Verb Issue R121 (Mar. 28-Apr. 3, 2014)

Issue #121 – March 28 to April 3

arts

culture

music

regina

kenny vs. spenny

+

leonard lee Lee Valley founder brings SK roots to successful business slates AB punk rockers take the road less travelled noah + the grandmaster Films reviewed­

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On the cover:

kenny vs. spenny

Behind the comedy. 10 / feature Photo: courtesy of the artist

culture

NEWs + Opinion

entertainment

Q + A with steve brockley band

Live Music listings

On their big year. 8 / Q + A

Local music listings for March 28 through April 5. 14 / listings

the life of leonard lee CEO on running a successful

the road less traveled Slates do things

We visit Cade Style Lounge.

business. 4 / Local

their way. 9 / Arts

15 / Nightlife

hard road ahead

noah + the grandmaster

Salt-Water Moon explores life and love in Newfoundland. 9 / Arts

Nightlife Photos

We review the latest movies. 16 / Film

getting an indie movie made Indiecan initiative helps local filmmakers realize their vision. 5 / Local

immunize or bust

eating for pleasure

on the bus

Our thoughts on vaccinating kids.

We visit Fortuna Ristorante Italiano.

6 / Editorial

12 / Food + Drink

Weekly original comic illustrations

by Elaine M. Will. 18 / comics

comments

Music

Game + Horoscopes

Here’s your say on privatizing food service in jail. 7 / comments

Fefe Dobson, Aborted + Gordon Lightfoot. 13 / music

Canadian criss-cross puzzle, weekly horoscopes and Sudoku. 19 / timeout

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Business & Operations

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Leonard Lee’s life Founder of Lee Valley Tools brings things full circle

by ADAM HAWBOLDT

P

icture it: Saskatchewan in the 1930s.

Our province is a veritable dust bowl. Hail hammers crops, while grasshoppers feast on whatever is left. Millions of acres of wheat are destroyed, leaving people broke and desperate. There’s little money to go around, and few jobs to be had. Hard times have come, and they aren’t leaving any time soon.

It’s against this backdrop that Leonard G. Lee was brought into the world.

The year was 1938 — the tail end of the Dirty Thirties. Lee was born on a farm near the tiny hamlet of Algrove.

The youngest of three boys, he was raised in a log cabin without electricity or running water.

These were tough times for Lee and his family, but somehow they always seemed to make due.

“Like most people in the ‘30s and early ‘40s, we didn’t have any money,” remembers Lee. “But what we were good at was cooperating with each other, with other farmers. It was

or Veritas Tools or was ever made a member of the Order of Canada, Leonard Lee wore many different hats.

He was a topographical surveyor.

He was a student at the Royal Roads Military College in Victoria. For a brief period, he trained to be a pilot. He studied economics at Queen’s University in Ontario, spent time as a foreign servant in both Chicago and Peru, and worked on the Hill in Ottawa.

Now in his late 70s, Lee looks back on these days — his formative years in the adult world — sometimes with fondness. Sometimes, though, he looks back with a mischievous chuckle.

“When I was a cadet wing commander in college, I had this miserable old brigadier general,” remembers Lee, recalling his days at the Royal Military College in Kingston. “I always felt like telling him to stick his stripes up his butt … but I never did.”

About his days working for the federal government, he says, “I just got disgusted with it all. They simply didn’t know how to manage people.”

standard that if you were butchering a pig in the summer — since there was no electricity you couldn’t freeze it or anything — what you would do is contact your neighbours and get them to come over and take a chunk of your pig. When they butchered a pig, they’d invite you over to do the same.”

Communal, cooperative living was just a way of life for the people of Algrove. They depended on each other to make ends meet. If they needed gas or equipment for their farms, they bought their supplies at the local Co-op.

Little did Lee know it then, but this way of life would one day lead to the creation of (and directly influence the way he runs) a multimillion dollar enterprise. An enterprise he called Lee Valley Tools.

Before he became the founder and CEO of Lee Valley Tools — one of the largest woodworking and gardening tool companies in North America — before he founded Algrove Publishing

When Lee talks, you listen. He has a slow and measured voice, one that commands attention.

Over the course of two different phone conversations, Lee talks about a lot of things. He talks with fondness about a book his publishing company released called The Great Saskatchewan Fowl Supper and Literary Contest.

About a school teacher in Algrove who used to stay at his house during winters and tell him stories. About hunting crows for a five-cent bounty and the role the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation played in his parents’ lives.

But most of all Lee talks about Lee Valley Tools — the business he grew from a small home-based operation into a company with more than a dozen stores across the country.

“It started with me selling barrel stove kits,” remembers Lee. “The school I went to in Algrove had a 45 gallon drum converted into a stove, so when I was still working with the federal government I started a business selling those. I was putting ads for these stove kits in rural magazines. We wanted to see if we could sell these things by mail. And we could!” Six months later Lee left his job with the government.

As a child, he remembers his dad doing a lot of woodworking. It became a hobby of Lee’s, and as soon as his barrel stove business was sold, he got into the woodworking and tools racket.

That was in 1978.

Just like the barrel stove venture, this too was a mail-order business.

But then, a few years later in 1981, a strange thing happened. There was a six-week long national post strike.

This didn’t sit well with Lee or his burgeoning business (which was losing about $1,000 a day because

of the strike). Lee made an executive decision to open a retail store. Then another. And another.

These days, Lee Valley Tools has over a dozen retail outlets across the nation, spanning from Victoria to Halifax, and employing more than 850 people. And keeping true to his Algrove roots, to this day Lee fosters a culture of community and co-operation in his tool empire.

“Growing up in Algrove, I was accustomed to Co-ops. That’s where we got our food, our equipment, our gasoline,” says Lee, his voice measured. “At the end of the year, they’d give you credit. So, in a sense, it was really like profit sharing. So I decided that we were going to do the same thing. We were going to take 25 per cent of our gross profits and give it to the employees in equal shares. The janitor gets the same amount as the CEO.” Lee’s community-building within his business didn’t stop there; he also aligned the pay slope so that “nobody in the company gets paid more than 10 times the lowest-paid employee.”

Which is a bold, magnanimous move in this day and age. A day and age in which the average ratio between the highest and lowest paid employees in Canada’s biggest companies was a staggering 122-to-one in 2012.

But that’s just the kind of guy, the kind of boss, Leonard Lee is — one who cares for his employees and wants to create a community in the workplace.

Kind of like the community he was born into in eastern-central Saskatchewan all those years ago.

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Getting an indie movie made

A trio of Regina filmmakers turn to a new program to get their vision off the ground by ADAM HAWBOLDT

I

t really was a no-brainer for them.

Fresh out of film school, they were presented with an opportunity that a lot of movie makers in their early 20s don’t get: the opportunity to make a feature film with some influential, established backing.

In case you’re wondering who “they” are, we’re talking about Matt Yim, Allan Roeher, and Matthieu Belanger, three friends who met in the University of Regina film program.

And the opportunity they were presented with? To make their indie movie Basic Human Needs, thanks to a program called the Indiecan 10K Film Initiative — a nationwide competition held to help aspiring indie movie makers get their films on the big screen.

The three guys had heard about the program a couple of months ago through Mark Montague, a guy Allan had done an internship with while in school. And from the get-go, it was something they were keen on.

“We didn’t hesitate,” says Roeher, the producer of the film. “Sure, we wanted to know the parametres of the project. We wanted to know what the process was going to be like through the whole year. But once we checked the [Indiecan 10K] website and talked to Avi [Federgreen, the founder of Indi-

ecan Entertainment], we decided this was something we definitely wanted to do.”

