March 20, 2025

CABLE | Netflix Throws to 'Everybody's Live with John Mulaney'

"Like the measels, he's back in a big way!"
Everybody's Live with John Mulaney | Richard Kind | Netflix
Netflix
Clipboard-carrying stand-up comedian John Mulaney's highly chaotic but wildly entertaining late night show is back. Everybody's Live with John Mulaney, his follow-up to the bizarrely amusing Everybody's in L.A. streaming experiment, originally a tie-in to the 2024 Netflix is a Joke Festival, started its twelve-week run live on Wednesday nights. Mulaney promised more of the same offbeat fun and, so far, has delivered.

March 19, 2025

SCREEN | Trespassing A Magical Heist – 'Stolen Kingdom'

"Being a kid in the '80s, the future was not optimistic."
Joshua Bailey | Stolen Kingdom | Slamdance 2025
White Lake Productions / Bright Sun Films
Native Floridan director Joshua Bailey uncovers the sordid underground black market economy and hidden trespassing subculture of theft behind Walt Disney World in his pop documentary with true-crime undertones, Stolen Kingdom. Delving into the niche topic of "theme park urban exploration," Bailey employs backstage footage of mischief that eventually culminates in the stealing of a valued animatronic, "Buzzy," supposedly worth half a million dollars despite being left abandoned in disrepair.

March 18, 2025

GATHER | Ziwe x 'What It Means to Be American' x UBC

"I rarely get asked to do [racism] p*rn."
Ziwe Fumudoh | What It Means to Be American | The Phil Lind Initiative | UBC Chan Centre
Photo credit | Si Ming Zheng
UBC—(March 13, 2025) Talented mononymous Nigerian-American late night comedian/interviewer and Black Friend author Ziwe (Fumudoh) brought her stylishly hilarious insights to the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts as part of the 2025 Phil Lind Initiative's accidentally hyper topical ongoing speaker series on the politics of What It Means to Be "American": Navigating Identity in a Changing Nation.

March 17, 2025

GENRE | Jonathan Majors Pumps Iron – 'Magazine Dreams'

"I've been training for this every moment of my entire life."
Jonathan Majors Elijah Bynum | Magazine Dreams
Briarcliff Entertainment
Troubled star Jonathan Majors embodies an aspiring bodybuilder who dreams of sculpted stardom in writer/director Elijah Bynum's long-delayed, darkly obsessive indie drama. Full of disturbing themes intersecting glamour and violence, Magazine Dreams follows Majors' Killian as he struggles to find any semblance of human connection with others while pursuing his superficial craft.

March 13, 2025

GATHER | Ramy Youssef x 'What It Means to Be American' x UBC

"I wasn't gonna mention the whole fifty-first state thing."
Ramy Youssef Ravi Nandan | What It Means to Be American | The Phil Lind Initiative | UBC Chan Centre
Photo credit | Si Ming Zheng
UBC—(February 27, 2025) Award-winning Egyptian-American stand-up comedian, actor, screenwriter, and director Ramy Youssef casually captivated a full audience inside the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts as part of the 2025 Phil Lind Initiative's second-year speaker series discussing the topic of What It Means to Be "American": Navigating Identity in a Changing Nation.

March 10, 2025

REEL | Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett Secure 'Black Bag'

"It's been a while since we had a traitor to dinner."
Michael Fassbender Marisa Abela Steven Soderbergh | Black Bag
Focus Features
Prolific American director Steven Soderbergh pumps out a mercilessly sexy British marital espionage thriller as Black Bag sees Michael Fassbender investigating a suspected traitor in his ranks of three interconnected couples, including his wife (Cate Blanchett) as married intelligence officers. It's the kind of entertaining mid-budget domestic thriller led by A-list movie stars mostly talking in dimly lit rooms that audiences have been sorely missing.

March 6, 2025

WEEKENDER | Vancouver International Wine Festival 2025

"The wine world is here."
Vancouver International Wine Festival 2025 | Vancouver Convention Centre West | Coal Harbour

Waterfront—(March 1, 2025) Once again, the city welcomed the wine world during the 46th annual Vancouver International Wine Festival for its usual eight days of end-of-winter, grape-soaked fun. Thousands of VIWF attendees wined and dined themselves at countless seminars, minglers, pairing meals, and signature tastings.

March 3, 2025

REEL | Bong Joon-ho and Robert Pattinson Kill Off 'Mickey 17'

"It looks like a croissant dipped in sh*t!"
Robert Pattinson Bong Joon-ho | Mickey 17
Warner Bros. Pictures / Plan B Entertainment
British heartthrob Robert Pattinson continues his string of offbeat roles directed by international auteurs as the eponymous "expendable" clone astronaut in Oscar-winning South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho's sci-fi action-comedy Mickey 17. Based on Edward Ashton's ten-less comic novel Mickey7, all the interstellar Mickey workers are tasked with completing dangerous tasks on a spaceship headed towards a new alien-populated (called "creepers") planet to be colonized before being "reprinted" after each time (seventeen in total) he perishes, usually gruesomely.

February 27, 2025

SCENE | Arts Club Deposits 'Primary Trust' x Granville Island Stage

"I miss wanting to win."
Andrew Broderick Celia Aloma | Primary Trust by Eboni Booth | Arts Club Theatre Company | Granville Island Stage | Vancouver, BC
Celia Aloma & Andrew Broderick / Photo credit | Mark Halliday
Granville IslandArts Club Theatre Company brings celebrated African-American playwright Eboni Booth's 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama-winning off-Broadway stage play Primary Trust to Vancouver for its Canadian premiere. It stars Andrew Broderick as the Mai Tai-sipping Kenneth (a role originated by William Jackson Harper), a thirty-eight-year-old suburban bookstore clerk who embarks on a journey of self-discovery after being laid off.