REEL | 'Miami Vice' at 20 – Revisiting the Misunderstood Neo-Noir

"Let's take it to the limit one more time."

Universal Pictures

Ahead of the upcoming twentieth anniversary of its theatrical release, another reappraisal of methodical filmmaker Michael Mann's initially critically misunderstood but now reappreciated action neo-noir, Miami Vice, is clearly warranted. Based on the iconic 1984-89 NBC undercover cop drama series that he produced but was created by veteran television writer Anthony Yerkovich, the 2006 blockbuster film adaptation flopped hard at the global box office.

REEL | Busting 'Ghost World' at 25 – A Sad Alt-Comic Book Brought to Life

"You guys up for some reggae tonight?"

United Artists / Granada Film

Before the twenty-fifth anniversary of its theatrical release, it's a fine time to revisit the first-ever film based on a graphic novel to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2001, Ghost World translated famed Eightball cartoonist Daniel Clowes' offbeat yet grounded, cult classic alt-comic book (1989-2003) of the same name into live-action, offering a wholly bleak yet highly comedic slice of life, not dissimilar to American Splendor.

SCENE | 'West Van Story' Sweeps the Spirit of 'East Van Panto'

"You're just jealous, because I was an early developer."

Dawn Petten, Tresha Thamilchelvan, Izel de Lara & Ivy Charlies / Photo credit | Emily Cooper

Commercial Drive—One of my favourite annual traditions of leftist satirical musical propaganda (complimentary), East Van Panto, is back for another year of shared theatrical joy. Theatre Replacement's latest holiday stage production, presented by The Cultch, returned to the York Theatre for its lucky thirteenth edition of love, laughter, and low-income housing.

WANDER | Douglas Coupland x Suite X x Faimont Pacific Rim

"I'm very much a product of the late twentieth century."

Coal Harbour—(July 23, 2025) It was a real treat to tour acclaimed Vancouver-based visual artist and novelist Douglas Coupland's latest design collaboration, Suite X, located inside the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel in the Corner Suite on the newly renovated Fairmont Gold floor lounge, overlooking the scenic Vancouver Waterfront.

SCREEN | VHS Nostaglia – Renting Something from 'Videoheaven'

"Video provides the means to invent a past in order to live in the present."

Cinema Conservancy / Stranger Things

Productive independent filmmaker Alex Ross Perry examines the cultural impact of 1980-90s video rental shops in his extended film essay, Videoheaven, narrated by actress Maya Hawke, who notably portrayed a video clerk herself in season four of the popular '80s-set television series Stranger Things. By assembling video rental depictions in movies throughout cinematic history, Perry recounts the past's media infrastructure and modes of distribution through the medium of film itself, as inspired by film professor Daniel Herbert's non-fiction book, Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store.

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

"I rarely get asked to do [racism] p*rn."

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.

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

"I wasn't gonna mention the whole fifty-first state thing."

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.

SCREEN | Recollections of a Vietnamese Rebellion – 'New Wave' Culture

"I was chasing a story about a bunch of Vietnamese-American rebels."

Photo credit | Yudi Echevarria/Angel City Press

Chinese-Vietnamese-American director Elizabeth Ai explores the immigrant experience through music in her fun but meaningful documentary, New Wave. All about the influence of the titular genre of music and its effects on the pop culture of the Vietnamese diaspora emerging from 1980s Southern California, the film takes an interesting approach to dissecting the unspoken collective intergenerational trauma of these children of refugees after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

SCENE | 'East Van Panto' Takes 'Robin Hood' Back from the Rich

"This is Lululemon Lake now!"

Jason Sakaki / Photo credit | Emily Cooper

Commercial Drive—It's that time of year again. East Van Panto, Theatre Replacement's wackiest annual holiday stage tradition presented by The Cultch, returned to the York Theatre for its twelfth edition, featuring a very merry band of animal misfits (the "Merry-Thems") in a hyper-localized, joyful musical twist on the outlaw folklore of Robin Hood.

SPOTLIGHT | Jia Tolentino x "Who's Afraid of Eating the Rich?" x UBC

"Capitalism is a machine for capturing descent."

Photo credit | Justin Man

UBC—(January 25, 2024) Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based culture critic and The New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino paid a visit to the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts as part of The Phil Lind Initiative's speaker series discussing political life through pop culture. Her half-hour talk, "Who's Afraid of Eating the Rich?" dissected our cultural obsession with the trend of popular entertainment dramatizing the sad depravity of being ultra-rich (think Succession and the like).

SCENE | A Decade of 'East Van Panto' – Reversing 'The Little Mermaid'

"Human beings are so emotionally manipulative!"

