Kevin Smith interview

I may have gotten the exclusive Kevin Smith interview for his Vancouver show tomorrow evening, and it was such an interesting conversation, I've decided to include the entire transcription of our interview below.

Kevin Smith Interview Transcription: The Director's Cut

By Andrea Warner

He describes himself as a “fat little douchebag from New Jersey,” but to his legions of fanboys (they almost always are male), writer-director Kevin Smith is the voice of a generational apex of intellectuals, miscreants, stoners, comic-book geeks, and romantics. Vancouverites have a chance to get up-close and personal with Smith when he descends upon the city for one of his epic Q&A evenings — his first here since his notorious four-hours-plus Q&A at the Vogue in 2006, for which he still feels “ashamed,” but more on that later.

Smith’s professional history is littered with happy accidents, and he’s the first to admit how lucky he’s been. The 38-year-old Vancouver Film School dropout inadvertently founded the indie-slacker film genre with his 1994 cult classic, Clerks (which he wrote and directed), heralding the cinematic dawn of the potty-mouthed existentialist. It’s a style that has continued to populate his movies, almost all of which take place in the ‘View Askewniverse,’ a bubble of Smith’s own making (named after his View Askew production company) resides in his native New Jersey. It’s a testament to his DIY ethic and savvy self-promotion: The View Askewniverse has spawned a website, an active fan forum, and a hugely popular podcast.

Now, Smith is readying to step outside his comfort zone. He left his longtime partnership with the Weinstein Company last year, and is set to direct a big-budget movie (one he didn’t write himself) starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan — although its title, A Couple of Dicks, proves he’s not about to completely abandon his old ways.

WE caught up with Smith over the phone from — where else? — New Jersey.

THE SMODCAST

WE: You seem to have an awesome time doing your podcast.

Kevin Smith: I love doing it. It's funny, it's kind of interesting. I like doing it with Mose (Scott Mosier, his Coquitlam-born producing partner) and the various people who cycle in and out. It's taken the place of writing for me--well, writing blogs at least.

WE: Typing everything out just gives you carpal tunnel.

KS: There's that. And it's just, I don't know, there's something novel and yet not novel, because there's something time-honoured about sitting around some microphones...

WE: The internet gives you way more opportunity.

KS: You can basically find people who enjoy it. Can you imagine if we were doing it and we were the only two who knew about it, or a couple of friends at school. The internet allows you to put it out there for a bunch of people to find. And, when they do they hopefully pass on to someone else. Man, the pass-on rate on that podcast is pretty sweet in terms of the recommendations. You're always hearing about it from somebody who's friend told them about it. And, I think Scott Mosier's pretty funny. It gives me a chance to showcase some people I think are very funny.

WE: I think people get the chance to feel like they're getting to know you really intimately.

KS: Oh, God, yeah, there's that for sure. (Laughs)

WE: I remember particularly listening to the one your daughter co-hosted with you for Father's day.

KS: That was fun, but some people didn't like that. They were like, 'I'm glad you like your daughter, but that was fuckin' boring for me.' And you're like, it's a free podcast, dude. I did it with my kid. Are you really going to tell me that I wasted my time? That's the thing that kills you, you know, people who have tips and notes for you about how to improve the podcast and what you're doing wrong. And you're like, it's fuckin' free, dude.

WE: And, I mean, you can just turn it off.

KS: I caught some shit fairly recently with the podcasts because I've started doing them while smokin' weed. Boy, some cats got outta sorts about that. And there were all sorts of discussion about "Who's funnier? Stoned Kev or non-stoned Kev?" and you know, oh my God, it's the same fuckin' ramblings. It always sounded like I was stoned before, now I just am. So, that's been kind of interesting, watching people draw lines about that.

WE: People who like your stuff--are they really going to have their panties in a knot about weed?

KS: Well, that's the thing. Some cats yes, some no. That's from the same thread on the website, someone quickly pointed out, y'all are on the website of the guy who created Jay and Silent Bob, you remember that, right? But, that's always been the kind of interesting thing about the stuff we do. Some people kind of see it as Jay and Silent Bob and that's where it begins and ends, and that's fine, but those are the folks who see the shit we do as kind of intellectual and just masquerade as low-brow humour, and those are the kind of cats who get mad when people dismiss the fans as stoners, because they're like, 'I'm not a stoner' and then they object to my being stoned on the podcast, because they're like, 'fuck, now they're right, I do like a stoner.' It's a tricky wire sometimes, but ultimately I always fall down on the side of 'hey man, as long as I'm not charging for it, what do you care?' (Laughs) The SModcast is my favourite thing to do right now--actually, my favourite thing to do in the world, hands down, having sex with my wife. Second favourite thing is Smodcast. Third favourite thing is what I'm coming to Vancouver to do, the Q&A.

WE: We're really excited about it.

Q&A=MASTURBATION

KS: Did you like that segue? Pretty sweet, huh? Been doing this a long time.

WE: Very nice. Why do you like doing the Q&As?

KS: This year I just had a slew of Canadian Q&As. Before Zack and Miri came out, it was Calgary and Edmonton, and then way after that, in February, it was Toronto for two nights at the Roy Thompson Hall. And then I did three nights at the Bloor where they were showing all the View Askew films. And, I haven't done a Vancouver Q&A since I was out there shooting Catch and Release in 2006. That was my lowest moment in a Q&A.

WE: Really? What happened?

KS: They were a great audience but low for me in that I was so ashamed. I had had some wicked Mongolian BBQ on Broadway and Cambie, fantastic stuff, but man, does it make you fucking gassy. It's the only time in my life that I've had to fart and had a fucking microphone in my hand, and so I totally rocked the mic and blew a fart, and it was so base and immature, but kinda fun at the same time, but boy there was some backlash. There were some cats who came to the website who were like, 'I didn't pay $50 to hear some fat dude fart in a microphone.' And, yeah, but that wasn't the only thing I did for fuckin' four hours. It was a little more substantial than that, but you can't please everyone, and I don't care, doin' Q&As are more masturbatory than anything else for me. It's not very hard when people are like, hey man, tell us about your stupid fucking life and you're like, "All right." It's very flattering and I always enjoy it, more so than the audience, and that's saying something because the audiences really seem to fuckin' enjoy it. A common compliment I've received is, 'Man, I haven't liked the last five movies you've done, but the Q&A is fantastic.' And you're like, "thank you, I think."

WE: Well, whoever the jackasses were with the "Oh, the fart ruined it all"...

KS: (Laughs) Oh, the fart ruined it all. I haven't thought about it in so long, I'm gettin' depressed all over again.

WE: I know that the Saturday night following your show, the Rio is doing a back-to-back midnight screening of Clerks and Clerks II.

KS: If I'm still in town I'll be there. Unfortunately I'm in the throes of pre-production on this movie I'm shooting in New York, but if I can stay one more night then I'm totally going to those.

ALL ABOUT THE DICKS

WE: You're doing pre-production on A Couple Of Cops, right?

KS: Yes.

WE: I like the original title A Couple of Dicks better.

KS: That's what the title is! It's weird, the title is A Couple Of Dicks, and I'm just so used to saying A Couple Of Cops. Dicks is way better. When they announced it in Variety for some reason--we had been tossing around a couple of different titles, but all of us involved like this title and we were going forward with it, and when it got reported they used Cops. But it's Dicks, trust me, it's Dicks. I talked to the head of the studio the next day and was like, "Are we Cops or Dicks?" And he was like, 'Well you're a dick, but the movie is Dicks.'

WE: Did you seek out a studio, or did they come after you?

KS: In a weird way they sought me out. I met with so many studio cats after Zack and Miri, the message became very clear that up until then they didn't think I could make a movie and now they think I can, so come work here.

WE: Was it the nicer lighting or...

KS: I guess they feel like all right, he's firing on all cylinders. And, for the first time I'd just gone free agent and what not. For years and years I'd been with Miramax or the Weinstein Company, and after Zack and Miri it was the first time where I was like you know what, I'm not going to have an over-all deal, I just want to change it up. And, for years and years I said I'm not going to direct somebody else's script, I'm just not that guy, not talented like that, and now I'm doing a 180 on that. That's kind of what that wandering affords you. You sit there going, 'Well, this is something I wouldn't normally do, but maybe I'll give it a shot.' And maybe that comes with age as well, in terms of like, you know, I'm 38, and I don't live very healthily, so some part of me is like, I'm probably going to die early, so I might as well do shit I enjoy now.

WE: And, it gives you a chance to try something outside your comfort zone.