After the initial decision was made, things happened rather quickly. Matt Yim — the writer/director of the film — had four weeks to write a script. A cover letter had to be constructed, and team bios had to be put together.

It was a very rushed, at times disorganized, month. But when the dust settled, Yim, Roeher and Belanger got their proposal together and submitted it.

That was the easy part.

Stories are central to our existence, and are common to every known culture.

They create an intimate link between the storyteller and his or her audience.

Stories intrigue us, inspire us, and inform us. They cultivate our imagination and open new worlds.

It was a love of stories and storytelling that led Avi Federgreen to launch Indiecan Entertainment in 2011.

A filmmaker for nearly two decades, Federgreen created the company with one simple goal in mind — to provide Canadians with movies they wanted to watch. “There are more than 200 indie films made in Canada each year, less than 10% of which

are distributed,” says Federgreen on his Indiecan website. “Many of them deserve an audience. First-time feature filmmakers are trying to establish a career, and if their work can’t be seen then it’s tough to get money for the next project.”

Enter the Indiecan 10K Film initiative, an inaugural plan that aims to help first-time feature filmmakers from Nova Scotia to British Columbia pursue their dreams.

The way it works is simple. Any Canadian-based filmmaker can enter.

All they have to do is send in a complete proposal (much like the one Yim, Roeher and Belanger submitted) and wait for the final selections to be made.

This year, seven films were selected from seven different provinces — British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and, of course, Saskatchewan.

And according to Federgreen, Saskatchewan’s entry, Basic Human Needs, was selected because it was “a great idea for a screenplay and that the screenplay was on its way to being a great script.

“The team is passionate,” adds Federgreen, “and will make the film the best it can be.”

Pretty encouraging words for a team of up-and-coming local film-

makers who are still relatively new to the game.

“Miles and Audrey are recent university graduates whose intelligence and emotional sensitivity can’t make up for their debilitating lack of ambition. Although they claim to have plans of moving away — from Regina to either Toronto, Montreal, or any other city that might intrigue them on a particular day — they do nothing proactive to get there.

Instead, they remain fixated on their own fantasies of an ideal grownup life; that is, until adulthood is abruptly thrust upon them over the course of one life-altering week.”

That’s the synopsis provided in the proposal packet for Basic Human Needs. But if you ask Matt Yim, the film’s writer, he’ll tell you that some things have changed. “That first script, it was written so quickly,” says Yim. “It was very stressful. I only had about four weeks. I wrote most of it in the middle of the night, full of coffee.”

“So what, you’re saying that it was like passing a kidney stone?” jokes Belanger, the film’s other producer.

Yim chuckles and says, “Yeah, that first draft was a real pain in the ass. It’s still going through revisions.

The story is still about stagnation, in general. People who are aspiring to be better, yet not always making an effort to do that. But by the time we end up shooting, maybe three quarters of the original script might be changed.”

As of now, their vision for the script is kind of up in the air. But they’ll soon meet with Federgreen, get his input, and figure out what the expectations of the Indiecan 10K Film Initiative actually are. After that, it’s back to the revision board. Filming is slated for the summer, then post-production will follow, all before the final version is completed by the December 31st deadline.

Any way you look at it, it’s going to be a busy year for the trio behind Basic Human Needs. A year they’re all looking forward to.

“We know that, especially at our age, not many people get to make a feature film so we’re all pretty excited,” says Roeher. “We know there’s going to be a lot of work to put into it, but we can’t take this opportunity for granted.

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Immunize or bust Vaccinating kids against preventable diseases just makes sense

I

t seems almost ludicrous that vaccinating against a host of preventable diseases is even up for debate, yet here we are, in 2014, staring down outbreaks of polio and measles — diseases that have previously been eradicated and are now making something of a comeback.

Why? Well, because people are choosing not to get immunized. Let us be clear: this is extremely dangerous. None of us live in a vacuum; an unvaccinated person can spread diseases around an otherwise healthy population, not to mention become very sick themselves.

Which is why we believe that unless a kid is allergic to something contained in the immunization shot, he or she should have to get vaccinated.

So why the resistance to a straightforward, health-saving measure?

Well, part of it can be traced back to 1998, when Andrew Wakefield had an article published in The Lancet, a medical journal in the U.K. In it, Wakefield claimed he’d done the research and found a link between autism and the MMR vaccination (which protects against measles, mumps and rubella). Parents flew into a panic, and calls to stop or at least delay the immunization of children echoed around the globe.

These are calls that still echo to this day. So much so that there are regions in our country where the immuniza-

tion rate has fallen below 50 percent (in case you’re wondering, a 95 percent immunization rate is required to protect our communities from the resurgence of deadly and infectious disease). In fact, in Saskatchewan only 63 percent of children under the age of five are being vaccinated.

Which would be understandable, if Wakefield’s findings had been accurate. However, they were not. After a careful review, the British medical ethics board found that he had manipulated evidence. Other scientists tried to duplicate his results, but couldn’t. As a result, in 2010 Wakefield’s findings were deemed flawed and fraudulent.

As Mark Sawyer, a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist in San Diego puts it: “One person’s research has set us back a decade.”

And one look at the numbers will confirm that. See, in 1994 Canada was certified as a “polio free” country. Since then, random cases of polio have cropped up in regions of British Columbia where non-vaccinated people came in contact with infected visitors.

The resurgence of measles, on the other hand, has been far more insidious. In its heyday, between 1950-1954, measles affected roughly 307 people each year, with a peak number of annual cases reaching as high as 61,370.

By 2002, measles was considered “eliminated in the WHO Region of the

Americas.” Since then, though, it has been re-emerging in endemic fashion.

In 2007 there was an outbreak that lasted 24 weeks and affected 94 people in Quebec. In the spring of 2010, there was an outbreak of 82 confirmed cases in B.C. In 2011, there were 750 cases of measles in Canada.

Then, earlier this month, 228 cases of measles were confirmed in the eastern parts of British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. The disease has also cropped up in PEI, London, Ontario and across southern Alberta.

This is why we need to challenge the anti-vaxxer platform as a commendable means of protecting our kids and call it out for what it is: a dangerous precedent that can harm our children — and anyone they come in contact with.

The MMR vaccine has been shown to be safe, and serious adverse reactions are rare. It’s time to embrace sound medical advice from qualified health-care professionals, and immunize our kids.

These editorials are left unsigned because they represent the opinions of Verb magazine, not those of the individual writers.

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On Topic: Last week we asked what you thought about privatizing food service in our correctional facilities. Here’s what you had to say: – Food services were privatized at the university and hospitals. The result poorer quality higher costs to the users. Cooking gives some inmates purpose inside.

– Entrepeneurs and business types who are the real deal don’t get involved in gov’t’ hijack public funds or privatize public institutions.

Wannabe losers do!

– Private food services for correctional services is stupid, the incarcerated should be growing there own and cooking it up. Attainment of skills is a good thing...

– I work in the kitchen at corrections and I teach the inmates a new trade. How is that not apart of corrections now I’m about to lose my job my future and my pension.

A why the federal gov. Failed at it as is going back to union so why is our government about to make the same mistake????

text yo thoughtsur to 881 ve r b 8372

sound off – Hunger Games and Paralympics at the same time. Someone must have this idea too, ParaHunger Games!

– Imagine for a moment the level of pain, despair and hopelessness a human being must feel to seek relief from a can of Lysol! God! Doesn’t anybody else get this?

the food bank. Quit going there.

Dysfunctional concept. Not worth all the time and effort!

Next week: What do you think about immunizing your children against preventable diseases? Text in your thoughts to Verb to get in on the conversation.

