Thomas Pashko
-
Winnipeg’s comedy renaissance
Winnipeg is known for a lot of things. Well, maybe a small handful, most of them weather-related, and comedy hasn’t always been one of them.
Yet Winnipeg is currently several years deep into a bona fide comedy renaissance.
-
Free art on campus
University isn’t just about education. It’s a meeting place, a chance for both new students and old hands to make connections and engage with communities they haven’t experienced before.
-
Whose House? Kevin’s House
University isn’t easy for anyone. Tuition is expensive, days are long and studying can feel like a full-time job. But few people have fought as hard as Kevin Settee to make a university education possible.
-
The Salt of The Earth
Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado has borne witness to some of recent history’s most colossal catastrophes. Active since the 1970s, Salgado has documented the Sahel drought, genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and numerous other human cataclysms.
-
Aloft
It’s the kind of movie that mistakes misery for pathos, incoherence for ambiguity and long silences for depth. It indulges in all the worst instincts of 21st century indie film cliché.
-
CANADA’S NATIONAL UKRAINIAN FESTIVAL
July 31 - August 2 Selo Ukraina in Dauphin, MB Passes range from $30 to $95
-
GIMLI FILM FESTIVAL
July 22-26 Box office is at The Lake Winnipeg Visitor Centre. Screenings at various venues around Gimli. Single tickets are $10 apiece, beach screenings are free. Festival passes range from $55 to $100.
-
SWORDS & SABRES
July 12 & 13 Coronation Park FREE
-
REAL LOVE SUMMER FESTIVAL
June 5-7 Gimli Motorsports Park $30 for weekend passes, $20 for one-day passes
-
Winnipeg Is: Strange bylaws
It’s no surprise that governments waste an absurd amount of time on arbitrary and unnecessary endeavors. Important tasks get put on the backburner while resources are wasted on the least pressing issues. There are few examples more emblematic of this dichotomy than the weird historical legislation of Winnipeg’s psychics.
-
Whose House? Sydney’s house.
Sydney Klassen affectionately refers to his home as his “treehouse.” The University of Winnipeg education student has lived in the Osborne Village apartment for the last seven years. Up on the third floor of an ancient Village house, nestled under a peaking roof, Klassen has cultivated a handmade vibe that makes the house live up to its backyard moniker.
-
Up All Night: Insomnia and the internet
I’ve always had mixed feelings about The Uniter’s regular Up All Night column. On one hand, I like reading about the after-dark Winnipeg experience. But as a lifelong insomniac, the words “up all night” rarely hold positive connotations. When you have a sleep disorder, being up all night isn’t a choice you make, it’s just a thing that happens.
-
What We Do in the Shadows
I read Bram Stoker’s Dracula at far too young an age. The vampire mythos was as important to my childhood as Robert Munsch or Star Wars. I always appreciate it when a movie can play with that mythology, recontextualize it, and make me laugh while doing so. Last year’s excellent Only Lovers Left Alive did this perfectly. What We Do in the Shadows, a New Zealand mockumentary about four vampire flatmates, is a fun new entry to this weird subgenre.
-
Focus
I wanted to like Focus a lot more than I actually did. I had no expectations going in, but I was rooting for it from the opening scene. It’s far from great, but I can’t help admiring it for what it’s trying to do. Most of what the studios shell out this time of year is overproduced garbage. Focus is a smart movie with a point of view. Its ambitions are more artistic than commercial. Sadly, it never quite sticks the landing.
-
Day pass delirium
Once again, a public outcry has arisen surrounding Vince Li.
-
Mommy
There are two movies trapped inside Mommy. It’s never both at the same time, just one or the other. One of them is a truly great film that examines family and friendship in a way movies rarely show us. It’s powerfully acted and shot with clear creative purpose. The other movie is infuriating. It’s a hysterical melodrama, overwrought and over-written, with a sense of self-importance so thick you could gag on it.
-
Safe at home
Nursing homes are an important resource that can easily be taken for granted. It’s comforting to know that when old age makes it challenging for us to live independently, care homes can provide safe assisted living.
-
Kingsman: The Secret Service
In 2005, Casino Royale made the Bond franchise relevant again. After veering far off course with Die Another Day, the introduction of Daniel Craig took the series to darker and grittier territory more in line with 21st century tastes. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a throwback to perhaps the least 21st century era of Bond: the Roger Moore era. The Moore films of the ‘70s and ‘80s were campy and cartoonish, with a focus on silly supervillains and outlandish gadgets. Kingsman is an enjoyable love letter to Roger Moore camp, encompassing all the best (and worst) aspects of silly spy films.
-
Fifty Shades of Grey
A lot of people have been talking about Fifty Shades of Grey these past few weeks. Specifically, they’re talking about the problematic sexual politics of the film (and the book series on which it’s based). I’m not interested in those issues. I’m only interested in discussing Fifty Shades in purely cinematic terms. Judged on a purely cinematic basis, Fifty Shades of Grey is a bad movie. A bad, bad, very bad, awful, inexcusably stupid movie.
-
Stock up on love in aisle three
When Lukas Frank created a simple Facebook event, he did it on a whim. Little did he suspect that it might lead to love for many a Winnipegger.