KS: Totally! And, here's the thing: I know I can make a Kevin Smith movie. I've been doin' it for years. I don't know that I can do this, so let's try it. If it sucks, all right, I can go back and make a Kevin Smith movie.

WE: Will the script get the Kevin Smith treatment?

KS: Honestly, the script is so fucking good, it doesn't need it. I was attracted to the material by how familiar it was, the great dialogue between characters. The Cullen brothers wrote some wonderful back and forth and created a very real relationship between these two characters. It's a buddy-cop movie that I havne't seen in a long time. It's not like two guys meeting for the first time, we just hang out with them on one adventure. It reminds me of Freebie and the Bean from the 70s.

WE: And, Bruce Willis is actually pretty funny.

KS: Yeah! Bruce Willis was David Addison, and I grew up watching him on Moonlighting when I was a kid. I was a huge Moonlighting fan, and never dreamed in a million years that I'd work with him, and I did act with him in a film a few years back, and I never dreamed I'd direct him. I'm tellin' you, everyday I think, and it's such a weird life, 'wow, i didn't dream that either!' Every day great things happen.

WE: I had totally forgotten you were in Die Hard IV until I found that clip of you interviewing Bruce Willis on the set. Are you scared about directing him?

KS: He's a livin' legend, you know what I'm sayin'? He's one of the only true movie stars out there in the world. He's a guy like Nicholson, he had to give up being 'Bruce Willis' years ago so he could be Bruce Willis, you know? I think it's always interesting interacting with icons like that. Stan Lee is one of those guys. Johnny Rotten, I had him over to my house for a poetry reading once, he's one of those guys. Traci Lords even. People who are huge pop cultural icons who long ago had to accept the fact they couldn't be themselves anymore because they belonged to the world. And, it's kinda fun, because when you get to really meet a person, when you feel like you're getting to know them in a way the rest of the world hasn't, it's really satisfying.

RED STATE, BATMAN, AND WHAT WENT WRONG WITH ZACK AND MIRI

WE: You've talked a little bit about Red State (Smith's much talked-about black comedy/horror script). Is it going to be your unfulfilled dream?

KS: No, man, we're gonna get to it after A Couple of Dicks. It's been tough to pull the financing together for it, you know, we're living in pretty harsh economic times, and this movie is not very commercial on the surface, so I can completely understand why it's tough to find cash for it. Hopefully while I'm off making the Warner Bros flick and the economy gets a little better we find an investor and then boom, we're off. The only thing holding that flick up is the cash. We're just starting to put the cast together. See if that helps at all.

WE: I guess a big name could help attract an influx of cash.

KS: Yeah, there's that, but I doubt we'll get a big name. I'm not looking for celebrity as much as I'm looking for a hardcore actor, 'cause it's kind of a juicy part.

WE: Who would be your dream for that role?

KS: Can't say yet, 'cause I'm going after him right now. (Laughs)

WE: All right, fair enough. I wanted to ask you a little bit about why you got back in to writing comics?

KS: I'd been away for a long time, and I guess there was a lot of Batman in the air, and my friend Walter Flanagan had been drawing some independent comic books with my other friend Wayne Johnson, and back in the day Walt and I had always talked about "Wouldn't it be great to do a comic book? You could write it and I could draw it and blah, blah, blah." And then my film career took off, so I was like, you know what? I'm in a position where I can call up DC and be like, "Can I do a miniseries for you that my friend can draw?" and they'll say yes or no right away. And it was so fuckin' satisfying you know. I was working really closely with a guy who got me back in to comics years ago, a dude who knows a lot about the medium, has the same reference points about things we like about the same comic books. It was a fantastic symbiotic relationship. And the great thing for me is that we both got so much better over the three issues. There were quite a few reviews that were like, 'some of these things don't sound like they could be said by a human being' or don't sound very natural, and I was like, 'hey man, he's right.' I went back, read some of my dialogue out loud, and I was like, all right, I was excited, let myself get carried away, I've never written Batman before. It was kinda cool, 'cause I got involved and stayed the fuck involved. And with Walt it's really satisfying because it was truly, literally a dream for him to draw Batman. And not one of those things, like I'm gonna work for that dream, but a dream like I always dream about the power of flight. You look at his art in issue one and then the art in issue three and it's a vast improvement, and then almost the same with the dialogue, too. And it informed this new thing we're working on together that we don't announce 'til July. This miniseries was prelude to what we're working on...sort of our Masterwork.

WE: I wanted to talk a little about Zack and Miri. I know you've said it should have been marketed differently. How should it have gone?

KS: It's so tough to say. Ultimately, I probably hurt the movie most by calling it Porno. That clearly hurt, there's no two ways about it in retrospect. I remember at Sundance there was a movie with similar subject matter called Hump Day, and I remember thinking, 'Fuck! I should have called mine Hump Day. What a genius idea.' And, the day it opened, I was like, man, I wish I called it Skin Flick. Fuck! That would have helped everything out. But, who's to say? The marketing campaign never got it figured out. We never knew what we were selling or who we were selling it to. It just kinda happened. I feel like I can't hang it on one person, it's a confluence of events. Everybody acknowledges the fact that we should have done better, but no one can really put their finger on why we didn't...Certainly not the cast. We had a likable cast who turned in great performances. And it turned out to be a really funny flick...but the marketing campaign...It seemed like an easy sell, didn't it?

WE: Well, it stirred up a shit-storm of controversy, so you think that aspect would draw more people to it.

KS: Or just the notion of Seth Rogen in an R-rated comedy. And it's about porn? Fuck, I'm going. So, yeah, it was a disappointing time. And man, I spent like, three months after that in just a fuckin' weed-induced coma just trying to get over it, 'cause I knew we had a hit this time. We were all firing on all cylinders, and the movie could have done double of what it did. People always wanna say the nice thing, like, 'Hey man, that movie shoulda done a lot better,' but that just hurts worse, you know, shut up. (Laughs). Ultimately it wound up being our highest grossing movie, which everyone said it would be. We just thought it would be by a substantial margin, not like, $500,000. More than anything else, once you get past it, you don't do it for the fuckin' box office number, you do it for the longevity. This movie will stand the test of time, and people will like it for years to come. That you gotta be happy with. And, I don't know any other way to be happy because it's a problem I always encounter: my movies top off at 30 (million). Naturally this all sounds like a bit of cognitive reframing, because I'm like, 'Yeah, the best I can hope for is longevity." Maybe Judd Apatow is like, "No, it's not. The best you can hope for is $100 million, which I've had and you haven't" but you know, for me the money comes and goes. It's been 15 years since Clerks came out and teenagers still come up to me, and I'm like you were not even born when this was made, and then suddenly the idea of longevity appeals to you more than anything else. And you hope that they just stand the test of time, like in 10 years people still like it. Because fuck now, you just move on to the next thing. And then it's like, why am I thinking about this shit? Is it 'cause I'm old, 'cause I'm gonna die? It's an existential conversation that usually concludes with me goin' 'Oh, I'm just kinda stoned.' (Laughs). I shouldn't be thinking this much about a bunch of dick and fart joke movies.

Sunshine Cleaning review

My review of Sunshine Cleaning appears in WE this week.

Two stars

By Andrea Warner

An affable but empty comedy, Sunshine Cleaning stars Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, both of whom are seemingly straining for indie cred after their respective big-budget smash hits, Enchanted and The Devil Wears Prada. The duo portray the screwed-up Lorkowski sisters, Rose and Norah, who start an independent crime-scene cleanup business in order to pay for Rose’s son’s private-school tuition.

It’s quickly established — mostly through heavy-handed dialogue and a slow-motion montage — that Rose (Adams) is the older, “responsible” sibling, a single mom who works as a cleaning lady and longs to get her real-estate license. Norah (Blunt), meanwhile, is the unemployable, heavily eye-lined younger sister who still lives at home with their dad, Joe (Alan Arkin), a big dreamer who invariably fails to deliver on his promises.

Adams is thoroughly winning, and nails perfectly the sad-but-still-hopeful traits of a former cheerleader/prom queen who’s resorted to an affair with her married high-school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zhan). Blunt, who is British, struggles with her American accent periodically, but brings a lovely depth to Norah, who still mourns her mother’s death, and flirts with her unexpected feelings for new female friend Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub).

Writer Meghan Holley seems to subscribe firmly to the ‘tell, don’t show’ school of screenwriting, but the actors rise well above the source material despite being forced to bluntly verbalize their relationships or feelings. Sunshine Cleaning is all over the map, desperately wanting to be a heartfelt, quirky comedy in the vein of indie smash Little Miss Sunshine (from the same producers) but coming off as a lacklustre imitation. Unfortunately, the only real similarities they share are confusingly parallel titles, a reliably charming performance by Arkin, and clunky endings.

