BEERFEST | New in Town x Studio Brewing x South Burnaby

Burnaby—Studio Brewing's brand new tasting room, located near the Rumble Street corridor situated beneath its backdrop just below SkyTrain's elevated Expo Line, opened up recently in its equally industrial meets cozy South Burnaby neighbourhood.

SCREEN | Black and White – A 'Test Pattern' of Sexual Violence

"I never want you to leave."

Kino Lorber

A fresh new filmmaking voice in newcomer Shatara Michelle Ford makes her quietly devastating debut. Her first film, Test Pattern, is a fiercely powerful relationship drama about the struggles of navigating sexual violence as a young Black woman in an interracial relationship. It expertly confronts all of our preconceptions about victimhood.

SCREEN | Rosamund Pike Steals 'I Care A Lot'

"Me? I'm just someone who cares."

STX Films / Black Bear Pictures

Rosamund Pike is absolutely savage as a swindling "legal guardian" for defenseless wealthy senior citizens in British writer/director J Blakeson's sleek dark comedy noir about hustlers and elder abuse, I Care A Lot. Pike's Marla is a ruthless conservator embodying the essence of our current state of widespread scammer culture.

SCREEN | Sujata Day Spells Out 'Definition Please'

June Street Productions

Insecure alum Sujata Day makes her feature directorial debut with an endearing film about family and stalled adulthood in Definition Please. Framed around a former child national spelling bee champion struggling to grow up and live up to her full potential in adulthood, Day, who also stars as twentysomething Monica, weaves issues of South Asian values and anxieties through her appealing indie dramedy.

CINEMA | Black Power History Month – 'Judas and the Black Messiah'

"You can murder a revolutionary. You can't murder a revolution."

Warner Bros. Pictures / Macro

Director Shaka King heads back to 1960s Chicago for his biographical drama of betrayal, Judas and the Black Messiah. Starring Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield as chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party Fred Hampton and FBI informant William O'Neal, both are absolutely electrifying in their magnetic portrayals of key African-American figures brought down by white supremacist structures of the FBI.

SCREEN | 'Breaking News in Yuba County' Finds Tabloid Crime

"Your vagina killed my husband."

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / VVS Films

Director Tate Taylor tries to channel the specificity of the Coen brothers' familiar charm in Breaking News in Yuba County, an interlinked dark comedy about various townspeople intermingled with small-time criminals focused on a put-upon housewife in crisis. Despite the folksy appeal Taylor is going for, his film is surprisingly violent in how it tries to satirize chasing fame and notoriety through tabloid media.

SCREEN | Fading Memories – Remembering 'Little Fish'

"Life goes forward, not backwards."

IFC Films

Irish-American director Chad Hartigan faithfully adapts author Aja Gabel's short story of the same name as a moody sci-fi romantic drama. Little Fish focuses on a memory-destroying affliction within the history of a married couple and how their personal world folds in on itself as the outside world crumbles through its faded memories.

FEAST | Dine Out 2021 x Maenam x Thai Food x West 4th

Bangkok Beehive (bourbon, honey syrup, pineapple juice) + Siam Sunburn (tequila, passionfruit purée, egg white)

West 4th—(January 28, 2021) The nineteenth annual Dine Out Vancouver Festival is back—a tad later than usual in the new year—with its trademark selection of set menus available across town. Courtesy of Tourism Vancouver, we were treated to a preview at the Thai restaurant stalwart Maenam to sample their three-course prix fixe dinner.

GENRE | Denzel Washington Solves 'The Little Things'

"It's the little things that get you caught."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Studio filmmaker John Lee Hancock's serial killer drama was originally written in the 1990s when it takes place and it sure feels like it. Starring a brooding Denzel Washington as the predictably grizzled cop who devolves into obsession, The Little Things is littered with the usual tropes and clichés while almost revelling in them.