Mark Chavez / Photo credit | Emily Cooper

Commercial Drive—East Van Panto, Theatre Replacement's beloved annual holiday tradition presented by The Cultch returns to the York Theatre to celebrate its tenth anniversary by going under the sea with a reimagined contemporary retelling of the classic mer-tale, The Little Mermaid. Gone is the underwhelming and patriarchal romance about an uncomfortably attractive teen princess literally giving up her voice for some bland random dude she met once—replaced here with a very charming pop musical parody about environmentalism, climate change, and unconventional love.

REEL | 93rd Annual Oscars x 2020/21 Ballot

Picture: Nomadland
Director: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland
Actor: Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Winner: Anthony Hopkins, The Father)
Actress: Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman (Winner: Frances McDormand, Nomadland)
Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-jung, Minari
Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman
Adapted Screenplay: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland (Winner: Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller, The Father)
Animated Feature: Soul

CABLE | Top 5 Breakups – Zoë Kravitz Covers 'High Fidelity'

"What really matters is what you like, not what you are like."

ABC Signature Studios

Peak TV has finally gotten around to readapting the pop culture laden literary works of British author Nick Hornby in the form of the new High Fidelity series streaming on that puts its own spin on both the faithful 2000 film adaptation starring John Cusack (set in Chicago) and the original 1995 novel (set in London)—there was also a 2006 Broadway musical (set in New York) that ran for only ten days.

REEL | 92nd Annual Oscars x 2019 Ballot

Picture: 1917 (Winner: Parasite)
Director: Sam Mendes, 1917 (Winner: Bong Joon-ho, Parasite)
Actor: Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Actress: Renée Zellweger, Judy
Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
Supporting Actress: Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Original Screenplay: Bong Joon-ho & Han Jin-won, Parasite
Adapted Screenplay: Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
Animated Feature: Toy Story 4

CABLE | Doomsday and Gloom – HBO Watches the 'Watchmen'

"I got a nose for white supremacy and he smells like bleach."

HBO's new episodic television sequel adaptation of the landmark 1986 DC Comics graphic novel Watchmen, written by the legendary (and notoriously cantankerous) Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, aims to take the source material's deeply layered exploration of the history of America's sociopolitical ills and further bring a contemporary urgency to it.

WORDS | 'Trick Mirror' – Jia Tolentino Maps Out Our 'Self-Delusion'

"I'm capitulating to everything I hate." ¹

Photo credit | Andrew Jacobs

The New Yorker staff writer and culture critic Jia Tolentino, sometimes hailed as the voice of our current social media generation, has so eloquently captured the inherent lie and con behind both the internet and the greater culture's duelling perceptions or realities of millennial life. Her first book, a collection of nine varying but intrinsically linked essays called Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, is a thoughtful and measured retelling of her experiences covering a culture of self-deception, contemporary feminism, conflicted political identities, and modern life as a digital native.

REEL | Tarantino's Golden Age – 'Once Upon A Time in… Hollywood'

"I'm as real as a doughnut, motherf*cker!"

Artful (sometimes controversial) cinematic auteur Quentin Tarantino's much-ballyhooed ninth, possibly penultimate film, is a bittersweet love letter to old Hollywood's apparent innocence and purity. Once Upon A Time in… Hollywood continues the idiosyncratic filmmaker's latest string of revisionist historical fiction as a nostalgic coda to the 1960s long bygone era of counterculture in the vein of a melancholic hangout flick.

REEL | 91st Annual Oscars x 2018 Ballot

Picture: Roma (Winner: Green Book)
Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Actor: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Actress: Glenn Close, The Wife (Winner: Oliva Colman, The Favourite)
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Supporting Actress: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Original Screenplay: Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, The Favourite (Winner: Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, and Peter Farrelly, Green Book)
Adapted Screenplay: Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, and Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Animated Feature: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

REEL | 'Ralph Breaks the Internet' Gets Wrecked

Somehow Walt Disney Animation seemed to forget the premise of the first Wreck-It Ralph film, where the mechanics of the video game world and the characters and games were so clearly defined, with a ticking clock on their game's survival when characters left. Ralph Breaks the Internet sort of refashions the original with a new mission based on friendship, where Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) must use the internet when one of their arcade games is threatened.

REEL | 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' Magnifies Silly Antics

"Who are you and why do you know so much about car wash protocol?"

Tune into our audio review of Ant-Man and the Wasp on Episode 172 of the Vertical Viewing Podcast (available on iTunes) where we also discuss the latest in pop culture with regular co-hosts Scott Willson, Jared Sargent, and Michael Lynd. (1h17)