Great Lake Swimmers

My interview with Great Lake Swimmers appears online at westender.com this week.

Great Lake Swimmers, led by Tony Dekker (left)

Tony Dekker, the whisper-thin singer-songwriter who has been the beating heart and tremulous soul of Great Lake Swimmers for seven years, has plenty of reason to feel celebratory nowadays. The Torontonian has seen his Swimmers swell from solo endeavour to full-fledged band, during which time he has shared the stage with some of Canada’s finest indie musicians, including Final Fantasy and Feist. And now, the Swimmers are about to embark on their first major headlining tour of North America and Europe. Plenty of the Canadian dates have been sold out for weeks, and fans are eagerly anticipating the band’s fourth album, Lost Channels, which comes out next Tuesday (March 31).

Recorded in the heady and historic Thousand Islands region that nestles the borders of Ontario and New York, Lost Channels doesn’t depart greatly from the atmospheric folk-pop gems Dekker is famed for crafting. When it does venture left, it’s to lightly embrace the roots and blues of Dekker’s countrified influences, as evidenced on the twangy guitars of “She Comes to Me in Dreams” or the gently confessional first single, “Pulling on a Line.”

WE spoke with Dekker over the phone, a few days before he hit the road.

You’re headlining your first major tour. Do you feel you’ve achieved a milestone?
Dekker: Sort of. It’s been a slow and steady build for us. It doesn’t really feel over the top or anything. (laughs)

You don’t have to put on dog-and-pony shows in the back room yet.
Exactly. We don’t have fire cannons. Yet.

Do you have a special relationship with Vancouver fans?
Well, definitely the connection to Nettwerk Records, our label. We’ve always been fortunate to play really nice shows in Vancouver, usually at Richard’s. I’ve never played St. James Hall before, but I’ve played in Gastown as well, and back when the Sugar Refinery was open — that was a really great spot.

You have a reputation for recording in unusual locations an abandoned grain silo, for instance. How were you drawn to the Thousand Islands region?
A local historian and photographer got in touch with us after hearing us on Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café radio show. He was really taken by the music, and sort of invited us to come to the region, and when the time came to record the new album, I gave him a call and brainstormed some great spots. It was just a chance meeting, but it turned into a really great connection with the region overall, and for recording and writing.

Was there a particular venue that stood out for you?
Being able to record in the Singer Castle was amazing. It’s just a full-blown turn-of-the-century castle that takes up almost an entire island, and we had to hire a boat captain to get us out there, with all of our gear and instruments. We were able to record in this really cool place with, like, secret passages and everything.

The word atmospheric gets used a lot to describe your music. Is that accurate?
I think so. I think that comes from recording in these places that have a natural reverb in them. It’s almost like the atmosphere of the place becomes another member of the band, you know? More accurately, I think it’s this acoustic space that’s a type of a canvas that all the songs are painted on, so it gives it that extra texture or sound that really adds another layer.

When you’re writing songs, are you looking to create a feeling or more of a story?
For me, it’s always about trying to find a balance between both. I’m trying to become more concise as a writer, but I think there’s a balance between delivering a narrative and a mood.

Was there an artist you wanted to emulate as a kid?
Not really. I was sort of into punk rock then, more so as a genre. My first foray into the world of music was kind of through that. The spirit of [punk] really mobilized people; it mobilized me to pick up a guitar and play. I guess the musicianship was secondary to expressing yourself. I think that’s really stuck with me to what I’m putting out now, definitely the DIY spirit and the energy of the thing.

Blackbird

My review of Blackbird appears in this week's WE.

BLACKBIRD
Scottish playwright David Harrower has often been labelled an exponent of “in-yer-face theatre,” a style of drama that emerged in 1990s Great Britain feature narratives unabashedly crafted to shock. Harrower’s Blackbird, on now at the Vancity Culture Lab at the Cultch (a well-designed and much-needed intimate new venue) easily falls in with this style. The one-act play pits the young, volatile Una (Jennifer Mawhinney) against the middle-aged Peter (Russell Roberts). Over the course of 100 minutes, they pick over the remnants of their ruinous sexual relationship, back when Una was just 12 years old.

Appearing out of the blue at his workplace one day, Una confronts Peter (who, having served his jail time, has changed his name from Ray) about the past. Facing each other for the first time in 15 years, there are land mines aplenty to navigate. Accusations and sad recriminations skim the surface of lingering lust, long-buried secrets, and the inevitable ‘ick’ factor of the incredulous question: Was it misunderstood love, or abuse?

Mawhinney’s characterization of Una seems drawn from a display case of standard damaged-goods affectations: lots of hair-twisting, face-scrunching, and bouts of overt sensuality offset by episodes of childlike naïvete. Mawhinney only shows what she’s capable of when she drops the victim’s-whisper delivery and gives Una the necessary depth to move from Lolita-esque caricature to traumatized, complex young woman.

Roberts’s role is the less showy of the two, and though he makes his contrite Peter somewhat sympathetic, the character’s inherently treacherous nature ensures nothing more than a lukewarm reception from the audience. Unfortunately, this is symptomatic of the entire production: Blackbird should, by its very nature, resonate, but this production ultimately proves relatively forgettable, and a far cry from in-yer-face.

The Real Thing

My review of The Real Thing appears in this week's WE.

Jennifer Lines and Vincent Gale navigate a series of fractured relationships in playwright Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing.

THE REAL THING

Playwright Tom Stoppard’s affection for literature is evident in every carefully crafted word he commits to the page, be it the big-screen hit Shakespeare in Love or the kooky Hamlet coda, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. But the Tony and Academy Award winner proves he’s also a sucker for the seduction of his own hand, refusing to bring an editing eye to his bloated —-but, at times, brilliant — dramedy, The Real Thing.

Making liberal use of the play-within-a-play conceit, The Real Thing tackles the tangled and treacherous relationships between writer Henry (Vincent Gale); his tartly funny actress wife Charlotte (Jennifer Clement, Gale’s real-life wife); her co-star Max (Simon Bradbury); and Max’s own actress wife Annie (Jennifer Lines), who moonlights as a social activist fighting for the rights of imprisoned vandal Brodie (Charlie Gallant).

The first act is promising, if vaguely dispiriting, with high-octane verbal pissing matches that illustrate the familiar decay of a past-its-prime marriage (Henry and Charlotte’s hateful banter), the shallow impulsiveness of lust (Henry and Annie’s affair), and the cuckold’s heartbreak (Max discovering the affair).

The second act flashes forward two years, with Henry and Annie now married, and Annie asking her husband to ghostwrite Brodie’s play. Henry understandably balks, sparking dramatic fights between the two that allow Gale and Lines to gnash at each other beautifully.

Stoppard raises some wonderfully complex questions about love, fidelity and faithlessness, and is at times wickedly astute. But the good bits only account for about 70 per cent of the play. Far less interesting is the extended dialogue between Henry and his 17-year-old libertarian, free-love-enthusiast daughter, Debbie (Julie McIsaac), as well as several interactions between Annie and her young fling, Billy (also played by Charlie Gallant), a substitute for her imprisoned bad boy, Brodie. The performances are strong, the set fantastic, but at two and a half hours, there’s far too much of this Real Thing.

Final Fantasy interview

My interview with Owen Pallett (aka Final Fantasy) appears in the current issue of Naked Eye, on newsstands now!

If He Were a Rich Man

What would indie music geek Final Fantasy do with some free money?

By Andrea Warner

Fans of Owen Pallett think of him as a sweet and salty violin virtuoso who looks 12 and wears his geek-heart on his sleeve. After all, he did name his musical project Final Fantasy after the beloved video game, and his second album, He Poos Clouds, dedicates eight of its 10 songs to the schools of magic in Dungeons & Dragons. But he’s more than the loner kid in his basement rocking out the NES.

Pallett’s musical pedigree dates back to his training in classical piano as a teen, and his ultimate graduation from U of T with a degree in composition. His collaborations are too numerous to dwell on, but one notable mention: he co-wrote the strings arrangements for The Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Neon Bible.

Famous friends aside, Final Fantasy enthusiasts mostly want to give Pallett a hug. His self-deprecating manner shines through in moments both funny and sad at every turn, and almost never more so than during his incredible live shows. Each one is a different sonic experience due to his mixing of violin with his trusty loop pedal. He’s usually modest and shy but endearingly cheeky behind his mic, and the front rows at his concerts, if Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival was any indication, are typically packed with awkwardly thin hipsters aching for a moment or two of eye contact, a joke, or a cute quip.