We print your texts verbatim each week. Text in your thoughts and reactions to our stories and content, or anything else on your mind.

– The Bible is sexist! Eve was to blame for losing Eden. It doesn’t trace matriarchial lineage. Other examples. I know its not God’s words! (I’m a guy.)

– One hundred years ago WW I started in Eastern Europe- history need not be cyclical -

– There should be one day of the week that nobody goes shopping.

Society has become so busy that people can barely relax anymore.

OFF TOPIC – Lundstrom is completely correct in saying the police will abuse their power with the new marijuana grow laws. He is also completely correct with government greed (that we all know) Why can’t we just leave these hurting people alone?

– I have a big question. Why don’t people talk about the crappy bus service we have? The bus drivers fly through their route and stop at one bus stop for 10-15 mins. Do ur route proper and maybe more people would take a bus. WH

In response to “Green Bud Down,” Local, #120 (March 21, 2014)

– Got a bread machine mix with an expiry date of Sept 1999 from

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A Big Year

Photos: courtesy of the artist

The Steve Brockley Band’s new record, LeBoeuf, expands on traditional folk with rock and blues

by Alex J MacPherson

T

he Steve Brockley Band’s latest album is one of the most eclectic Canadian records of the year.

Compared to the band’s eponymous 2010 debut, LeBoeuf finds the British Columbia-based trio expanding its sound beyond the fringes of folk music. On the new record, Brockley, drummer Leon Power, and bassist Erik Nielsen draw on a wide array of influences, including elements of rock and roll, bluegrass, rockabilly, and the blues. The upshot is that no two songs on LeBoeuf sound the same. The tender “Lost In The City” is completely different from the misanthropic “Captain Joe” which marks a huge departure from the bouncy “Classic Car” and the relentlessly propulsive spiritual “Work.” The only thread linking the songs is Brockley’s ability to craft moving stories — and frame them with interesting, engaging music.

Last week, I spoke with Brockley about making the new album, his fondness for narrative-driven folk, and how audiences should react to a record on which no two songs are the same.

Alex J MacPherson: You made your first record in Montreal. LeBoeuf was recorded in Vancouver. What was making it like compared to the last one?

Steve Brockley: It was an awesome musical experience. It was the first time that we got to spend, actually settle in to a studio setting. The first record,

thick and powerful in places but it never feels crowded.

we did it live off the floor. I think we recorded and mixed it in two or three days. Whereas with this one, we had a couple of weeks to do all that. We spent the first couple days just working on getting the sounds right, just finding the right place to put the drums in the room that sounded the best. We experimented with different microphones and different placements.

Same goes with the bass and with the guitar, getting all those sounds figured out. Once we were comfortable, we just got to spend the rest of the time playing music.

SB: That definitely was the approach, and has been the approach with the songs that I write. I like space. We all kind of agree on liking space. It’s nice to keep some. I think that space is as valuable as anytime there’s sound, you know? I think that’s the way we play live naturally, anyway, and it’s nice to not try to do something different than that in the recording process.

AJM: Is that one of the reasons you’ve resisted the urge to add another player?

AJM: LeBoeuf sounds very live, very raw, but is it difficult to balance spontaneity against the desire to spend lots of time getting tones and so on?

SB: That’s one of the reasons, for sure.

We do like the sound we get as a trio.

We don’t feel like in the live show that

SB: My approach to recording is I do want it to sound like the band, and I want it to sound real and fresh.

That can be a challenge. The longer you spend in the studio, the more you’re going to [over-think] it. It’s also hard to say when something’s done, because there’s always imperfections that as the person recording on it, you’re going to hear those imperfections more than anyone else. It’s nice to have other ears to tell you, ‘that was a good take, let’s leave it,’ instead of just wanting to redo and redo.

That’s one of the [great things about] having a producer such as John [Raham] — we both go for the same types of sounds, and it was nice to have an objective listener.

and “Classic Car” has a rockabilly feel to it — just to name a few. Did making a really eclectic record worry you?

SB: That’s definitely something I thought about, looking back on the record. The variety, in a way, is something I like and am proud of. But in other ways, I’m not always sure it’s the most cohesive-sounding project. I didn’t write the album with a specific theme; they were just kind of the next ten songs that I wrote that I liked.

Some people will make a record that has a specific theme, and try to keep a certain prevailing feel throughout the whole record. It’s not that there’s a completely different feel throughout the record, but there are differences, and I’m alright with that because I’m

I just feel lucky if I’m writing anything, you know? steve brockley

we’re lacking any sounds that we wish we had. It’s not because we can’t have someone else play with it: we like it the way it is, we like our dynamic, and adding another person would be a whole new challenge — not just musically, but with the dynamics of the band.

AJM: The songs on this record are really, really diverse. “Boots and Tattoos” is basically a rock track, “See You Again” is just singing and a finger-picked guitar,

AJM: It seems to have worked out okay.

The album sounds really good — it’s

proud of the songs. But I don’t know if I’d always do it that way.

AJM: What do you think ties the songs together?

SB: I think that there’s a storytelling element that links the songs together.

That’s something that runs true with all those songs on the record, all those different stories. It’s kind of unfiltered, I guess, which is why it came out the way it did. I didn’t write something and

say: that’s not a Steve Brockley song or something. I just tried to let the songs happen. I just feel lucky if I’m writing anything, you know? If you’ve got something going on, don’t try and kill it — let it grow. And it turned into those ten songs, you know?

AJM: How closely is that storytelling element tied to the idea of folk music?

Your last album sounded more like a folk record, but this one seems to be built on the same basic idea.

SB: I mean, there’s huge parts of me, musically, that aren’t confined to traditional folk. But when I started writing songs, they started coming out sounding like folk music. And it wasn’t because that was all I listened to or all I was into. So it’s kind of narrow to say I only write folk songs. I love music. The first record, it would have been easier to say it was folk.

And now, this last record is getting more into what I’d call rock and roll, which is what I’m writing now and which is what I’m hoping to be recording coming up. It’s all rooted in the same thing, but I’m becoming aware of the labeling giving preconceptions or even misconceptions. So the labeling is something I’m struggling with.

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The Road Less Traveled

Edmonton punk rockers Slates head off the beaten path on Taiga

S

lates has spent the last six years taking the road less traveled. Since its formation in 2008, Slates has logged more hard miles and played shows in more countries than many much more experienced outfits. But according to drummer Dallas Thompson, venturing into the unknown has become a vital part of Slates’ identity — and an integral part of the band’s new album, a collection of hyper-literate punk songs called Taiga.

“There’s definitely an allure in exploring the uncharted territory,” Thompson says of the band’s quest to find the horizon. “I’m not bagging on anybody who chooses to stick around the safe, more known parts of North America. But I think we’re all just really interested in learning from experience.

And you can only learn so much if you stay on the road more travelled.”

Slates cut Taiga at the Electrical Audio studios in Chicago, Illinois. The album was engineered by Steve Albini, a music industry legend whose résumé includes records by the Pixies, Nirvana, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. According to Thompson, the band spent almost six months rehearsing for six days of studio time. “We were pretty much fired up as soon as we got to the studio,” he says. “Day one, [Albini] had the mics set up, and we banged through three or four songs.”

This pace continued more or less unbroken until the record was finished.

The only exception was “Minarets,” which took the best part of two days to finish. Hugely ambitious and unrelentingly bleak, the slow burn of “Minarets” hints at how Slates has evolved since its last record, 2011’s Prairie Fires.

