New CBC sitcom exposes The Convenience Truth
People: Interview with Andrea Bang
The Vancouver star of Kim's Convenience says the first Canadian sitcom to feature Asian leads is about transcending ethnic stereotypes through human universals
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER – Andrea Bang thanks the Toronto Blue Jays. Not only did the team win the required games to advance, they pushed back the network premiere of her new show, Kim’s Convenience.
The new CBC comedy based on Ins Choi’s award-winning Fringe play airs tonight on the National Broadcaster, but it was originally slated to air last Tuesday – in the heat of the Blue Jays’ wildcard bid. The network wisely aired the ballgame instead, but Bang wasn’t depressed about the delay.
It gave her another week to mentally prepare while promos whetted the public appetite for a family comedy set in a Toronto convenience store.
“You don't want to compete with the Toronto Blue Jays,” says Bang, sitting down for a chat on a rainy day in Vancouver.
“I ...
John Mann’s Unforgettable Spirit captured on camera
#VIFF16: Pete McCormack on Spirit Unforgettable
The Spirit of the West frontman was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's in 2014, spurring his good friend, fellow musician and film director Pete McCormack to follow him with a camera in a bid to document the one-way trip
Ed Gass-Donnelly hides a message up his sleeve
#VIFF16: Interview with Ed Gass-Donnelly
The Toronto-based director takes a pry bar to the basement door of family secrets in Lavender, a psychological thriller starring Abbie Cornish, Dermot Mulroney and Justin Long
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER – The man who made The Last Exorcism Part II is marked. Ed Gass-Donnelly rolls up his right sleeve in the firelight, and reveals two words written in deep indigo capital letters: “Find Beauty.”
“I’m not doing this to pay the bills,” says the Toronto-born director of Lavender, a psychological thriller unspooling at the Vancouver International Film Festival this week as part of the Altered States program.
“I have to remind myself of that… after making [The Last Exorcism Part II] I think I found new perspective,” he says, sitting back in a leather couch at the Sutton Place lounge.
“I appreciated the experience of coming out on 3000 screens. It was like ‘WOW!’ – 3000 screens at once is what you ...
Lawren Harris resurrected on screen
#VIFF16: Peter Raymont and Nancy Lang on Lawren Harris
The Group of Seven founder rides a wave of rediscovery with the bow of a revealing and personal Harris documentary from Peter Raymont and Nancy Lang that gives the viewer a portal into the painter's time
Claude Joli-Coeur’s big plans for a better board
Movies: Interview with Claude Joli-Coeur
National Film Board Chair reaffirms original vision of 'unity through diversity' with new gender parity policy but that's just the beginning of some bold moves, including a new brick and mortar headquarters in Montreal
By Katherine Monk
VANCOUVER – “If the National Film Board were a person, how would you describe their identity?”
Claude Joli-Coeur reflects for a second with a serious look hazing over his gentle features. Then, in an instant, a gleeful burst: “Leonard Cohen!”
After serving at the board for 12 years, currently as Government Film Commissioner and Chairperson for the NFB, Joli-Coeur has spent a few all-nighters in the company of his current passion. He has the type of insight that only comes from intimacy.
“The personality. The sparks. The surprise. The iconic… He grew up in Montreal and achieved world renown. He was open to different questions of identity…. Everything, eh?”
For Joli-Coeur, a ...
The Daniels: Boys with Feelings
Interview: Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, aka 'The Daniels'
The directing team behind award-winning music videos felt their first feature should take some risks, so they paired a farting corpse with a man bent on suicide in Swiss Army Man
By Katherine Monk
Artsy has never been so fartsy. In the new movie Swiss Army Man, Daniel Radcliffe plays a corpse, Paul Dano plays a suicidal introvert and flatulence assumes a central, life-affirming role in the denouement.