With all things Luxe in mind, Naked Eye asked Pallet to name his five “Rich Guy” fantasies–a task he was happy to indulge us in until the price got too high.

$1k. New clothes. I used to shop at Buy The Pound in Toronto and wear shawls and tights and flowery sweaters. I once went out with a pomelo skin as a hat. My favourite outfit was my Miami Beach-hoser-fag look. But I'm in my late-twenties now, so $1, 000 is like one or two new outfits. I know that big misshapen nylon items are really hot right now, but I'd probably buy a nice Irish woolen sweater that was a couple of sizes too big for me, and pair it with Rick Owens jeans.

$10k. A trip to Bhutan. Would you think I'd be stupid to take my $10,000 and go to Bhutan? You're like, “They don't have cell phone coverage or internet, just beautiful mountains, woven outfits and agriculture. I mean, couldn't you get the same thing from a trip to Terrace, BC?” Well, you're not alone. When I pulled up photos of Bhutan monasteries on the internet, Patrick (his boyfriend/manager) sighed and said, “Why do white people always want to go to remote places? It must be some ingrained colonialism or something.” He wants to go to Las Vegas.

$100k. Now we're talking. With $100,000 I could buy a Steinway [piano]. I could buy Kevin Shields' guitar rig. I could buy an Ondes Martenot, a Moog modular. I could hire an orchestra for 10 days. But not even the most beautiful instrument will give me a hit single. So I'd hire Kanye West to produce a track for me. Could you imagine if rich assholes, instead of buying up penthouse condos on the Toronto waterfront, would just hire Kanye West to produce tracks for them? Within a year, the charts worldwide would be dominated with number one hits like “Baked At The Drake,” “Sexy Spinning Instructor,” and “It Was The Worst Duck Confit I've Ever Tasted.”

$1m. In Toronto, I live right next to the Aston Martin/Rolls Royce dealership. This morning, as I walked by to get a muffin from Loblaws, in my pre-shower tank top and khaki shorts, I noticed that they'd put up over 100 signs in support of our local Conservative candidate. Seeing as I have $1 million, I have no problem with Conservatives. In fact, I love them. They're the best. But the placement of these signs was overbearing and tasteless. I saw a blue-haired man of luxury inside, trying to sell a Phantom to some asshole. I flipped them the bird as I walked by. What else could I do?

$10m. I'm so far out of my league here. $10 million? Are you serious? I'm happy in my relative squalour, thanks. Money makes you fat. Next time you take a flight, look at all the people sitting in business class. Fat, disgusting people. No spinning class, no tanning bed can fix the weight gain that money causes. I mean, I know this is an issue about luxury, but seriously, come over to my illegal tenement sometime. I'll make you pad thai, we'll play my upright piano and drink Pimm's, we'll watch America’s Next Top Model. And we won't have to worry about any of this shit. Make your next magazine about something important, like inner serenity. Or the occupation of Iraq. Or why all business models are bullshit. Make your next issue about the hundreds (or thousands) of people who have been (or will be) displaced from Vancouver by 2010. Luxe? Gimme a break. Give me $50 and I'll get you your Michelin star.

Bruce McDonald interview

My interview with Bruce McDonald appeared in WE this week. It was such a great time! Hope everyone enjoys it.

Pontypool director Bruce McDonald.

Bruce McDonald dives into Pontypool

It's 9:15 a.m. when Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo, The Tracey Fragments) ambles in to a downtown café. He has a friendly smile underneath his sandy-grey beard, and his trademark Stetson-style hat (this time in black) and jeans make him look like a cross between a cowboy and a biker. He exudes a certain tough-guy cool — something one would expect from a man who has a reputation for making movies that typically feature sex, drugs, and/or rock ’n’ roll in varying combinations.

It’s the 49-year-old director’s second interview of the morning promoting the fantastic new thriller, Pontypool, his first foray into the blood-and-guts horror genre. Based on Tony Burgess’s 1998 novel Pontypool Changes Everything, it centres on a crusty, opinionated morning-show radio host, Grant Mazzy (played by the delightfully grizzled Stephen McHattie), who’s been exiled to the titular small town, broadcasting with his producer and assistant from a church basement. Suddenly, reports start pouring in that some kind of plague is taking over the town, turning people into zombies, and being spread through the English language.

Hard Core Logo, The Tracey Fragments, and now Pontypool — they’re all adaptations from books. Do you have an inclination toward reading something and then wanting to translate those images in your head?

McDonald: Maybe I read a little more than the normal guy. It’s a kick, you know — the heavy lifting is done, in a way. With a book, you don’t just crack it off in a couple months; it’s often years of work and thought... Not all books make great movies, but I do get a satisfaction in passing the torch. I have a great respect for writers — maybe because I wanted to be a writer myself. It also puts you in the unique position of being a one-man “Yay, CanCon!” advocate. And it’s a fairly exuberant “Yay!” because we have some fairly world-class writers. There’s something nice about when you discover there are these gods standing in your backyard.

What was your first reaction to reading Pontypool Changes Everything? Did you immediately want to turn it into something you could texturize?

Well, the book is a strange and mysterious beast; it’s a collage of a lot of different moments organized around the idea of a language virus. That was the thing that really grabbed me. I loved the playfulness of it, and I could see the real terror. Imagine something as familiar as your language turning against you. It reminded me of Hitchcock’s The Birds — something so ordinary, as opposed to the high concept of something from outer space.

There’s a lot to analyze in this film.

That’s why it’s such a good movie to see when you’re high. (laughs)

Almost the entire movie takes place in this underground radio station, in a church basement, and the characters have no visual proof of what’s transpiring outside at first.

Almost like Dr. Strangelove. That’s the whole thing: It was a bit of experiment, in that we thought we could maybe raise the stakes by making our audience cling to our characters. They don’t have the privilege of seeing the director’s cut outside. Just the fact that we stay there with the characters hopefully creates that same sense of unease and, like, What-the-fuck’s-going-on-out-there? feeling.

When you screened it for everyone, did it achieve what you wanted it to?

Making a movie’s kind of an act of will or an act of mass hypnosis, and you’re totally prepared to do it... and you’re like, “Okay, I know I can do this with four actors in a room with my sister’s camera.” So, that was my first imagining of the movie. All the other stuff that happened — the fact that we got Steve McHattie, this great location to shoot it in, that it was photographed so handsomely, that we could afford projectile vomit — we were like, “Holy shit, this is kind of a dream come true.” My original vision was so lame compared to what was actually done by the gang who arrived to do it.

Pontypool film review

My Pontypool review appears online at westender.com

Georgina Riley succumbs to a zombie plague in Pontypool.

PONTYPOOL
Starring Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle
Directed by Bruce McDonald
3 stars (out of 5)

By Andrea Warner

Pontypool, the new horror/thriller/zombie mash-up from indie film auteur Bruce McDonald, is a remarkably intelligent, funny, and unsettling addition to the CanCon cannon.

For the viewer, it's total immersion from the opening credits: a simple but effective voiceover, eerily reminiscent of the great Vincent Price, menacingly foreshadowing the ripple effect of big events. The voice belongs to Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie), a disgraced DJ who's been exiled from the big city to small-town Pontypool, Ontario, where he broadcasts his neutered morning show from a church basement. Extra-grizzled and opinionated, Mazzy likes to stir up shit on the air, much to the consternation of straight-laced producer Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle, McHattie's real-life wife). In between Mazzy's rants, birthday announcements, and traffic updates, a frantic reporter calls in to say people are turning into zombie-like creatures.

McDonald chooses to build up the tension by having the majority of the horrors take place off-screen. Trapped in the basement with Mazzy and his crew, the audience is effectively held hostage as well. Unfortunately, screenwriter Tony Burgess (also the author of the book Pontypool Changes Everything, on which the movie is based) falls victim to the commonly held notion that audiences need the gift of a neat and clean solution tied up in a big ol' bow. As a result, Pontypool stumbles just short of the finish line, and rapidly devolves into sentimentality. Forgo the last 15 minutes, and Pontypool is the rarest of Canadian indie gems: quirky without being silly, intelligent but never elitist, and pretty damn scary.

Toronto, Mississippi

My review of Toronto, Mississippi appeared online at westender.com last week.

Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe in Playhouse's production of Toronto, Mississippi

TORONTO, MISSISSIPPI

By Andrea Warner

Vancouver-born playwright Joan MacLeod, who has nine plays and a Governor General’s Award to her credit, has lived, taught, and toiled from Toronto to Victoria. It’s no surprise, then, that Toronto, Mississippi, proves to be a tender and tasty slice of Canadiana.