Thompson describes the new album as “more measured” than its predecessor.

by alex J MacPherson

Taiga also dispenses with major-key choruses, replacing them with big, heavy grooves — grooves fueled by the twin guitars of James Stewart and Stefan Duret, as well as the grinding bass lines provided by newcomer Lee Klippenstein.

But Slates has never been content to stay in one place for long; after six years of hard touring, a musical shift was probably inevitable. “It probably sounds arrogant of me to say this [but] it would probably be easy to write a poppy record,” Thompson says. “We’re fans of lots of bands that play poppy stuff. But we’re interested in exploring new avenues, getting better musically.” This is exactly what happened on Taiga, which is the most lyrically and thematically sophisticated album Slates has ever recorded.

Stewart, who writes most of the words, has always been good at

capturing a big idea in a few trenchant phrases. Taiga weaves history, memory, and experience into a moving tapestry of love, loss, and displacement. The first single, “Vérité,” adapts a filmmaking technique to tell the stories of two tragic figures, Joan of Arc and Marguerite Pitré, the last woman hanged for murder in Canada. “Metelko St.,” on the other hand, explores some of the band’s stranger road stories, including an unforgettable night in Berlin featuring fans and a riot squad. The song also includes memories of a trip through Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“That whole experience was incredibly bleak,” Thompson says, “being in a city where the whole city is experiencing a

form of post-traumatic stress disorder twenty years later.”

This is the key to unlocking Taiga, which suggests a sort of postmodern disorder of its own. The album’s lyrics hint at the anxiety and socioeconomic uncertainty felt by so many people around the world. But Taiga is not all bleak and unforgiving. From despair springs redemption, and most of the songs find hope in the raw power of exposed human material. On “Vérité” Stewart sings, “I see the fire reflected in your eyes / Joan of Arc, Joan of Arc / Dances on the hot coals in joy.”

Slates April 3 @ O’Hanlon’s Pub

Hard Road Ahead

Salt-Water Moon explores life and love in 1920s Newfoundland

F

ew things are more difficult than being young and in love. And knowing the road ahead will be rocky does

not make it any easier. David French’s Salt-Water Moon tempers the crystalline euphoria of teenage romance with the cold

by alex J MacPherson

reality of life in pre-Confederation Newfoundland. Framed as a long conversation between two teenagers, Salt-Water Moon demarcates the gulf between hope and possibility — and in doing so shows that love is neither perfect nor idyllic, but the sum of the hurdles it overcomes.

“I think the thing that makes Salt-Water Moon so captivating is that these two people, they’re like far from sweet, and the story is far from quaint,” says Judy Wensel, who is directing the Globe Theatre’s production of Salt-Water Moon. “Although they’re in love with one another, and though they’re willing to go for it, it’s going to be really hard. I guess that’s what I loved about the play. It wasn’t precious at all, it was quite raw, and the characters were quite raw.”

Part of a series of five plays French wrote about the same family, SaltWater Moon explores the relationship between Mary Snow (Lauren Holfeuer) and Jacob Mercer (Josh Rams-

den). Unlike most of the Mercer plays, which are set in Ontario, Salt-Water Moon takes place outside a house at Coley’s Point, Newfoundland in 1926.

The play begins when Jacob confronts Mary, who is engaged to another man.

Jacob has just returned after a year in Toronto; he didn’t write letters home, and Mary moved on with her life.

The two teenagers talk and argue like old friends, for that is what they are.

Jacob tries to convince her to abandon her fiancé; Mary vacillates, weighing what is known against what is not.

Mary’s decision is not made any easier by the setting. Newfoundland did not join Canada until 1949; in 1926 it was an independent British colony.

Salt-Water Moon is haunted by the spectre of the First World War, which killed Mary’s father and transformed Jacob’s father into a husk of his former self. “And then,” Wensel says, referring to the dire economic situation, “making a living and making a life in Newfoundland as a working-class person is a whole other level of trial.”

Jacob and Mary are keenly aware of the past, present, and future. But they are also, whether they admit it or not, bound together by experience and love. “The unspoken understanding is what really drives them forward,” Wensel says. “They don’t have to talk about it; they just get it.” In other words, Salt-Water Moon is not a meditation on what it means to love someone in spite of everything.

After a pause Wensel adds, “They both have huge crosses to bear, and I think that’s what makes their relationship so powerful.”

Salt-Water Moon Through April 6 @ Globe Theatre $37+ @ Globe Theatre Box Office

Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbRegina amacpherson@verbnews.com

Photos: courtesy of Darrol Hofmeister of Sharpshooter photography

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Photos: courtesy of the artist

Kenny vs. Spenny Competition comedy’s creator on success, morality, and a dysfunctional relationship by Alex J MacPherson

R

ules are for people who need them. That is the lesson of Kenny vs. Spenny, according to one of its creators. “When we started the show I thought, oh great, everyone’s going to think I’m a cheater and I’m f**ked,” says Kenny Hotz, a photographer, filmmaker, and comedian from Toronto who teamed up with Spencer Rice to create Kenny vs.

Spenny, one of the most popular Canadian comedies ever produced.

“I was willing to deal with that,” he continues, “but it turned out that Spenny’s a moralist, an evangelist, and the fact that he cares about these things that mean nothing makes him look like an idiot. The fact that he gets so angry about who can lift more weight when it doesn’t even f**king matter is the greatest thing.” In other words, Kenny vs.

Spenny is much more than a television comedy: it is an exegesis of the world we inhabit, an examination of what matters to whom, and why.

Kenny Hotz has been making films and photographs for decades. By the mid-1990s, he was an established documentary filmmaker and news

photographer. His portfolio includes photo essays on Auschwitz, Dachau, and the aftermath of the Waco siege; in 1991, he travelled to the Middle East to cover the Gulf War. “I was always interested in the news and human disasters,” he says. “All my photographs were war or just bodies, really f**ked up crazy sh*t. And then that kind of

comedy about a gangster who goes into the hospital for a hernia operation and comes out with a sex change.

Ostensibly about the closed nature of the film industry and the destructive power of unfulfillable dreams, Pitch emerged as a portrait of its creators’ dysfunctional and often antagonistic relationship. In the film, Hotz comes

Why am I a cheating assh**e because I’m smart enough not to get so f**king drunk I almost cut my face open? To me, not being humiliated is the competition. kenny hotz

migrated into documentaries. Because film isn’t photography, my comedy would kind of slowly sneak into those films. And then Spenny and I went off and did a documentary about us trying to sell a script. And we took it all over the world.”

Released in 1997, Pitch chronicled the duo’s attempts to sell the script for a film titled The Dawn, a mass-market

off as pragmatic, Rice as panicky and prone to fits of despair. “Spenny’s a wounded puppy and I’m, like, the super hot cool bad guy,” Hotz says with a laugh. The contrast is striking, and the rawness of the pair’s obviously strained relationship fueled the development of Kenny vs. Spenny.

Each episode of Kenny vs. Spenny featured an outlandish competition Continued on next page »

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and an important prize for the winner — a chance to humiliate the loser in some fiendish manner. The first season, which featured competitions such as “Who Can Stay Blindfolded The Longest?” and “Who Can Sit On A Cow The Longest?” aired on the CBC in 2003. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the hosts’ fondness for profanity, nudity, and off-colour jokes, Kenny vs. Spenny was cancelled after a single season. But that was just the beginning for Hotz and Rice. Showcase sensed potential and picked up Kenny vs.

Spenny for an additional five seasons, each more absurd and hilarious than the last. “The more we hate each other, the funnier the show gets,” Hotz says.

“Unlike other shows that go to sh*t when people hate each other and start bickering … it makes our show better.

The older we get, and the fatter and uglier we get, the more pathetic we get — which makes it funnier.”

