My weekly collection of new and notable books for your pop culture pleasure and edification: #ReadMoreTweetLess.

Is this good?
Will this be good?
Every movie trailer answers or challenges those 2 questions. The ham-fisted rebuttal comes swiftly, however: no you don’t need to always see a movie to know it’s tank.

Do you really need to sit through a Michael Bay Transformers movie to know for sure? Tank is Tank. And Fresh…well Fresh is always Fresh. I’m down like I’m Brown for that.

My Summer Lair Chapter #135: What Happens When Dead Dicks Meets Majic?

Switching up the standard program with this episode which gives you 2 interviews.

I am on location at the Blood in the Snow film festival media day at Super Wonder Gallery! Unfolding over 6 nights Blood in the Snow is a showcase of contemporary Canadian horror, genre, and underground cinema and always worth the price of admission!

First up is an interview with the filmmakers behind Dead Dicks: the Montreal based and married duo Chris Bavota and Lee Paula Springer. As the witty, though darkly humorous title implies Dead Dicks is a movie with a splash of horror but like modern horror mixed in with a classic family drama addressing topics of dependency, identity, and mental illness.

This is a cool weird movie…I’m still not sure what I’ve seen.

The second movie interview is Majic. And this is my jam! If you’re into alternative and speculative stories i.e. the current Man in the High Castle where the Allies lost WWII and the Nazis won…it’s incredible and currently on Amazon Prime then you’ll dig Majic.

“An anti-conspiracy video blogger thinks she is slipping into an alternate reality after being approached by an old man claiming to have worked for the legendary Majestic-12 (aka majic), the covert US spy agency, created after the UFO incident at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.”

Yo…I know!! For Majic I talk to lead actress Paula Brancati who you might have seen in Slasher or Being Erica and Erin Berry the director. They both did such an outstanding job with this movie. The ending is TIGHT!!

And that was my media day adventures at Blood in the Snow for 2019. Thanks to Jen, Kelly, Kirk and Carolyn for always being so warm and welcoming and putting on this freshtastic festival.

Sorry to you if the listener if the sound wasn’t as crisp: the hazards of being out of the Girth Radio HQ and on the road. I will do and be better next time.

Blood In The Snow Film Festival @ W • T • F

Host & Photography by Sammy Younan

Recorded: Saturday November 23, 2019 at 1:30pm EST at Super Wonder Gallery

My weekly collection of new and notable books for your pop culture pleasure and edification: #ReadMoreTweetLess.

Is this good?
Will this be good?
Every movie trailer answers or challenges those 2 questions. The ham-fisted rebuttal comes swiftly, however: no you don’t need to always see a movie to know it’s tank.

Do you really need to sit through a Michael Bay Transformers movie to know for sure? Tank is Tank. And Fresh…well Fresh is always Fresh. I’m down like I’m Brown for that.

My Summer Lair Chapter #134: What Are Finger Cookies?

The TV guide description to She Never Died is “when a girl goes missing a woman with a mysterious past tracks down the people responsible.” On the surface that sounds like a lot of movies but then Se7en is just two cops chasing a serial killer and we all know it’s far more than just that.

The woman with the mysterious past is Lacey played by Olunike Adeliyi who is magnetic on screen. Having met her a couple of times I can attest that she’s a ball of energy so it’s a solid choice. Her dynamic performance including casual one-liners and vicious stares is captivating as she slowly reveals how she is cursed with immortality.

Which is the connection to the 2015 Henry Rollins movie: He Never Died. When looking to build on that success of that movie writer-director Jason Krawczyk wanted to do a sequel however when Henry was no longer available switched genders and directors.

Which is great: it’s how Audrey Cummings got involved with this sister sequel and makes her return to Blood In the Snow a fantastic film festival of Canadian genre. And leads to me asking what are finger cookies?!

She Never Died makes its Toronto premiere on November 22 and continues to roll on playing the festival circuit.

Check it out and not just for Olunike’s performance; pay attention to some of the smaller roles they are enchanting.

Audrey Cummings @ W • T • F

Host & Photography by Sammy Younan

Recorded: Friday November 8, 2019 at 5:30pm EST at WeWork

My weekly collection of new and notable books for your pop culture pleasure and edification: #ReadMoreTweetLess.

My Summer Lair Chapter #133: Have I Ever Been An Asshole?

Watching Assholes: A Theory I thought about Kanye West.

Often when his name comes up you instantly get some variation of “he’s an ass” or “he’s an asshole” as if it was some sort of empirical fact. Which I’ve always found utterly and entirely irrelevant: he’s paid to be creative and he does that well across a number of disciplines. Like Pharrell he’s maximizing his opportunities and leveraging his status which is exactly what you should be doing as Artist in this era. Is he an asshole? No clue and no interest…is he projecting a music video on various buildings around the world? Tell me more!

The documentary Assholes: A Theory directed by my guest John Walker is based on the 2012 book also called Assholes: A Theory by Aaron James (a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine).

I didn’t bring it up in the interview but I wondered about the loophole…

The loophole is if you can’t feel shame you can’t be shamed. I was finally able to articulate that simple idea after I read So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson (published: March 9, 2015).

Public shaming is part of the asshole culture we participate in. There’s a big difference in berating an able-bodied person for using a handicap spot to run into the store and get pop tarts and offensive tweets. Following Ronson’s book I concluded:

Shame Is Lame!

Shame doesn’t work if you don’t have the authority; the respect and weight to effectively trigger a sense of remorse or guilt.

It’s like trying to discipline someone else’s child; it doesn’t work. There’s no value in labelling politicians or celebrities (like Kanye) assholes…they’re often in their own media bubble and it’s rarely for their betterment. (That responsibility belongs to the people who know them well. You know the people who actually have the facts. Just because you read TMZ doesn’t mean you’re informed.)

Watching Assholes: A Theory I thought about myself which of course is also the whole point of the documentary. Hence the question: have I ever been.

Am I an asshole? is a wildly different yet still valid question and worth asking. Hopefully I am not alone. You’ve thought it too…perhaps questioned yourself and your behaviour; it’s not like I’m the only one who’s been a jerkface. That thought is distributing because it is true.

This’ll require a pen, paper and a seriously serious tea.

For now I enjoyed watching Assholes: A Theory; I smiled because it’s got John Cleese!

And that alone makes it fun and worth seeing. So Go!

Assholes: A Theory @ W • T • F

Host & Photography by Sammy Younan

Recorded: Monday December 2, 2019 at 11:30am EST at The NFB

My weekly collection of new and notable books for your pop culture pleasure and edification: #ReadMoreTweetLess.

Is this good?
Will this be good?
Every movie trailer answers or challenges those 2 questions. The ham-fisted rebuttal comes swiftly, however: no you don’t need to always see a movie to know it’s tank.

Do you really need to sit through a Michael Bay Transformers movie to know for sure? Tank is Tank. And Fresh…well Fresh is always Fresh. I’m down like I’m Brown for that.