Thankfully, there’s no maple syrup or hockey sticks to be found here — just a story about Jhana (Meg Roe), a mentally challenged 18-year-old attempting to navigate adolescence and impending adulthood. Jhana lives at home with her tightly-wound mother, Maddie (Colleen Wheeler), and their poet boarder, Bill (Alessandro Juliani). When King (William MacDonald) — Jhana’s father, a professional Elvis impersonator rolls back into town, everyone’s world turns upside down.

Thanks to MacLeod’s clever, humane writing, and Roe’s deft comic touch, the audience is fully immersed in Jhana’s day-to-day challenges and triumphs, from basic lessons in her life-skills classes to her first crush on a boy. Jhana’s interactions with Maddie are as real as any teenager attempting to exert her independence, and her reliance on Bill is evident: The warm exchanges between the two could melt even the iciest heart. It’s a perfect set-up whose future is threatened when King returns.

Juliani and MacDonald do cocky grandstanding incredibly well, their characters circling each other warily, equal parts awkward and amusing. Bill may be written as non-threatening (after all, he’s a grad student with one book of poetry to his credit, who considers himself a voice for women and minorities), but Juliani brings a subtle masculinity to the role that more than challenges King’s swaggering, virile persona. His chemistry with Wheeler is palpable, and the de facto family they’ve created for Jhana is nicely reflective of an era that ushered in new, non-traditional familial structures (Who’s the Boss immediately springs to mind).

Wheeler gives Maddie a tough protective exterior, which is a realistic defense mechanism for a woman who’s single-mommed it for 10 years, and defended Jhana from bullies and judgmental strangers for nearly two decades. When she says “I always hate the sound of my voice when I talk to you” during one of her fights with King, Wheeler nails the tone of a woman slipping back into bad patterns. But the talented actress brings so much intelligence to the character, it’s hard to believe Maddie would ever have fallen for a guy like King, let alone considered letting him back into her bed.

The only real misstep in the otherwise sparkling gem of a script comes about five minutes shy of the final bow, when the audience endures not just one ending, but three — which smacks of a writer who was just finding her voice (this is MacLeod’s second play). It’s a small complaint, but one that stands out, since everything else is so strong. That said, it’s such a rare treat to witness great writing fueling fantastic performances that Toronto, Mississippi ends up feeling like a warm hug on a cold night.

Lily Tomlin, take two!

My second interview with Lily Tomlin is online at the Charleston City Paper.

Lily Tomlin Performs in North Charleston for the first time

She might be nearly 70, but no one who's seen Lily Tomlin perform her latest stand-up routine would know it. She bounces with the enthusiasm of a high school cheerleader, and her mind never stops moving, the jokes flying faster and packing more heat than bullets at a shooting range. Her laughter is rich and familiar, and comes frequently throughout the 35 minutes we spent talking to her before she embarks on a cross-country tour.

City Paper: Are there certain characters you've known who've stayed really close to your heart over the years?

Lily Tomlin: God, yes, most everything. Characters are like people to me. They're people who have these idiosyncrasies and I know them. They're like relatives.

CP: You've worked with a lot of really funny people. Are there people you haven't had a chance to work with yet that you hope to in the future?

LT: Almost anybody who's good I want to work with. I would like to work with any number of people who it wouldn't seem like I would fit in to their work, like Martin Scorsese or someone like that. I'd want to do something that nobody would expect me to do, but after a while you sort of get pigeon-holed. Like, it was a very big deal to go from Laugh In to a movie like Nashville with Bob Altman. Most would never even have seen that possibility.

CP: I was going to ask you about working with him. What was that relationship like?

LT: A Prairie Home Companion was just a great shoot, and Bob was getting chemotherapy every day and he was still Bob.

He was fantastic. And people would say, "What's it been like working with Bob? Is he different now?" And I'd say the only difference is he doesn't ride the crane like he used to. Bob was planning his next movie days before he died. Meryl [Streep] was going to be in it and I was going to be in it. It was called Hands on a Hard Body, where people compete to win a truck by keeping their hands on it.

CP: What made you decide to get out on the road now and do stand-up?

LT: I never stopped doing stand-up, one-nighters, or two-nighters. From the time I got on Laugh In, I had an act, and it was the only thing that kept me off The Match Game [a popular '70s game show that featured a regular lineup of comedians/actors]. If you had an act, you didn't have to take a regular job on one of these shows — not that there's anything wrong with that, but it sort of slots you in there. And because I had an act, I could go out and earn a living. I didn't have to take a job on a show where you had to be on every day. I always had my act and did 40-50 dates a year. I just always did that, and I'd work that around whatever else I was doing.

CP: A lot of people were really excited about Obama getting elected. Are you still feeling that sensation of hope and change?

LT: We're praying for it. I mean, even the whole Rick Warren thing, I can sort of buy Obama's justification about different points of view and so on. When I was on Laugh In, way back in the beginning, we were so political about the Vietnam War, those of us against the war. John Wayne was on the show and I wouldn't even be photographed with him. And then later Martha Mitchell came on, who was married to John Mitchell, and she was more of a victim of that administration, and I sort of snubbed her too. Later I read in her autobiography that she was so hurt by the way I treated her, and in retrospect as a mature person I regret those times. I wish I'd been more outgoing with them and found out what they think and why they think it.

CP: What changes are you hoping to see for America and the world in 2009?

LT: I'm hoping we can make some sort of connection with the rest of the world. How can you repair what the Bush administration has done? I just don't know. I'm hoping Obama's going to re-implement the Clean Air Act, and all kinds of things like that. They've sold off our national parks! They've done everything. There's no end to what Bush has done. And it's harder to undo than to do. I was so grateful just to have someone like Obama elected, because you hope that's a message to the rest of the world.

Ra Ra Riot

My interview with Ra Ra Riot appears in this week's WE.

Rising above adversity: Ra Ra Riot persevered after the death of their drummer in 2007, completing their debut album and initiating a music-oriented philanthropy project in the drummer’s name.

Credit: supplied

By Andrea Warner

Ra Ra Riot’s humble origins are the stuff of dorm-room legend: college kids at Syracuse University, facing graduation and not sure what the future might hold. Most of them were on the cusp of obtaining degrees that had nothing to do with music when they began jamming together, discovering an affinity for Kate Bush, and writing their own songs. Six months after their first hometown show, they became the buzz band of the day — or, at least, of their campus. But it was a tragic accident that ended up launching them onto the mainstream media radar a month before they released their self-titled debut EP in 2007. After playing a show in Providence, Rhode Island, drummer John Pike disappeared into the cold waters of Wilbur’s Point. His body washed up the next day.

The group grieved and persevered, and are now on the second leg of a tour promoting their debut full-length album, The Rhumb Line, which highlights the band’s skill for combining a raft of indie-rock and Britpop influences with a chamber-pop flair (the band’s membership includes cellist Alexandra Lawn and violinist Rebecca Zeller).

Guitarist Milo Bonacci took a quick break from Ra Ra Riot’s U.K. tour to chat with WE.

How does one go from studying architecture to playing guitar in a band?
Milo Bonacci: Well, I grew up playing guitar. Architecture’s a more recent development in my life. I guess when the time came to choose between the band and architecture, I though I could be a 60-year-old architect, but I don’t want to be a 60-year-old rock star necessarily. It was really just, “Let’s do this now while we can, and we’ll figure out our careers afterwards.”

String sections have really found a place in indie-rock over the last several years. Was it a conscious effort by Ra Ra Riot to incorporate that sound?
It was really just the combination of people who were able and willing to spend some time devoted to the band. I don’t think any of us really knew what to expect in the first couple of weeks, but from the start it was really satisfying to have that palette of sonic flavours.

You’ve covered Kate Bush twice now. What’s the draw there?
Originally, we started playing “Hounds of Love” in those first couple weeks when we were first forming, because we just needed songs to play. (laughs) Working on covers in our time together was easier, in some respects, than writing songs, because you can only do that so fast. Very early on, that was a very common bond between us. We were all fascinated by her songwriting. She’s very much an inspiration.

Have you had a chance to meet her?
No, no. (laughs) I think that’s a long way off. I’ve never even considered the possibility.

What are some key mistakes that up-and-coming bands should watch out for?
The most important thing is to play music that you’re passionate about and that you love. The worst thing is when you see a band and nobody is that interested in the music that they’re making. You have to love it if you expect anybody else to love it also.

