People 99 results

The Ex-Press shares face-time with the movers, shakers and bakers of pop culture.

Mourning the golden age of journalism and the magic of random encounters

Tribute: Ward Perrin Before media outlets became boutiques for different brands of thought and billionaires seeking ego affirmation, newsrooms were a place where friendships were born from shared professional purpose, and a gut need to get the story. Katherine Monk looks back on a newsroom shift when the world changed overnight, and a friendship was born from the tatters of the Iron Curtain. By Katherine Monk It’s mourning. In America. Again. I’m not just referring to the most recent mass shootings that left shell casings and broken lives in Nevada, or the broad swath of destruction left by apocalyptic weather patterns in the Midwest. I speak of the profound sense of loss that seems to define the collective psyche right now — not just in America, but everywhere. Take a moment to process the prevailing winds of popular culture. Listen to the lyrics seeking absolute escapism, emotional oblivion and spiritual retribution. Then look at the cankered face of global politics, ...

Digging up Bob Dylan’s Minnesota roots exposes an icy truth

Travel: On the Road in Minnesota If you want to understand the story of a man named  Zimmerman, visiting the northern town of Hibbing, Minnesota offers stone cold insights into the emotional desolation and snowy emptiness that shaped the Nobelaureate's inner space and artistic obsessions. By Rod Mickleburgh On a bleak, wintry weekend in November of 2014, my brother and I made a pilgrimage to “the north country fair, where the winds hit heavy on the borderline” in search of the roots of Bob Dylan. It was an unforgettable trip that richly increased my understanding of the mysterious forces that shaped a relatively ordinary teenager in the Minnesota town of Hibbing and helped turn him into the Shakespeare of our age. We set out Friday morning from my brother’s home in Thunder Bay. Once across that “borderline,” we travelled south along Highway 61 (Revisited). There was no sign of a promoter putting some bleachers out in the sun. We were soon in Duluth, where Dylan was ...

Bruce McDonald gives Stephen McHattie a double-scoop of Dreamland

Movies: Interview with Canadian director Bruce McDonald McDonald’s latest film features a drug-addicted trumpet player and a jaundiced hitman on a collision course in the middle of Europe. “It’s about the journeyman and the artist,” says the director. He might as well have been talking about McHattie himself -- the Canadian character actor who sits at the heart of this “one-man two-hander.”  

Giller winner conjures ghost of Fitz St. John

History: The Saga of Fitz St. John Behind Esi Edugyan's Giller Prize-winning novel about the astounding exploits of Barbados-born Washington Black lies the very true story of William Fitzclarence “Fitz” St. John: A Vancouver longshoreman, unionist, and pioneer who -- alongside his Indigenous co-workers -- blazed a trail for equality and fair wages on the docks.      

Chris Buck was on the verge of quitting, then he won an Oscar

Interview with Chris Buck, co-diretor of Frozen The Kansas-born director was finishing Frozen when tragedy struck in 2013. "I was ready to kind of say: Cartoons are a joke. Why am I doing this?” Yet, in persevering he found purpose, and a deep belief he was put on this planet for a reason: “to bring hope and inspiration.”

Tracy Edwards Still Breaking the Waves

Interview: Tracy Edwards on the documentary Maiden Of course she’d rather be sailing, but the woman who charted a winning course in world class yachting says the real victory has been watching a new generation of women ride the winds of change without fear. Tracy Edwards chats with Katherine Monk about lingering anxieties, navigating the shoals of sexism, and Alex Holmes’s new documentary, Maiden, chronicling Edwards and her all-female crew as they surfed over the ambient obstacles, and made history in the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989.

Uncle Ed Nelson’s harmonica and the Zeffirelli-sphere

Movies/Tribute: Franco Zeffirelli and Ed Nelson The late Italian director Franco Zeffirelli did more than inspire a generation of high school students to see their own truth in Shakespeare, he gave a veteran English teacher a good reason to blow his musical Hoehner -- and, in turn, blow your mind.

D-Day’s Canadian Heroes found courage through human connections

History: D-Day 75th Anniversary “I don’t think people realize what our boys did,” says one D-Day veteran who watched his brothers in arms succumb to enemy bullets in the bloody battle that marked the beginning of the end of World War II.

Don McKellar finds truth and reconciliation Through Black Spruce

Interview: Don McKellar The award-winning writer, actor and director says bringing Joseph Boyden’s bestselling novel about a Cree woman in search of her missing twin to the big screen felt like the right thing to do -- because it wasn’t his idea.

Keith Behrman makes a Giant Little leap into the moment

Interview/ Canadian Film: Keith Behrman on Giant Little Ones The Vancouver director seemed to vanish from the face of Canadian film after his feature debut. But 16 years later, Keith Behrman is back with Giant Little Ones, a coming-of-age story that gently pulls back the curtain on the delicate question of sexual identity.