GRUB | Potluck Hawker Eatery x 2nd Anniversary x Cambie

Cambie—(August 13, 2022) To commemorate and celebrate their second anniversary, the folks over at Potluck Hawker Eatery have teamed up with Via Tevere Pizzeria for a tantalizing and tasty "Two Nights in Bangkok" fried chicken sandwich collaboration.

GENRE | Aubrey Plaza Steals 'Emily the Criminal'

"You're a very bad influence."

Roadside Attractions / Vertical Entertainment

Novice filmmaker John Patton Ford crafts a tension-filled working-class neo-noir crime drama starring the captivating Aubrey Plaza (also a producer) as a struggling millennial woman riddled with debt—the eponymous Emily the Criminal. It's a stirring lead performance focused on situational desperation set against the thick of the current gig economy.

GENRE | Let the 'Bodies Bodies Bodies' Hit the Floor

"You're always gaslighting me."

Stage 6 Films / A24

Dutch actress turned filmmaker Halina Reijn savages today's toxic contemporary discourse in a horror movie form of performative political arguments in the faux-woke slasher comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies. In it, the film blisteringly satirizes Gen Z's cultural anxieties with a high body count influenced by online video trends.

CABLE | 'Paper Girls' Bikes Into the Future on Prime Video

"You don't know who you're about to become."

Amazon Studios / Legendary Television

Based on writer Brian K. Vaughan and illustrator Cliff Chiang's action-packed (also very weird and very fun) 1980s time-travel comic book series of the same name, Paper Girls' television adaptation is a breakneck mix of coming-of-age sci-fi adventure and emotional young female preteen future drama.

GENRE | Brad Pitt Derails A Killer Ride – 'Bullet Train'

"I gotta get off this train."

Sony Pictures / 87North Productions

Brad Pitt stars in his former stunt double turned hotshot director David Leitch's action-packed hitman comedy, Bullet Train, based on Japanese author Kōtarō Isaka's crime thriller novel, Maria Beetle. Full of oddball assassin mythology about the violent Japanese underworld, Pitt's jovial but hapless snatch-and-grab criminal, codenamed "Ladybug", gets in way over his head by accidentally stumbling into an international blood feud—imagine John Wick (which Leitch co-directed) but as a comedy set on a high-speed train from Tokyo to Kyoto.

SCREEN | Lena Dunham Keeps A 'Sharp Stick' x Fantasia 2022

"Men love a problem."

Fantasia International Film Festival

Girls creator Lena Dunham returns to independent cinema by crafting another provocative portrait of a young female desire in coming to terms with a sexual awakening through a detour of youthfully misguided self-destructive behaviour. Sharp Stick feels like both a slightly tamer or innocent but clearly more blunt narrative alternative to her acclaimed HBO series refocused on a singular protagonist.

GENRE | Taking 'Vengeance' – B.J. Novak Podcasts Texas Life

"I don't avenge deaths."

Focus Features / Blumhouse Productions

Comedian B.J. Novak, a writer/producer on The Office, teams up with micro-budget horror label Blumhouse for his impressive feature directorial debut in the clever true-crime riff, Vengeance. Novak directs himself as a shallow coastal liberal elite writer type who decides to exploit small-town middle America in a whip-smart reversal of rural red state politics set deep in the oilfield heartland of West Texas.

FEAST | Mediterranean Fusion x Oo La Cha x Versante x Richmond

Richmond—(June 1, 2022) Just a stone's throw away from YVR airport and a short walk from my apartment (true story), the swanky, year-old Versante Hotel is secretly brimming with luxurious culinary flavours and indulgent libations from the still relatively newish Mediterranean-inspired seafood fusion restaurant, Oo La Cha, found across the hall from the cavernous Cask Whisky Vault lounge—both located inside the recently established Club Versante complex attached to the hotel.

CABLE | Squashing the (Italian) Beef – 'The Bear' Sizzles

"Let it rip!"

FX Productions

Created by veteran television producer/director Christopher Storer, the awkwardly titled The Bear is a blistering Chicago-set half-hour dramedy about cooking in the dysfunctional kitchen of a rundown family restaurant. Starring Jeremy Allen White as a hotshot chef from the toxic world of fine dining taking over his deceased brother's sandwich shop, FX's frenzied series is just as stressfully chaotic as it is enthralling to watch.