What is the John Pike Memorial Project?
Basically, it would be a network of musicians and songwriters that people could use to further their own projects or ideas, part of that being a lending library — a library of musical instruments people could borrow. The ultimate goal is that there would be recording studios or free places where people could explore their interests. Mainly, it would encourage people to explore their creative energies instead of smothering it before it starts. It’s sort of designed to further the energy John had as a person. He was the type who, if he had an interest in something, he’d go out and read every book about it, explore the subject, learn how to play the instrument. This would allow for that sort of process. If all goes well, something really great could come out of it.

Belle Orchestre

My interview with Belle Orchestre appears online at WestEnder.com

Belle Orchestre

Belle Orchestre burns while Arcade Fire is dampened

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Instrumental pop isn’t for everyone, but listeners who appreciate soundscapes upon which to scribble their own narrative have fallen head over heels for Bell Orchestre. The Montreal-based sextet released their 2005 debut, Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light, while two of its members, Richard Reed Parry and Sarah Neufeld, were on hiatus from their other full-time gig with a little band called Arcade Fire.

Now, four years later — again while Arcade Fire is taking some downtime — Bell Orchestre is hitting the road in support of its second album, As Seen Through the Windows (due out in March). The band has upped the quirk quotient this time around, borrowing from plenty of styles to create an album that delivers a different experience on every track, from the Far East influences of “Elephant” to the spare, cold moan of Neufeld’s violin throughout “Icicles_Bicycles.”

Due back in Vancouver next week, WE talked with Neufeld, a former Vancouver resident.

You’re from Vancouver Island, but you lived in Vancouver before heading to Montreal, right?
Neufeld: I lived in Vancouver for a year, and I think I moved three times during that year. I was in the West End, the East Side, and Chinatown. It was one of those formative years. I used to work at Uprising Breads on Commercial, and I have such fond memories of that place. The former owner always wanted to hire musicians or artists or dancers — people he could just have a chat with, maybe not so efficient at mopping floors. [laughs] I was terrified on the first closing shift I had. This is a stupid story, but we would sweep and sometimes wax our floors, but I grew up in a country house — we didn’t have a mop. So, the first time I closed, they were like, “Okay, there’s the mop,” and I was like, “How do I do this?” All of a sudden, I was totally humbled.

What made you decide to pack up and go to Montreal?
Both of my parents had done that at that age. It seemed like a natural thing to do, to see a bit more of the world. I never backpacked around Europe or anything, but I felt like I should go to school, and I’d only applied to Concordia [in Montreal] and Capilano [in North Vancouver]. At that time, I wanted to stick mostly to violin performance, and I wasn’t interested in a hardline classical program; I wanted to choose faculty that would support improvisation on my instrument. It just felt more exciting and like I was moving forward [by going to Concordia rather than Capilano]. And my best friend lived out there and I knew a bunch of people who played in bands on Constellation Records.

In the chicken-or-the-egg way, did Bell Orchestre exist before Arcade Fire?
Yeah, but one of our first real shows, as Bell Orchestre, was with Arcade Fire, before Richie [Parry] was even playing with them. It was just this crazy party, and it was the first time we’d even seen them perform. Arcade Fire developed much quicker than we did, and it took us a long time to figure out we [Bell Orchestre] were even a band.

While you’re touring with Bell Orchestre, is Arcade Fire talking about recording a new album? Will you be caught in between both?
Yeah, I’m imagining it will be something like that... my gut tells me before 2010. I don’t drive the other ship, so I can’t really say.

Did you have any idea when you were younger that this could be the life of a classically trained musician?
My musical upbringing was so varied and confusing, I never felt like I fit into the classical world — I had just as much folk, and I did a lot of Irish stuff as a kid. The only way that my mom could make me practice was by playing this game where we would improvise and copy each other, so that was really what I wanted to be doing... I wanted to be in a band, and I quit everything at one point and was playing guitar and everybody was like, “You’re making the worst mistake of your life! Anybody can play guitar,” and the violin at that point was already an extension of my body. I’d been playing since I was two years old.

Violinists seem like good, proper people. Do you have a bad-ass side?
You’re quite right about the stereotypes of properness. To be a real classical violinist — which is why I couldn’t do it — you need to be completely devoted to it. Those people practice for five hours a day minimum, and maybe there’s a life outside of that, but I couldn’t do it. Am I a bad-ass because I have to have a life outside my practice room? [laughs] I don’t know. Sure. I’m a dropout violinist. I always want my teachers to see me with Bell Orchestre, but then I don’t want them to because my technique is all off. Like, my bow arm is totally lazy or whatever.

Push review

My review of Push appears online at www.westender.com

PUSH
Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning
Directed by Paul McGuigan
2 stars

By Andrea Warner

Superhero movies are a dime a dozen lately, but with the success of last year’s acclaimed cinematic marvels (The Dark Knight, Iron Man), aspiring “blockbusters” with smaller budgets need to puff up their flashy packages with brains, brawn, and big names. Push, the latest film to flirt with the genre, knows its limitations and thankfully opts for the quirky route.

Push opens on 12-year-old Nick, a second-generation “pusher”, who watches his father die at the hands of Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou — seen slumming here, but still a step above his last effort, Never Back Down), the leader of the Division, a malevolent organization dedicated to building on Nazi research to amplify psychic abilities through medical enhancements. Got it?

Of course, this means the Division is rounding up the world’s most powerful mutants to conduct their evil tests. Fast forward ten years and Nick (a charming Chris Evans) is one of several American ex-pats with super powers living in Hong Kong, trying to evade capture. He is approached by Cassie (Dakota Fanning looking like a teen prostitute from Ghost World), a 13-year-old “watcher” who can see bursts of the future, who enlists his help to save both her mother and the world.

A convoluted story follows, with plenty of tricks, twists, and turns to keep an audience’s curiosity piqued — if never truly enthralled. Some unusual villains, including a Chinese family full of powerful, brain-melting screamers, make for amusing moments, but stale dialogue and repeated use of the same tired flashbacks wares on the nerves.

Director Paul McGuigan (Lucky Number Slevin, Wicker Park) has never met a strange camera angle he doesn’t like (above, below, swooping crane), and alternates, seemingly without any reason, between rich, saturated images and grainy, hand-held shots. He does, however, have a knack for creative casting, with plenty of familiar faces showing up in unexpected places (Maggie Siff from Mad Men, Cliff Curtis from Whale Rider). All together, McGuigan’s vision ultimately nudges Push into position as an entertaining — if mostly forgettable — addition to the superhero/sci-fi cannon.

Polyamory

My piece on polyamory appears in this week's WE.

Are polyamorists sexual deviants or the world’s most incurable romantics?

poly•am•ory

noun

participation in multiple and simultaneous loving or sexual relationships

— Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary

Other “kinks” have come and gone as the primary target of “polite” society’s moral outrage — homosexuality, orgies, swinging — and forged, in some people’s homes, an uneasy truce. Polyamory, then, might be the last taboo — possibly because many people can barely navigate the obstacles of one relationship, let alone several.

But, contrary to popular belief, people who engage in “poly” say they aren’t just in it for the sex — although that doesn’t hurt. True to their name, polyamorists have a whole lot of love to give (and take).

According to John Ince, co-owner of Vancouver sex shop the Art of Loving, poly people might just be the world’s biggest romantics. “Poly is really about relationships, an ongoing experience rather than a sexual connection,” he says. “I’ve done long-term monogamous relationships and long-term polyamorous relationship, and the poly ones are conducive to more intimacy... but it’s a lot of relational time. Time and work.”

Jillian Deri, a PhD candidate writing about polyamory and jealousy within the queer community, is also involved in poly relationships, and acknowledges the common misconceptions people have about it. “[People think] we’re just dating around until we find the right person,” she says, “or that we’re just promiscuous and can’t decide, or that we’re not committed. But, actually, poly people are usually more committed because they commit to more than one person.”

Pervading notions about polyamory label its practitioners as sluts or perverts. Internet culture does nothing to subvert that belief either: simply Googling the phrase “polyamory Vancouver” calls up sites devoted to BDSM, fetish nights, and a smattering of other kinky topics that might send potential polyamorists right back into the closet. And there’s precious little information available to those looking for a safe place to explore this type of relationship.

Ince, who published a book called The Politics of Lust, believes polyamorists are simply seeking a variety of intimacy, much the same way people favour variety in friends, food, and entertainment. “We encourage multi-loving in every area except the sexual dimension,” he says. “In our culture, the model is one romantic relationship at a time, otherwise you’re cheating. Huge numbers of people are practicing unethical [secretive] polyamory.”