With each new episode, the challenges became more ridiculous and the humiliations more devastating. In the fourth season, for example, Hotz and Rice competed to see who could commit more crimes and who could let loose the most toxic fart. By the fifth season, the pair were vying to see who could smoke more marijuana. The show reached its frenzied peak during the sixth and final season, which included an episode titled “Who Can Get Further With The Other Guy’s Mom?” It is easy to write off Kenny vs.

Spenny as nothing more than a collaboration between two comedians with

Photo: courtesy of the artist

filthy minds and nothing better to do.

In fact, Kenny vs. Spenny seems tailormade for such an assessment. But Hotz says reflexive opinions about crude humour whitewash the real genius of the show: its take on rules — those that matter and those that don’t.

The numbers can be broken down in several ways, but conventional wisdom suggests Hotz won about

three-quarters of the competitions — and spent far more time dreaming up punishments for Rice to endure.

However, Hotz was not above using methods some people have deemed unfair. In “Who Can Wear A Dead Octopus On Their Head The Longest?” for example, Hotz slipped Rice a large dose of LSD. Not surprisingly, the combination of powerful hallucinogenics and a hat made from a slimy cephalopod carcass caused Rice to behave in an erratic manner, culminating in a botched attempt to return the octopus to the sea. Hotz’s most notorious win ended the pair’s beer-drinking contest: he watched Rice get cataclysmically drunk while sucking back bottle after bottle of non-alcoholic beer. “It’s not like I didn’t follow the rules,” Hotz says, his voice rising. “The reality is I’m Machiavellian. In ‘Who Can Drink More Beer?’ on the bottle with no alcohol it said ‘Beer.’ It’s beer! It’s made with hops! Beer doesn’t have to have alcohol in it. It’s the exact same f**king recipe. Why am I a cheating assh**e because I’m smart enough not to get so f**king drunk I almost cut my face open? To me, not being humiliated is the competition. It’s not who can stand up the longest; that means nothing.”

Put another way, Kenny vs. Spenny explores two competing visions of morality. Rice is a strict, almost Kantian moralist; he rarely did anything that could be construed as cheating, even if it meant losing. Hotz, on the other hand, accepted some rules and rejected others. The upshot is that he won most of the time. “We’re definitely yin and yang,” he says with a laugh.

“He views himself as a moralist and I see him as an idiot. He cares, I don’t.

People think I’m that bad one, I think he’s the bad one. I love myself; he hates himself. And the reality is, it’s real.

Very rarely does a show come around where the characters in it are real and they expose some moral, noble truth about mankind and society. I think our show did that.”

The last episode of Kenny vs.

Spenny, a hour-long special, aired in December 2010. Shortly afterward, Hotz and Rice stopped speaking. “It’s like when you spend too much time with any friend, or spend too much time with a girl or spend too much time with your parents,” Hotz says of his estrangement from Rice. “You always end up, you know, getting p**sed at

each other. And Spenny is Spenny. I dare you to spend a f**king day with the guy. He’s a mess.” It was plain that the duo’s relationship had disintegrated, leaving a gaping hole where Kenny vs. Spenny used to be. But then Netflix picked up the show — and introduced a new generation to the pair’s antics.

“I didn’t even know that could happen,” Hotz says. “I thought, oh f**k, if you haven’t seen that show by now, you’ll never watch it again. But these new kids just keep watching it and watching it, and we just keep growing our f**king audience.” According to Hotz, the show’s resurgence compelled the pair to mend their fractured relationship. “You kind of forget what happened in the past, and all you can remember is the constant love that fans and people are giving you online.”

Perhaps more importantly, news of a recent deal between Netflix and the comedy Trailer Park Boys made the possibility of a new season of Kenny vs. Spenny seem very real indeed. “The comedy here is atrocious, nothing’s going on,” Hotz says. “Digital companies, you know, now have cash to actually make this stuff happen; these types of deals are going down. It’s the perfect climate. I’m not saying it’s going to happen or not going to happen, but the time’s better than it’s ever been.”

Although a new season may be months away, if it happens at all, Hotz and Rice have already taken the first step toward a new beginning and are going on tour. Billed as Kenny vs.

Spenny vs. Canada, the tour promises audiences unseen footage from the show, as well as all manner of onstage antics. Hotz, however, prefers to think in simpler terms. “It’s kind of like a freakshow,” he says with a laugh, pointing out that nothing drives home the show’s reality like a meeting with Spencer Rice. “It’s like that guy who took the elephant man around from circus to circus. That’s what I’m doing: I’m just showing Spenny, showing my freak, to the fans so that they can love what we did as much as I did.”

April 4 @ The Owl SOLD OUT Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

@VerbRegina amacpherson@verbnews.com

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EATING FOR PLEASURE

At Fortuna, dinner isn’t meant to be a quick bite in between engagements – it’s the main event by mj deschamps

I

’m fairly certain that the phrase “grab a bite” is not in Fortuna executive chef Gianni Poggio’s vernacular — and that has nothing to do with it perhaps being lost in translation by the Rome, Italy native.

Although there are days, unfortunately, that get so busy I have no choice but to eat on the run, I’ve never been one to eat mainly for fuel, and have often thought about how I’d be much better suited for a European lifestyle centred around food, drink and long, drawn-out mealtimes.

Eating for pure pleasure is something that Italians arguably know best, and that authentic Italian food experience is something Poggio has been trying to bring to Reginans since Fortuna opened its doors in 2012. “In Italy, the food is the culture, the passion, the pleasure…a meal with a wonderful bottle of wine can last at least three hours,” said Poggio. “We don’t eat because we have to, we eat because we take pleasure in it — it’s a different philosophy.”

The passion and pleasure that Poggio feels towards food translates fully into his cooking, where the same sentiments very much apply.

That same passion is what really differentiates Fortuna’s offerings from the rest: although an important reason why the dishes are so authentic — and delicious — has to do with all the fresh, high-quality products and produce used (fresh, soft mozzarella; local, ripe tomatoes; and extra virgin olive and truffle oils from Italy), what largely sets the menu at Fortuna apart is Poggio himself.

The award-winning chef says that his “own hands” are the secret ingredient in all of the meals he makes sure to perfect before sending out of the kitchen. “This is the difference between Italian chefs….the way they cook, and their touch,” said Poggio. “If I gave my exact recipe [for gnocchi] to someone else, it would not turn out the same.”

I ask him if this means if you lined up five seasoned Italian chefs, provided them all with the exact same ingredients and told them to make the exact same dish, they would turn out five noticeably different end products. “Absolutely,” replied Poggio, without hesitation.

Every meal at Fortuna begins with a big basket of warm bread,

Photos: courtesy of marc messett

perfect for swirling around in extra virgin olive oil imported from Italy, and tangy balsamic vinegar.

I’ve been guilty of the classic beginner’s mistake (filling up on bread) at Fortuna before, so on this visit I made sure to pace myself so I could stick out the entirety of the food “experience.”

In true, authentic Italian fashion, the meal began with a beautifullooking Caprese salad as an appetizer: juicy, red house tomatoes, soft, melt-in-your-mouth mozzarella, and fresh basil leaves drizzled in extra-virgin olive oil and garnished with salty black olives. Sounds simple enough, but what really sets a great Caprese salad like this one apart from a not-so-great one is

the quality of the ingredients used.

“The key is the fresh products,” added Poggio.

I moved on to the gnocchi al gorgonzola next — fluffy, handmade potato pasta (lovingly crafted oneby-one by Poggio, of course) swimming in a thick, rich, gorgonzola cheese cream sauce. The soft gnocchi and decadent, creamy sauce are accompanied by the contrasting crunchy texture of a thin, light, crispy cheese wafer. I’m a lover of all fresh pastas, but this handmade gnocchi is really worlds apart.

