and because it rings nicely with Chicklet, the name of our official cat. He’s a lovely guy, just a little skittish, and particular about who approaches him and from what angle, and he absolutely, positively, will not come ...
The joy of general assignment lost on next generation
Journal: The Sick Days, Part 19
The Death Knock is among one of the most unpleasant tasks in any newsroom, but the uncomfortable face-to-face with a grief-stricken relative has now been replaced by social media trolling and scalping Tweets
By Shelley Page
It’s called a “pick up” or a “death knock,” and it’s among the most unpleasant tasks a general assignment reporter on the city desk can draw.
The most experienced of our breed can get a grieving mother to unchain her door, make a pot of tea, and unspool woeful stories of her lost love, usually urged on by an invitation to “set the record straight” about son Jimmy the Bank Robber or make sure Little Emily the Heroin Addict isn’t misremembered. The most tenacious of us leave the widow’s home with an entire photo album under our arm so there are no pictures left for media outlets late to the tea party.
This is another one of those tasks that journalism school can’t prepare you for.
So many years ago, ...
For Auld Lang Dies
Tribute: Dal Richards
The Bandleader who rang in New Year's Eve for decades rings out on the New Year's Day, five days shy of 98
By Rod Mickleburgh
VANCOUVER - I certainly didn’t know Dal Richards well. But I knew all about him, and I loved running into him. How often do you get to shake hands and say ‘hello’ and ‘thanks’ to a living legend? Vancouver’s King of Swing had a gig every New Year’s Eve for 79 years, which, as the whimsical Richards never tired of pointing out, must be some kind of world record.
This year, Dal didn’t make it. The bandleader, who really did seem like he would live forever, passed away five days short of his 98th birthday on, yes, New Year’s Eve. No one ever accused Dal Richards of not having a sense of occasion.
The thing about Dal was not only his accomplishments as a terrific bandleader and musician, but that he kept on playing. The years rolled by, and you kept wondering, will this be the year Dal Richards finally hangs up ...
