People 99 results

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

Ben Wheatley’s attack of social vertigo

Interview with Ben Wheatley The Down Terrace director climbs to new cinematic heights in High-Rise, an adaptation of J.G. Ballard's book about class wars unfolding in a concrete tower - and we haven't even mentioned the stuff with Scorsese   By Katherine Monk VANCOUVER – “If I had to draw something right now, I would draw a cross face. I can draw them quite well,” says film director Ben Wheatley, revealing a secret talent – and maybe, just a hint of repressed hostility. It’s hard to read his face. Half-covered in facial hair and wearing a look of unmistakable fatigue, the director of Sightseers, Down Terrace, A Field in England, the new feature High-Rise and a forthcoming Martin Scorsese-produced thriller called Free Fire looks like a prisoner who just sat down in the warden’s office: Present, honest, but not altogether enthusiastic. This is something he has to do. When you make a movie with a studio, they expect you to hit the road and talk about ...

Michael Joplin remembers a happy Janis

Interview: Michael Joplin Though Janis Joplin's surviving siblings don't occupy huge amounts of screen time, Michael and Laura Joplin's presence brings a new dimension to Amy Berg's new documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue, premiering tonight on PBS

Art Bergmann plays The Apostate

Music: Interview with Art Bergmann The former Vancouver punk icon says his joints are sore, his back aches and his neck breaks, but the release of his first new LP in a decade proves Art Bergmann is more than a survivor, he's close to folk hero By Katherine Monk For the first few minutes, we talk about sciatica, arthritis, spinal surgery and who’s dead. That's just what happens when you're over 50 and you haven't spoken to someone in 20 years. Even if that someone is Art Bergmann – the iconic face of Canadian punk rock turned apostate. Make that “The Apostate,” because after an extended recording hiatus that witnessed the release of just one EP and a lost recordings collection over the course of a decade, Bergmann has a new LP, The Apostate, what he calls his “response to living in the west." Bouncing from Vancouver to a small parcel of Albertan landscape situated near “the beige town of Airdrie,” Bergmann started a new life with his wife Sherri a decade ...

Nadia Litz and Jai West dig deep in The People Garden

People: Interview - Nadia Litz and Jai West on The People Garden The former actor and first-time feature director says she wanted to create a female character in her 20s who could ride a wave of emotional ambiguity to escape the warm, fuzzy, vulnerable and typically banal female box   By Katherine Monk VANCOUVER, BC – Ambiguity isn’t a topic that generally lends itself to passion, yet a recent sit-down with director-writer Nadia Litz and actor Jai West reveals a mental desire to resist closure that’s near obsessive. “Oh man. Ambiguity is the whole thing…” says Litz. “It’s everything. It’s the theme of the film: that there is no black and white conclusion to anything. It’s what relationships are. It’s what life is. It’s what death is.” When Litz talks about “the whole thing,” she’s talking about The People Garden, her debut feature starring West, Pamela Anderson and Dree Hemingway (daughter of Mariel Hemingway, niece of the late Margaux). ...

Sharlto Copley: Never a cop out

People - Interview with Sharlto Copley The recently transplanted South African talent focused on staying alive as he donned a variety of hardhats in the new, boundary-pushing action movie Hardcore Henry By Katherine Monk VANCOUVER, BC –  “Let’s not die today.”  According to Sharlto Copley, those four words were a daily mantra on the set of Hardcore Henry. “It was a big discussion: No one must die making this film. We talked about it because we were pushing the boundaries and the rules and we had very little money. On the days where there was a very high risk, we’d fly the Jolly Roger – skull and crossbones – in a prominent place to make sure everyone was on guard and alert,” says Copley, sitting down for a chat at a high end Vancouver hotel. “Everything you see in the movie happens. When you see a guy getting blown up and the van beneath him, that’s actually happening… It was by far the most risk I’ve taken as an actor, which sounds so lame ...

Truth Forced Stars to See the Light

People:  Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen on I Saw the Light The good lord was willing and the creek didn't rise, but taking on the challenge of playing Hank Williams, the American icon who gave a nation its own lonesome sound, gave Tom Hiddleston and co-star Elizabeth Olsen a fresh lesson in authenticity By Katherine Monk TORONTO – “Last time I checked, I wasn’t born in Asgard,” says Tom Hiddleston. Indeed, the English actor was born in Westminster, the central chunk of London, a far cry from the celestial birthplace of Norse gods such as Odin, Thor and Loki, the latter representing Hiddleston’s ticket to the Hollywood big-time. In 2011, Hiddleston played the bitter little brother to Chris Hemsworth’s Thor in the continuing Marvel franchise, bringing true gravitas and drama to the comic book universe and causing a gravitational bend to the spotlight’s beam. Hiddleston went toe-to-toe with Anthony Hopkins and Robert Downey Jr. in Thor, but that same year ...

R.I.P. – M. Scot Skinner

People: Tribute - M. Scot Skinner, Journalist Longtime Arizona arts reporter and journalist succumbs to bacterial infection, but M. Scot Skinner is destined to leave a lasting impression on all who knew him -- even those who shared the briefest of encounters April 4, 2016-- I barely knew M. Scot Skinner. But the news of his death today keeps gonging in my head, sending a heavy rumble down my spine, and tripping some tingle to my fingertips… tap, tap, tapping on the keyboard in the endless love-hate relationship called ‘writing.’ Or ‘typing,’ as we journalists sometimes call it when we’re feeling particularly cynical. And we can all be so cynical. Especially now. But I don't think Scot ever lost his journalist soul, even if it did get a little scuffed. I could tell from the first time we spoke on the phone. It was about a year ago. I’d lost my job as national movie critic for Postmedia News and was launching The Ex-Press with some friends – all former ...

Chi-Chi-Chia! Ji-Ji-Jian!

New Products: Chia Gian It was Canada's OJ Trial, and now that the criminal case involving former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi concluded with a verdict of not guilty, it's time to sit and reflect, and maybe grow a little. So welcome the new Chia Gian! It's a whole hair party plastered onto pottery! Pour water over his head! Pull HIS hair out! Use him as a garnish! Feed him to a pet rabbit! Drop him on a hard surface and watch him shatter like a witness's credibility. Or, look him in the eye with a hammer and tell him he's damaged while Big Ears Teddy watches on. Sure, the trial may be over. But now you can be the judge, jury and heck, follicle executioner from the comfort of your kitchen window! It's the case that everyone had an opinion about, and now it's a decorative object ready for your window case! Chi-Chi-Gian! *We don't care about the spelling. It's a pottery head. THE EX-PRESS, April 2, 2016 -30-

Father, motherland, Rossif Sutherland

People: Interview - Rossif Sutherland The Sutherland with the curious accent makes a dark turn in River before preparing for a new Catastrophe on French-Canadian television By Katherine Monk As far as Sutherlands go, he’s the tall one. You could see it when he appeared on stage next to his legendary father, Donald, at the recent Canadian Screen Awards. Rossif’s thick brown hair stood just a shade taller than his father’s flattening white pate. Career-wise, however, there’s still a ways to go before he reaches the same stature as the Sutherland who appeared in M*A*S*H and Ordinary People. Or even that of his half-brother Kiefer. Not that he really cares. “I don't care much about what people think about me. If they don’t like me, they don’t like me. You can be the nicest person in the room… it doesn’t matter…. And I’ve never been very strategic with my choices, and maybe my career has suffered for it,” says Vancouver-born Rossif Sutherland from ...