Poggio says the next dish is one of his “most important” ones — the risotto alla pescatora (a seafood risotto). A mountain of carnaroli rice is folded into a fresh mix of squid,

let’s go drinkin’ Verb’s mixology guide Godfather

Ingredients

Italian liqueur and whisky pair up for a classic, no-nonsense cocktail that’s a welcome addition to any long, indulgent meal.

2 oz scotch whisky 1 oz. amaretto ice cubes

clams, mussels, shrimp and seafood white sauce. The creamy risotto has a soft, juicy prawn in almost every second bite, while delicate, colourful mussels and clams sit snugly in their shells atop the mound.

Finally, I had a very classic scaloppini al funghi dish. Tenderized, juicy pieces of veal come smothered in a rich, velvety mushroom sauce, which the meat just sops up. A bit of acidity from fresh orange slices is also mixed into the sauce, which helps to cut some of the saltiness a bit. The veal is served alongside thick, creamy potatoes and crunchy asparagus, cooked in some of that Italy-imported extra virgin olive oil.

Tackling four dishes full of heavy cream, imported cheeses, and slabs of butter are not for the faint of stomach — but I couldn’t think of a better way to have spent an afternoon than dedicating it in its entirety to food.

Fortuna Ristorante Italiano 3215 East Quance | (306) 543 4411 Feedback? Text it! (306) 881 8372

directions

Combine whisky and amaretto together in an old-fashioned glass with ice.

Stir, and serve.

@VerbRegina mdeschamps@verbnews.com

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Next Week

coming up

Fefe Dobson

Aborted

Gordon Lightfoot

Artful Dodger sunday, April 6 – $15

The Exchange Wednesday, April 9 – $20

Casino Regina Friday, November 7 – $75+

The first demo tape Fefe Dobson ever made was on a home karaoke machine. She was 11 years old. By the age of 13 she’d started playing the piano and writing her own songs. Eventually the people at Jive Records recognized her talent and wanted to advance her career, but there was a problem: they wanted to develop her as a pop musician in the same vein as, say, Britney Spears. Dobson didn’t want that. She wanted to be taken more seriously. So she held out, was eventually signed by Island Def Jam, and began making the music she wanted to make. The rest, as they say, is history. Two Juno nominations and a handful of albums later, Dobson’s pop/rock/punk music has won her fans across the country and beyond. Tickets for the show available through ticketedge.ca.

Aborted plays a brand of music that you just can’t ignore. It’s a type of death metal that is loud and powerful, a style of music that’s been described as “unrestrained grindcore savagery and meticulously crafted death metal.”

Yep, that’s what this Belgian band is all about. Consisting of frontman Sven de Caluwé, guitarists Danny Tunker and Mendel Bij De Leij, bassist J.B. Van Der Wal, and drummer Ken Bedene, this hard-charging outfit has been making waves on the metal scene since their formation in 1995. Sure, the line-up has changed, but Aborted’s take-noprisoners style of death-grind music hasn’t wavered. Their latest album, The Necrotic Manifesto, was released this year. They’re currently on tour and will be playing Regina next week. Tickets available through ticketedge.ca.

Ask someone to list the top five Canadian songwriters of all-time, and invariably you’ll see Gordon Lightfoot’s name on that list. He’s right up there with Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Paul Anka or Stan Rodgers. Lightfoot is the kind of songwriter who has had his songs recorded by the likes of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Barbra Streisand. But the man from Orillia is more than just a writer. He’s also an internationally acclaimed folk musician, a multiplatinum selling artist, a companion of the Order of Canada, and one of our nation’s living treasures. He’s coming to Regina in November, so you might want to get your tickets early; they’re available through ticketbreak.com.

– By Adam Hawboldt

Photos courtesy of: the artist/ angry music/ the artist

Sask music Preview Calling all interested parties: the application deadline for the Regina Mayor’s Arts & Business Awards is April 7! The Mayor’s Arts & Business Awards (MABA) celebrates Regina artists, arts organizations and volunteers who contribute to the creative and cultural fabric of the city. The Award recognizes the many ways that Regina businesses support local artists and arts organizations. Nominating an individual or organization for a MABA requires that a completed, signed application form and all relevant support materials be submitted to the MABA Selection Committee.

For more information visit: www.mayorsartsandbusinessawards.ca.

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march 28 » april 5 The most complete live music listings for Regina.

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The Venus Extraction / The Club — With Iron Bison and Daniel Besuijen.

8pm / $5 John McDermott / Conexus Arts Centre — An internationally acclaimed singer/songwriter. 7:30pm / $47.50 DJ Dallas / Eldorado Country Rock Bar — Regina’s number one party DJ! 9pm / $5, no cover for ladies before 11pm Tim Romanson / Eldorado Country Rock Bar — With Cattle Drive, come on down and rock! 9pm / 5, no cover for ladies before 11pm Room 333 / The Exchange — A local band play hard rock with a dark edge.

7:30pm / Cover TBD DJ Pat & DJ Kim / Habano’s Martini & Cocktail Club — Local DJs spin top 40 hits every Friday night that are sure to get you on the dance floor. 9pm / $5 cover Big Chill Fridays / Lancaster Taphouse — Come out and get your weekend started with DJ Fatbot, who’ll be doing his spinning thing every Friday night.

10pm / Cover TBD F.O.G.D.O.G. / McNally’s Tavern — Break out your tracksuits and get ready to party. 10pm / $5 The Valentinos / Pump Roadhouse — A Winnipeg-based party band. 9pm / Cover TBD Albert / Pure Ultra Lounge — Appearing every Friday night, come listen to

Albert as he does his spinning thing.

10pm / $5 cover DJ Longhorn / Whiskey Saloon — Come check out one of Regina’s most interactive DJs as he drops some of the best country beats around. 8pm / Cover TBD JJ Voss / Whiskey Saloon — Some rock and alt country. 9pm / Cover TBD MYLA & The Fix / YQR Nite Club — Playing RnB, jazz pop and rock. With 2Beats & A Hat. 10pm / Cover TBD

With Demian, Dreadbeat, Kataclysm + Krooked King. 9pm / $15+

Sunday 30

Against Me! / The Exchange — Punk rock from Florida. 8pm / $25

Monday 31

Open Mic Night / The Artful Dodger — Come on down and get your jam on!

8pm / No cover Monday Night Jazz / Bushwakker Brewpub — Featuring Uptown Jazz.

8pm / No cover Old Time Dance Party / Casino Regina — Featuring Len Gadica. 6:30pm / $10 (ticketbreak.com)

Saturday 29

Beat Gallery / Artful Dodger — With Flatland Funk. 8pm / Cover TBD DJ Dallas / Eldorado Country Rock Bar — Regina’s number one party DJ! 9pm / $5 Tim Romanson / Eldorado Country Rock Bar — With Cattle Drive, come on down and rock! 9pm / $5 March Metal 3 / The Exchange — Featuring League of One, Bloodline, Magnetic and Memorial. 8pm / Cover TBD Dr. Bird and Bluebeat / Lancaster Taphouse — Covering classic reggae tunes and some originals. 9pm / Cover TBD F.O.G.D.O.G. / McNally’s Tavern — Break out your tracksuits and get ready to party. 10pm / $5 MYLA / Mercury — With 2Beats & a Hat. 10pm / $5+ The Valentinos / Pump Roadhouse — A Winnipeg-based party band. 9pm / Cover TBD Wafflehouse / Pure Ultra Lounge — Doing what he does best, every Saturday night. 10pm / $5 cover Milkman’s Sons / Western Pizza (Glencairn Mall) — Playing classic and modern rock. 9pm / No cover JJ Voss / Whiskey Saloon — Some rock and alt country. 9pm / Cover TBD Freddy Todd / YQR Nite Club — Detroit-based DJ will be bringing his sick beats to Regina for the first time.