Ince has been involved in poly relationships of various configurations for over 30 years. He’s currently involved with two women, and he says the key to a successful poly relationship is open communication. “It takes a lot of emotional sophistication to practice polyamory in a healthy way. That’s perhaps why relatively few people can do it. Most people don’t have high self-esteem and would interpret their partner’s interest in someone else as a rejection of them. The fact that I love having two women in my life does not say anything about my lack of attraction to one. It just says that I’m a very complex character and need a whole variety of stimulation to be excited and passionate and fulfilled.”

For Deri, polyamory is an affair of the heart, though she admits it’s sometimes easier said than done. “I feel that it’s definitely not for everyone, but I find it easier to give my heart when there’s an open aspect to the relationship, being more true to what I actually want.

“I believe we have this dichotomy between friends and lovers: only one lover and all the rest are friends. I find that having that boundary broken allows for more intimacy — a whole range of different ways to be with people.”

Deri admits an open relationship does force people to have to deal with jealousy head-on, but poly people, she says, choose to “work around it.”

“Poly people realize it’s not inevitable, it’s not intolerable, but in the culture we grow up in, there’s this idea that if your lover is with someone else, you’re going to be jealous, and the jealousy should stop whatever you’re doing,” Deri says. “Poly people tend to see jealousy as something you could feel, but you can get over it and move on. It doesn’t have to change your behaviour.”

In a world where hate, rancour and loneliness permeate all aspects of society, one could say that polyamorists are, in their own way, forging a path where love is all around. For those looking to venture into the world of poly, Deri suggests honesty as your best tactic for success.

“Find someone you can communicate well with and who you feel safe to explore with,” Deri advises, “and ask yourself a lot of questions about what you really want, and be honest. As soon as you’re really honest with yourself you can be honest with other people. Communication is the biggest key to making it work.”

Skydive

My review of Skydive appears in this week's WE.

James Sanders and Bob Frazer take to the air in Skydive.

By Andrea Warner

Taking its second bow in three years as part of the PuSh Festival, Skydive, Vancouver playwright Kevin Kerr's aerial comedy, was written specifically for its two leads, real-life good friends Bob Frazer and James Sanders. As much spectacle as comedy, Skydive transcends traditional stage plays in that it's also a feat of engineering, literally making a quadriplegic man fly.

Kerr's script focuses on polar-opposite brothers Morgan (Sanders), a middle-aged loafer who couch-surfs and spends his time offering advice as an unlicensed therapist, and Daniel (Frazer), a brainy agoraphobe who can't get past his psychological traumas. Reunited in their mother's house after she's moved into a nursing home, Morgan tries to encourage Daniel to live up to his end of a childhood pact and confront his biggest fears by going skydiving.

Skydive tackles weighty issues like family dysfunction with generous doses of comedy, attempting to prove that laughter really is the best medicine. Sometimes it is; when the jokes work, they're often laugh-out-loud funny. But others, particularly in the first 30 minutes, feel as stale as the punch lines from an episode of Two and a Half Men. In addition, the last 10 minutes feel heavy-handed, with the play's themes of fear and lives half-lived getting shoved down the audience's throat.

Skydive's real triumph is that throughout almost the entire production, Frazer and Sanders seem to float through space, each attached to a long pole operated by mostly unseen hands. The duo really do appear to fly, and many audience members will likely be unaware that Sanders is confined to a wheelchair in real life. While the actors may not actually fly through the air with the greatest of ease, Skydive's brilliant machinations ultimately help this hit-and-miss comedy take off.

Broken Social Scene

My interview with Broken Social Scene's Brendan Canning appears in this week's WE.

Band may not come exactly as shown: Broken Social Scene, in one of their many incarnations. (Inset: founding member Brendan Canning.)

About 10 years ago, two guys in Toronto got together and, a couple of years later, released an atmospheric art-rock album that was virtually impossible to replicate live as a duo. A few well-placed phone calls later, they had drafted in numerous friends on an array of instruments, ultimately creating a signature widescreen post-rock sound on follow-up album You Forgot it in People (2002) that would come to define Broken Social Scene. A sort of mother ship for Canada’s recent rash of successful indie musicians, Feist, Final Fantasy, Metric, Stars, and Land of Talk are just a few bands with roots in BSS.

A co-headlining gig with Tegan and Sara brings the ever-mutating collective back to Vancouver this week as part of the Cultural Olympiad. WE caught up with founding member Brendan Canning from his home in Toronto.

I heard you were walking the dog when I first called. What kind of dog do you have?

Canning: We got a little chihuahua half-breed, a little chihuahua mutt. He’s quite cute, and we got him a little black-and-white camouflage jacket for the winter. (laughs) He’s not like a little pipsqueak either; he’s a big dog.

What’s the touring lineup for BSS right now?

It’s sort of the same as last year. We’re going out as an eight-piece: Kevin [Drew], Justin [Peroff], Charlie [Spearin], Andrew [Whiteman], Sam [Goldberg], Leon [Kingstone], and instead of Liz [Powell] with us, who plays in Land of Talk, it’s Lisa Lobsinger, who was with us in 2006 in Vancouver. She kind of floats in and out of the band.

You’re playing with Tegan and Sara when you’re here.

Yeah. Who knows, maybe we can even steal those guys for a song. It’s on my to-do list to call those guys.

The band’s Wikipedia page is this pretty great who’s-who of indie music in Canada. It seems like everyone’s been affiliated with you at some point, and some of the most successful indie musicians of the last five years have had something to do with BSS. What draws you all together?

I don’t know. Just between all of us we know a lot of people, and I think our whole thing has always been to be really as inclusive as we can, and a lot of the time we’re looking for people. The last year of touring, in 2008, we were getting different horn sections in different cities, and different vocalist who we’d never met before. I think we just try to keep that up, and it makes it more fun for us. If the shows can vary night to night — I mean, especially with bringing in different vocalists, it’s always sort of a kick. You meet this woman in the afternoon and you do a little soundcheck, but then the lights go down you have no idea what this person’s about to do on stage or what their moves are going to be like. So, it’s always pretty entertaining in that regard.

Anyone who stands out for you?

There was this one girl in Taipei who was really great. There were a couple different singers in Mexico City who did really well. There was a girl in Singapore, it was practically like Broken Social Scene Idol. She was really, really goin’ for it. It was quite funny. At one moment she’d be grabbing Kevin by the sleeve and singing really close to him, and then just throwing him away at the end of her line and really being theatrical about it. That was pretty hilarious.

Are you venturing toward another BSS album? [The group’s last album came out in 2005.]

Venturing... I mean, we don’t have any real firm plans, but we’re definitely in the talking-about-it stage. Everyone seems pretty excited this year to actually make a record, but there’s just no point in putting any real pressure on us to do that. It just wouldn’t be as much fun if we say, “Alright, we’ve got an October release so we really have to get this record in the can by May so we plan for press.” I mean, Charlie’s got a record coming out next month called The Happiness Project, and Andrew’s got his Apostle of Hustle record, and, unofficially, Kevin and I are still touring our records [solo albums released as part of the Broken Social Scene presents... series). There’s a wealth of material, but I think we will try to bust out a couple new jams on this upcoming run.

The Constant Wife and Last Five Years

My review of The Constant Wife and Last Five Years appears in this week's WE.

Nicole Underhay and Ted Cole in Arts Club’s The Constant Wife, and (inset) Naomi Dayneswood and Jesse Donaldson in the failed-marriage musical, The Last Five Years.

Two very different plays sift through the rubble of crumbling marriages

Love (or something like it) is in the air on Vancouver stages right now, as relationship-themed plays compete for a little piece of your heart. It’s almost unfair that The Last Five Years, a small-scale Broadway musical (fighting against an uneven script), finds itself pitted against the witty and wonderful words of Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife. That, and Years’ tired depiction of a woman in love, feels so painfully passé when compared to the balls-out equality of Wife’s fierce females.

Wife, set in the 1930s (as depicted in a beautiful set from Ken MacDonald), unleashes its characters from conventional behaviour — these are rich people who play by a different set of rules — and tackles the three big Fs: fidelity, feminism, and fortune. Constance (a perfectly cast and sparkling Nicole Underhay) and John (Ted Cole) have been married for 15 years when rumours surface of John’s affair with Constance’s best friend, Marie-Louise Durham (Celine Stubel does the chirpy strumpet with aplomb). When Constance’s former suitor comes back into the picture, all hell breaks loose, and Constance proves that she’s no silent, suffering spouse.

Wife has been hailed by Variety as the precursor to Sex and the City, and it’s true, in that the women in Wife rule the stage. Martha (Moya O’Connell) is Constance’s self-righteous younger sister and a spinster, and both women are stifled by their brutally witty mother, Mrs. Culver (a divine Bridget O’Sullivan), a rich old woman whose words carry the same blunt force as a blow from a sledgehammer.

