REVIEW: Taj Express a bombastic bonafide Bollywood bonanza!
Last year, India’s Bollywood film industry sold more tickets than Hollywood. The plots of these films are as thin as a Bombay fakir but are tricked out in massive production numbers featuring a combination of traditional and modern elements. The films tend not to take themselves seriously, are self-aware, funny, bright and entertaining. Because of […]
REVIEW: Silent Sky Showcases Struggles of the Sisters of Science
They even have a name for it. It’s called the “Matilda Effect” – coined in 2013 in a report stating that scientific research papers by men were regarded as stronger than those by women. The long, sad story of women in science who were ignored, had their findings stolen by others (physicist Lise Meitner) or […]
COMIC Q&A: Tri-lingual Sugar Sammy focuses on writing
Sugar Sammy is from the right place at the right time: Montreal, home of the famed Just for Laughs Festival – a great place to hone his act, which was originally based on his experience as an English-speaking Indo-Canadian going to a French school. What could go wrong? Nothing! Now he’s one of Canada’s only […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Elton John Crocodile Rockin’ in Edmonton
In 1973, it was still OK to leave 10-year-olds in the car by themselves as the adults went to the grocery store or whatever – so one day I was alone in the car and had the radio on for amusement. Until that moment, music was just a thing in the environment I never thought […]
REVIEW: Ditzy old Lemoine sparkles with fresh cast
Playwright Stewart Lemoine writes in many genres. He has penned funny plays that say something about human relationships, and funny plays that have nothing but entertaining us on their ditzy little minds, plus everything in between. Vidalia, an older work last seen here in 2002 and remounted at the Varscona Theatre until Oct. 12, squarely […]
REVIEW: The Color Purple gets superb treatment it deserves at the Citadel
When I first saw the Broadway production of The Color Purple adapted from Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning best seller, I was unimpressed. As is often the way with Broadway, when they get their hands on an intimate story they produce the living daylights out of it. Walker’s tale is certainly a decade-spanning epic but […]
REVIEW: Boatload of blarney, great music in new Newfoundland musical
With the astounding success of Come From Away – a musical about Newfoundlanders who took care of stranded travelers after 9-11 – it was just a question of time before another Newfoundland musical should heave into sight. The new work, with its sights set on Broadway (say the producers), has settled in for a four […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Rocketman’s farewell hottest ticket in Edmonton
Sir Elton John rolls into town this weekend in the midst of his three-year, 300-plus date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. At Rogers Place for a two-nighter Friday and Saturday, the legendary Rocketman had a slew of successive hit singles in the 1970s and 1980s, including Crocodile Rock, Daniel, Pinball Wizard, Don’t Go Breaking My […]
OLD MAN MIKULA’S CONTROVERSIAL OPINIONS: 5 Ways to Autumn in Edmonton
Autumn is a bittersweet time in Edmonton. Our hazy smoke-filled summers are fleeting, and it can be difficult to come to terms with the fact that the solar terminator has been perpendicular to the equator resulting in the Northern and Southern hemispheres being equally illuminated, and it is now fall. Denim legs are sewn onto […]
5 Tips to get your Nerd On at the Edmonton Expo
If I can offer the No. 1 piece of advice for the first-time visitors to the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo this weekend, it would be this: Don’t drive. There’s construction all along Wayne Gretzky Drive. Take the LRT. It stops close to the ticketing entrance at the Northlands Expo and you don’t have to […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Ghost brings Swedish spookypop to Edmonton on Death tour
For a band few people have ever heard of to suddenly appear in Edmonton’s biggest indoor concert venue is worth noting. The band Ghost plays Monday, Sept. 23 at Rogers Place. It’s a smaller-sized concert bowl, but still. Several thousand fans who already know this theatrical Swedish hard rock band are expected to turn up […]
LISTEN HERE: The Royal Foundry wants to WAKEUP from bad dream
EXCLUSIVE! Hear Edmonton band’s new single several hours before release! The counterintuitive trick about empathy and validation is that you do NOT want to comfort someone with the old tropes: “Don’t worry about it! Everything’s going to be fine! You can do this! Believe in yourself!” – because then you’re dismissing the feeling. Sometimes everything […]