Welcome to the world according to ‘The Daniels’ — a unique corner of the universe occupied by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, two first-time feature directors who found themselves in the Sundance spotlight last January when festival director John Cooper pronounced their debut feature, Swiss Army Man, one to watch at the opening press conference.
The Ex-Press caught up with the dynamic duo (who are also responsible for award-winning music videos such as DJ Snake and Lil' Jon's Turned Down for What?) during a ...
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau shuns royal treatment
Interview: Susanne Bier and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau get A Second Chance
He sports prosthetic golden fingers to play the role of Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones, but Nikolaj Coster-Waldau hates getting a fake hand for any performance, which is why he's grateful for the firm grip of fellow Dane Susanne Bier
By Katherine Monk
TORONTO—In the opening episode of Game of Thrones, his character pushed a young boy from a window without a hint of remorse. But put a fussy newborn in Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s arms, and the handsome Dane turns into a human pacifier.
“It didn’t matter what the babies were doing… if Nikolaj picked them up, they would almost immediately fall asleep,” says director Susanne Bier, referring to the off-camera vibe on her latest film, A Second Chance (En chance til). A relatively small Danish-language drama about a police officer who makes a life-altering decision with good intentions, A Second Chance has been making a slow pass through North American ...
Tempest in a D-Cup
Interview: Tempest Storm, Icon of Burlesque
Valued for her physical appearance in a world where women were denied a voice, Tempest Storm found safe harbour and social power with a little jiggle and a lot of courage
By Jay Stone
Annie Banks was born on Leap Year Day 88 years ago in rural Georgia, a beautiful young girl destined to have an unhappy childhood. Her stepfather tried to sexually abuse her. Her classmates teased her because she had a womanly figure even as a young teenager. She ran away from home at 14 to get married to her first of four husbands (the marriages variously lasted one night, two weeks, two years and 10 years.) She moved to Las Vegas to be a showgirl and got hired as an exotic dancer: she asked her first agent, “Do you think my busts are too big for this business?”
It turns out that there was no such thing. After a while, the agent decided to give her a new, more exotic name, Sunny Day. “I’m not a Sunny Day,” she said, so the agent came up with ...
Rebecca Miller gets screwball
Interview: Rebecca Miller
She may be the daughter of the man who penned Death of a Salesman, but Rebecca Miller reveals an undeniable talent for thoroughly goofy comedy in her latest film, Maggie's Plan
By Katherine Monk
Rebecca Miller’s intellectual pedigree cannot be argued: daughter of Pulitzer-winner Arthur Miller, graduate of Choate and Yale, and married to the towering dramatic talent named Daniel-Day Lewis. But speaking to Miller over the phone, the legacy of Willy Loman walks out the door and the inner goofball emerges.
It’s a side of Miller that’s on full display in her latest work, Maggie’s Plan, a feature film that charmed audiences at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and opens theatrically this week. A full-on comedy that’s been drawing comparisons to Woody Allen’s witty dissections of the academic elite, Maggie’s Plan stars Greta Gerwig as a modern gal looking to enhance her life in a millennial way.
Maggie wants to have a baby without ...
Whit Stillman loves powerful women
Interview: Whit Stillman on Love & Friendship
The American filmmaker creates a fine comic weave using Jane Austen's material, Kate Beckinsale's sharp talents and his unique sense and sensibility for social satire
By Katherine Monk
“I really enjoy dominant, manipulative women. I find them very entertaining,” says Whit Stillman, his tone so matter-of-fact, it almost makes you laugh.
Then again, that’s his charm. The director of Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco built a reputation as a cunning social satirist in the ‘90s for plucking the veil off human vanity to show us the pimples of truth. He also showed a preference for using powerful, insightful and somewhat self-absorbed females as the dainty hand behind his narrative tatting.
It’s the reason why his latest endeavor, Love & Friendship, feels like such a natural stitch in Stillman’s oeuvre: It’s based on the work of Jane Austen, the godmother of social satire, a pioneer of female ...