The bon mots and one-liners are delivered with sophistication, and director Morris Panych brings out the best in Maugham’s catty and astute asides. Panych also digs into the source material to hit the nail on the head of some of today’s taboos: seeking satisfaction outside of the marital bed, embarking on an open relationship, and seeing women as equals.

Women fair less well in The Last Five Years, a musical written by Jason Robert Brown and based on his own failed marriage. Jamie (Jesse Donaldson, vacillating between winning and annoying) and Cathy (bright spot Naomi Dayneswood) meet in their early twenties, fall in love, get married, and eventually break up over the course of five years, with each song representing a different stage in their relationship. Jamie’s gaining some major success as a new best-selling author, while Cathy’s doing summer theatre in Ohio and failing to get her big break as an actress.

Jamie’s story arc moves from first meeting to breakup, while Cathy’s tale starts at the breakup and moves backward to the couple’s first meeting. It’s an interesting conceit, but one that allows each characters’ flaws too much room to breathe, making it difficult to muster prolonged sympathy for either side. Simplistic characters — Jamie is the jerk who disappears, leaving only a Dear John letter; Cathy is the needy wife who’s hung her star in someone else’s sky — don’t help matters either. The Last Five Years is like watching friends who have no business being together break up for an hour and a half. You want to give them both a shake and then go get a drink.

As the audience traverses both sides of the story, certain songs allow for moments of genuine heart to shine through. “The Schmuel Song” shows a softer side of Jamie as he makes up a Christmas story for Cathy to encourage her self-esteem. “I Can Do Better Than That” shows some of the fire Cathy used to have, declaring she’s not looking for the proverbial white picket fence and desires a more complete life.

Many of Cathy’s songs paint her as a woman who is insecure, defined solely by her relationship with Jamie. (Brown’s former wife, on whom Cathy is based, threatened legal action if certain songs weren’t changed.) Conversely, Jamie’s songs are mostly self-involved, alternating between falling for Cathy and his burgeoning success as an author. Donaldson’s got a charismatic presence, but he does little work to keep Jamie’s cartoonish ego in check; his Jamie is prone to plenty of pelvic thrusts and rock-star antics. Dayneswood’s Cathy is appropriately sad and pathetic, but she infuses the character with lovely doses of defiance and vigour.

We should connect with the broken people singing sad songs in The Last Five Years, but the heart loves who it wants — and the women of The Constant Wife are irresistible: mind games, manipulation and all. After all, who among us would choose a bittersweet break-up tale when there’s the tartly delicious story of sweet revenge waiting in the wings?

Wendy and Lucy

My review of Wendy and Lucy appears in this week's WE.

WENDY AND LUCY
Starring Michelle Williams
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
4 stars (out of 5)

By Andrea Warner
The string of horrible Hollywood flicks boasting talking dogs with interior voices provided by celebrities (see Beverly Hills Chihauha — actually, don’t) has created four-legged fatigue among many moviegoers. But our furry friends get a second chance to be worthy co-stars in Kelly Reichardt’s evocative and emotionally devastating Wendy and Lucy.

Wendy (a superb Michelle Williams) is a loner in her early twenties, living in her car with her dog, Lucy, en route from Indiana to Alaska in search of a summer job that promises big bucks. It’s a dream that stays just out of reach when Wendy’s car breaks down in a small, rundown town in Oregon, and then Lucy disappears, sending Wendy’s life into a tailspin.

Writer-director Reichardt is an expert in crafting unsettling films that double as quiet character studies, as demonstrated in the 2006 gem Old Joy. Nor does she doesn’t any easy answers here about why Wendy is the way she is. Small moments, like a desperate phone call home or Wendy’s tentative friendship with a security guard, hint at some of her invisible fractures, but we never really understand why she’s gone so far adrift.

Wendy and Lucy is also a bleak foreshadowing of the economic mess in which we’re all mired, where jobs are few and far between, and a series of simple events can prevent upward momentum. (Wendy doesn’t have an address because she lives in her car, and she can’t afford a cellphone, making finding Lucy, much less a job, virtually impossible.)

There’s nary a talking dog in the whole film, but every moment between Wendy and Lucy speaks volumes.

Matt & Kim

My interview with Matt & Kim appears in this week's WE.

Matt & Kim prepare to leave their mark on New York City.

MUSIC: Matt & Kim dare the hipsters to get happy

By Andrea Warner

Indie-band stereotypes abound in pop duo Matt and Kim. Based in Brooklyn? Yep. Met in art school? ’Natch. Nerdy glasses, tight jeans, and a nasal twang? Of course. And yet, Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino have one major quality that sets them apart from the other too-cool-for-school hipster bands who practice their pouts before propping up their instruments: They are the happiest damn people ever, and they’re not afraid to show it.

Matt & Kim’s brand of dance-punk-pop music sounds, at first listen, like kids goofing off in their parents’ basement — which isn’t far from the truth. The couple fell in love six years ago, made art, and decided to take up learning new instruments. Rather than focus on chords and scales, Kim banged away on the drums, Matt plunked out melodies on his keyboard, and they began writing songs by way of practicing.

The duo’s live shows and online presence garnered them a rabid fan base of kids who love to dance, thrash, and fling themselves with wild abandon. While preparing to embark on a North American tour for their new album, The Grand, Matt checked in last week from NYC.

I visited your MySpace page earlier today and one of your fans wrote, “I was listening to ‘Daylight’ [from Grand] earlier today, and my older brother asked, ‘Is this Weird Al?’”

Johnson: (laughs for a long time) Nice. I haven’t seen that comment yet, but I remember thinking true success was if Weird Al parodied one of your songs.

I was watching videos of your live shows and you look really happy onstage. What do you love about performing?

What is there not to love about performing, you know? There are so many bands who look really bored, and I don’t really get that — that’s more confusing to me. Playing music was always something I only did because I really like doing it. It had been an expensive habit for years, and now somehow I make a living doing it. We do it ’cause it’s fun. Kim, though — if she’s terrified, she just starts laughing and smiling. It’s sort of her defense. If she’s really nervous, too, in the movie theatre, if someone’s getting cut to pieces, she’s just laughing hysterically, so people just think she’s totally fucked up.

Was there anything different for you in writing Grand?

Oh, yeah, it was completely different. The first one [2006’s self-titled debut album], I mean, the songs we’d written were from within the first year we’d started even trying to play, and also we recorded that in nine days. This new recording we did over nine months. We were touring so much, every couple weeks we’d come back and work on it for a week. But it gave us a fresh perspective, like, “Oh, yeah, that sucks” or “That works.”

The dance-punk sound has really flourished in the last couple of years. Do you think it’s an emotional antidote to the political and economic climate? Are we just desperate for something joyful?

Well, in New York, for a long time there were these types of bands that were just too worried about looking cool to have any fun. I think people are just wanting to have fun with music again and have fun at shows again. And maybe that is part of all this shit that’s happening. Finally, I think, things are looking up. January 20th is coming, and Mr. Obama will be in.

Yeah, the national tension level should ease in about a week.

And it’s the day our album comes out. A pretty important day in American history. (laughs) 

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

My review of the new Roman Polanski documentary, screening at Vancity this week, is in today's WE.

ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED

By Andrea Warner

3 stars (out of 5)

Roman Polanski is one of Hollywood’s most polarizing people: semi-tragic figure (he survived the Holocaust; his wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by Charles Manson); revolutionary director (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist); and child molester. His complicated history gets a fresh retelling in director Marina Zenovich’s revealing documentary.

The film opens with an unflinching account of the charges against Polanski resulting from an afternoon he spent photographing 13-year-old Samantha Gailey. Accused of rape, sodomy, and giving drugs to a minor (among other things), Polanski became the focal point of a media circus. After a trial fraught with corruption and injustice, he ultimately fled to France, where he’s stayed in exile for the last 30 years.

It’s fitting that the majority of Wanted and Desired is devoted to exploring the curious motivations of the judge who presided over the case, Laurence J. Rittenband. His damaging machinations, which included striking secret deals with the defense and prosecution while staging proceedings for the press with pre-determined outcomes, ultimately perverted any sense of justice for Gailey or Polanski.

Wanted and Desired contains fascinating, candid interviews with key players in the trial, but, frustratingly, the least interesting one is with a grown-up Gailey, who offers little insight. What makes the documentary so compelling is how Zenovich fleshes out the film with plenty of character-building moments, offering a fully realized portrait of Polanski that, while never exonerating him, effectively illustrates how he’s been cast in the make-believe film version of his own life: visionary, villain, and victim.