Tuesday 1

Mandy Ebel / Bocados — Performing and hosting the open mic! 8pm / No cover Animal Nation / O’Hanlon’s — Innovative hip hop from Whistler, B.C. 9pm / Cover TBD DJ night / Q Nightclub + Lounge — DJs Snakeboots and Code E play bass heavy breakbeats. 9:30pm / No cover

Wednesday 2

Gord Arnold / King’s Head Tavern — Live rock and blues. 8pm / No cover WayBack Wednesday / McNally’s Tavern — Featuring Leather Cobra. 9:30pm / No cover Bend Sinister / O’Hanlon’s — Progressive indie band from Vancouver. 9pm / Cover TBD

Thursday 3

2 Beats & A Hat / Artful Dodger — Presented by DJ Verbal & E-Major, come enjoy two DJs with guest performances the first Thursday of every month. 7pm / $5 in advance or at the door Decibel Frequency / Gabbo’s Nightclub — A night of electronic fun. 10pm / Cover $5

PS Fresh / The Hookah Lounge — DJ Ageless started spinning in Montreal, DJ Drewski started in Saskatoon. They both landed in Regina and have come together to sling some bomb beats. 7pm / No cover Open Mic Night / King’s Head Tavern — Come out, play some tunes, sing some songs, and show Regina what you got. 8pm / No cover Queen City Rocks Runoff #5 / The Exchange — The best local bands Regina has to offer. 7pm / $10 Pick Pocket / McNally’s Tavern — With Mother Night. 9pm / $5/$10 Pop the Trunk / Pump Roadhouse — Rad live tune! 9pm / Cover TBD DJ Longhorn / Whiskey Saloon — Come check out one of Regina’s most interactive DJs as he drops some of the best country beats around. 8pm / Cover TBD

Friday 4

DJ Dallas / Eldorado Country Rock Bar — Regina’s number one party DJ! 9pm / $5, no cover for ladies before 11pm FPG, Generator, Gutless, Astronaut Taylor / The Club — A night of hardcore, thrash and grunge. 7pm / $10 Devoid of Light 2014 / The Exchange — Featuring Nachtterror, Wilt + more.

9pm / $5+ DJ Pat & DJ Kim / Habano’s Martini & Cocktail Club — Local DJs spin top 40 hits every Friday night that are sure to get you on the dance floor. 9pm / $5 cover Big Chill Fridays / Lancaster Taphouse — Come out and get your weekend started with DJ Fatbot, who’ll be doing his spinning thing every Friday night.

10pm / Cover TBD Slow Motion Walter / McNally’s Tavern — Rockin’ party band with classic and current tunes. 10pm / $5 Pop the Trunk / Pump Roadhouse — Rad live tune! 9pm / Cover TBD

Albert / Pure Ultra Lounge — Appearing every Friday night, come listen to Albert as he does his spinning thing.

10pm / $5 cover DJ Longhorn / Whiskey Saloon — Come check out one of Regina’s most interactive DJs as he drops some of the best country beats around. 8pm / Cover TBD Cory Brown / Whiskey Saloon — A rocking country recording artist. 9pm / Cover TBD

Saturday 5

RSO Mosaic Masterworks Presents: Across the Border — The best of America’s best composers.

8pm / $66.15+ (mytickets.reginasymphony.com) DJ Dallas / Eldorado Country Rock Bar — Regina’s number one party DJ! ppm / $5 Tyler Gilbert w/Dustin Ritter / Lancaster Taphouse — Two local acoustic solo acts. 9pm / Cover TBD Slow Motion Walter / McNally’s Tavern — Rockin’ party band with classic and current tunes. 10pm / $5 Pop the Trunk / Pump Roadhouse — Rad live tune! 9pm / Cover TBD Wafflehouse / Pure Ultra Lounge — Doing what he does best, every Saturday night. 10pm / $5 cover Cory Brown / Whiskey Saloon — A rocking country recording artist. 9pm / Cover TBD Electric Kitten / YQR Nite Club — With a special mystery DJ. 9:30pm / $10+

Get listed Have a live show you'd like to promote? Let us know! layout@verbnews.com

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saturday, March 22 @

cade style lounge

Cade Style Lounge 4035 Albert Street (306) 789 2233

Check out our Facebook page!

These photos will be uploaded to Facebook on Friday, April 4. facebook.com/verbregina

Photography by Marc Messett

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New spin on an age-old tale

Photo: Courtesy of paramount pictures

Darren Aronofsky’s Noah a deep, complex spectacle to behold by adam hawboldt

I

f you go into Darren Aronofsky’s Noah expecting a straight-from-the-text biblical story like, say, the recent movie Son of God, you’re going to be surprised.

Really surprised.

Because what Aronofsky has crafted here is a wildly imaginative, mind-bogglingly ambitious retelling of the story of Noah and the ark. A retelling that will please some and outrage others. A retelling that results in a movie that is unmistakably Aronofsky-esque.

But more on that in a second.

For the time being, let’s assume that most of you know that story of Noah. You know how God (or The Creator, as he’s called in this film) becomes fed up with the wickedness of his creation and decides to send a flood to wipe out humanity.

You know that a 600-year-old good guy named Noah (who doesn’t look

But in the hands of the incomparable Aronofsky, this story becomes anything but a fairy tale. It becomes a dark, complex metaphysical meditation on the nature of man, faith and — like so many other Aronofsky films — an examination of one man’s journey deeper and deeper into his obsession.

Oh, and there are kickass battle scenes and a boat-load of CGI awesomeness as well.

As Noah opens, we see a world on the brink of collapse. Adam and Eve have been banished from the Garden of Eden. Cain has murdered Abel. The descendants of Cain have ravaged the Earth, building cities and exploiting resources. The descendants of Seth (the other son of Adam and Eve that people tend to forget about) live in peace and harmony. Or at least they try to. See, it’s hard to live a peaceful, righteous life when the line of Cain roams the wastelands of Earth ma-

a day over 50 in this film) builds a giant ark and saves a male and female member from every species of animal on Earth.

You know that Noah and his family, along with the animals, sur-

…Aronofsky creates a Noah character unlike any you’ve ever … imagined.

Adam Hawboldt

vive the flood and are encouraged to rebuild the world anew.

That’s the bare-bones gist of the Noah story — a story that reads like a childhood fairy tale and a morality lesson all at once.

rauding and murdering anyone who crosses their path. So hard, in fact, that Noah (Russell Crowe) is the last living person in the line of Seth.

The last righteous man on Earth.

Eventually The Creator visits Noah in a dream, warns him of the flood, and instructs him to construct an ark.

Which he does, with the help of some giant fallen angels who trod the Earth at that time.

What happens after that is expected and unexpected at the same time. Yes, all the traditional story elements come into play. The ark is built, the animals pile on, the dove flies in with an olive branch in its beak. But it’s what happens in between all this that makes Noah so fascinating and new and bewildering.

Not to give too much of the movie away, but Aronofsky creates a Noah character unlike any you’ve ever seen or even imagined. The kind of Noah who might very well offend purists.

noah Darren Aronofsky Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone + Emma Watson Directed by Starring

139 minutes | PG

Remember how Jesus was portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ? Remember the reaction to that film? Well, Noah is kind of like that. But completely different — if that makes any sense.

