David Lebrun for Curtains Up What an eventful weekend! For my first convention since, ever, I’ve been overwhelmed by the size of Montréal’s Comiccon, full of artists, shops, cosplayers, celebrities and attendants. The sheer number of panels offered within it’s walls, the ambiance, the sounds, light and pretty much everything else had a lot to […]
Varia
Allen Klein: The Man Who Bailed Out The Beatles, Made The Stones, and Transformed Rock & Roll by Fred Goodman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $35)
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! (@AKessaris) “Blunt-featured and barrel-chested with a full head of dramatically dark, pomaded hair, Klein doesn’t share his clients’ flair for fashion. He prefers sneakers and sweatshirts to paisleys and Nehru jackets. But while Klein doesn’t look like the most powerful and controversial player in the music business, he is […]
The Horror of it All: One Moviegoer’s Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead…by Adam Rockoff (Simon & Schuster, $32)
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! (@AKessaris) “As a general rule, horror fans embrace their status as cultural outsiders. In fact, many define their identity solely by opposition to the mainstream. We tell ourselves we don’t need, or even want, casual endorsements-not from the public or the critics, and especially not from Hollywood suits.” -Adam […]
Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News by A. Brad Schwartz (Hill and Wang, $39.99)
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! (@AKessaris) “Remembered as a ‘textbook example of mass hysteria,’ the War of the Worlds panic is still cited constantly by historians as evidence of the anxiety permeating the country just before World War II. The broadcast itself has become shorthand for the dangerous power and influence of the media, […]
Let’s Start a Riot by Bruce McCulloch (HarperCollins, $29.99)
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! (@AKessaris) “…I realized that, even though I had been a young a**hole, I was right. No one should ever go to Drumheller.” -Bruce McCulloch (from Let’s Start a Riot) In 1988 a void existed in broadcast comedy/variety, with SCTV long gone and Saturday Night Live just beginning to become […]
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson (Riverhead Books, $32.95)
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! (@AKessaris) “A life had been ruined. What was it for: just some social media drama? I think our natural disposition as humans is to plod along until we get old and stop. But with social media, we’ve created a stage for constant artificial high drama. Every day a new […]
ZZ Top bring their Texas boogie to Montreal
By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up @bugsburnett Some 6,000 of the faithful attended the March 17 concert by Texas boogie trio ZZ Top at the Bell Centre . But everybody was drinking and yakking so much – even during the songs – that the place felt more like a Mississippi juke joint. […]
Thank You, Mr. Spock. Thank You, Leonard Nimoy.
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! (@AKessaris) When the CBC used to air Star Trek re-runs every Sunday at 10 am, I watched them religiously. (I would be upset on the rare occasions when my mother decided to drag us to church…it was the 1970’s, a time before you could tape a show for later […]
So, Anyway…by John Cleese (Doubleday, $32.95)
By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up! (@AKessaris) “A good sense of humour is the sign of a healthy perspective, which is why people who are uncomfortable around humour are either pompous (inflated) or neurotic (oversensitive).” -John Cleese No matter what John Cleese achieves in his life, he will always be remembered for Monty Python (even […]
Invitation V-Decor delightful, food not so –
Maria Grassagliata for Curtains Up Invitation V is a vegan bistro I couldn’t wait to visit. I’ve been wanting to go since Montréal à la Table, when it was always full. The restaurant is situated on beautiful Bernard Street in Outremont. It is lovely with wonderful ambience. Even from the outside, you can […]