And like the Scorsese film, Aronofsky’s Noah is well worth a watch.

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Grand and masterful

Kar Wai Wong’s new kung fu flick, The Grandmaster, lives up to its name by adam hawboldt

Photo: Courtesy of bona film group

E

verybody knows Bruce Lee. He was a martial artist, a film star, the founder of Jeet Kune Do. He was a global icon and arguably one of the most influential martial artists of all time.

Yes, everybody knows Bruce Lee. But do you know the man who taught him? Probably not.

The guy who trained Bruce Lee’s name was Ip Man. And in Kar Wai Wong’s new film The Grandmaster, we meet the man behind the legend. A man who was a legend in his own right.

Ip Man’s story begins during a rainstorm. He stands in a dark alley, wearing a white-brimmed hat, being attacked by dozens of street fighters. They come at him with reckless, relentless abandon. Bodies fly, punches and kicks are thrown.

And through it all, there’s Ip Man (played by Tony Leung) — cool as

a cucumber — taking names and kicking copious amounts of ass.

Choreographed by the ever-awesome Yuen Woo-Ping (The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), the brawl unfolds in wave after wave of beautiful, breathtaking chaos.

scenes are luscious and violent and flat-out amazing. But there’s more to this movie than just jaw-dropping kung fu fight sequences. A lot more.

Unlike other films in the genre, which focus on pitting good against evil and leading its protagonist along a

The fight scenes are luscious and violent and flat-out amazing.

Adam Hawboldt

And for a moment you may catch yourself saying, “Wow! This is going to be a chopsocky movie for the ages.”

Say that to yourself, and you’d be right — but not for the reasons you may think.

See, The Grandmaster is indeed a terrific martial arts movie. The fight

path to a final showdown, The Grandmaster uses its main character, Ip Man, to tell the story of China’s past and the artistic history of martial arts.

The film begins in the 1930s, just before the Japanese invade China.

Back then Ip Man’s Wing Chun style of fighting had allowed him to be-

come the most respected (and feared) fighter in southern China. From there The Grandmaster follows Ip Man through his years in Foshan, through the second Sino-Japanese War, the loss of his family, and his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong.

To help out viewers, the chapters of his life and of Chinese history are marked in the film with title cards.

These explain the year, the change of setting, and the characters involved.

To tell you any more of what happens would totally take the piss out of a movie that, if you’re a fan of kung fu flicks, you should definitely see.

That’s not to say The Grandmaster is perfect. The narrative is a tad disjointed (mainly because nearly half an hour was cut for its North American release) so some parts of the movie come off as stilted — but not stilted enough to ruin the film as a whole. The Grandmaster is a dazzling movie that takes you on a journey through Ip Man’s life, through

the grandmaster Kar Wai Wong Starring Tony Leung, Ziyi Zhang + Chen Chang Directed by

100 minutes | PG

early-to-mid-century China, through the different styles of martial arts that were prevalent in that day and age.

Any way you slice it, The Grandmaster is not your average, run-ofthe-mill chopsocky flick you’re used to seeing.

The Grandmaster will open at Regina Public Library April 4.

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Š Elaine M. Will | blog.E2W-Illustration.com | Check onthebus.webcomic.ws/ for previous editions!

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timeout

crossword canadian criss-cross DOWN

29. Colonnade 32. Last Greek letter 36. Hail to Caesar 37. Of punishment 39. Used up 40. Canadian actor Sparks 41. Farewell remark 42. Addition result 43. Influenza 46. Hydrophobia 49. Stun gun 50. Tests that allow talking 51. Fish related to the cod 52. Your, in the Bible

. Stove part 1 2. Public notices 3. Curling target 4. Magnificent attire 5. A drink made with malt, hops and yeast 6. Climbing vine 7. Rid one’s mind of 8. Backs 9. Venetian blind piece 11. Suit fabric 12. Have to 14. Give audible encouragement to 17. Getting along well together 20. Make naked

21. Become a member 24. Make a decision 26. Physical education 28. Kind of lettuce 29. Spasm of distress 30. Not hidden 31. Phone button 33. Without trying hard 34. Sticks together 35. Charitable donations 38. Relating to aircraft 44. Letters on tires 45. Place for a pig 47. Craftsmanship 48. ‘A Christmas Carol’ exclamation

sudoku answer key

A

B

5 6 1 8 7 2 4 9 3 4 2 8 3 9 6 7 5 1 3 9 7 4 1 5 8 6 2 2 8 6 7 4 9 1 3 5 1 4 5 2 8 3 6 7 9 7 3 9 6 5 1 2 4 8 6 5 3 1 2 7 9 8 4 8 7 2 9 3 4 5 1 6 9 1 4 5 6 8 3 2 7

1. Piece of baseball equipment 4. Surprise attack 8. Ranch guests 10. Canadian figure skater Stojko 12. Tiny piece of food 13. Hot spring 15. Vase with a pedestal 16. Cry of discovery 18. In favour of 19. Compass heading 20. Hard and dry, as bread 22. The self 23. Fortuneteller’s card 25. Long curl of hair 27. First in importance

4 9 7 2 5 6 3 8 1 6 5 3 7 1 8 2 4 9 2 8 1 4 9 3 5 6 7 9 6 2 3 4 5 1 7 8 5 7 4 9 8 1 6 3 2 1 3 8 6 7 2 4 9 5 8 2 6 5 3 9 7 1 4 7 1 5 8 6 4 9 2 3 3 4 9 1 2 7 8 5 6

ACROSS

© walter D. Feener 2014

Horoscopes March 28 – April 3 Aries March 21–April 19

Leo July 23–August 22

Sagittarius November 23–December 21

Things may move a little slower than you want them to in the coming days, Aries. Try to be patient. It will all work out in the end.

You’ve been slacking a little bit lately, Leo. It’s high time to pull up your socks and put your nose back to the grindstone.

If something is bothering you, Sagittarius, don’t let it weigh you down. Find something that will distract you from it.

Taurus April 20–May 20

Virgo August 23–September 22

Capricorn December 22–January 19

Communication won’t be your strong suit this week, Taurus. Do your best to keep a level head and get your point across.

If you get an invitation to a social event this week, don’t pass it up, Virgo. Things may happen there that will change your life.

Everybody has errands to run, Capricorn. But if you have any this week, put them off and focus on more important things.

Gemini May 21–June 20

Libra September 23–October 23

Aquarius January 20–February 19

Don’t you just hate delays, Gemini? Well, this week will be full of them, and they’ll be beyond your control. Try not to get too frustrated.

Have you been burning the clichéd candle at both ends lately, Libra? If so, take this week to rest. It’s important to recharge your batteries.

Your mind may not be firing on all cylinders in the coming days, Aquarius. Don’t get discouraged. Things will improve by week’s end.

Cancer June 21–July 22

Scorpio October 24–November 22

Pisces February 20–March 20

If you’ve been thinking about taking a trip lately, this isn’t the day to make plans. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

A much-anticipated visit from a good friend or family member may have to be postponed this week, Scorpio.

Keep a stiff upper lip.

If you’re upset with a friend or co-worker, it’s best to let things slide for now. In a few days the matter will resolve itself.

sudoku 7 5 6 3 8 5 9 2 1 4 3 5 6 2 1 8 5 4 9 8 3 6 7 9 2 7 1 6 4 2 3 4 9 1 7 8

crossword answer key

A

5 1 8 7 9 2 3 9 7 3 6 2 8 7 4 1 5 1 4 7 3 6 5 4 5 1 2 9 8 8 3 6 9 4 6 2

B

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