WORKS OF HEART: Donors filled the Equinox Gallery again recently to raise a further $232,066 for the Cause We Care Foundation that Andrea Thomas Hill launched in 2007. With a resounding splash, too, as it subsequently contributed $1.5 million to the YWCA Cause We Care House and its 21 units of subsidized housing. The foundation also supports other programs benefiting single mothers and their children. And not just with money. Hill, board members and volunteers obtain and assemble what’s required and personally get it into needy hands.

SIBLING HARMONY: The Vancouver Art Gallery considers Georgia-at-Cambie’s Larwill Park as its future home. VAG director Kathleen Bartels and others visited that former bus terminal site recently to launch indigenous artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun’s multi-coloured, multi-piece installation titled Ovoidism. Contrasting the works’ firm elements and the artist’s sometimes crusty character, his sister Lauraleigh’s Bigheart Bannock Catering firm served snacks that truly deserve their #fluffyfriedaddictions hashtag. Although Yuxweluptun’s paintings fetch well into five figures, Lauraleigh’s sweet or savoury “bannockwiches” are more accessible and equally collectible.

Bigheart Bannock Catering owner Lauraleigh Paul Yuxeluptun’aat, right, and sister Philaina served at their brother’s Larwill Park art opening.

Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun unveiled his Ovoidism installations at the Vancouver Art Gallery’s hoped-for next location, Larwill Park. 

Andrea Thomas Hill symbolized the constraints single mothers and children face and the Cause We Care Foundation seeks to alleviate.

EVE FOR ADAM: It’s been three years since a recreational drug killed 22-year-old Adam Hryhorchuk. At Peter and Leslie Black’s home recently, Adam’s mother Darcy Hibberd launched the commemorative Adam’s Apples Foundation. Its peer-counsellor scholarship program aims to guide youths through troubling circumstances, especially the risk of inadvertent death.

Winemaker Phil Mcgahan showed one of CheckMate’s five Chardonnays while readying to launch four chess-titled Merlots.

SMART MOVE: Queensland-raised Phil Mcgahan stopped practising law long ago. But he still presents convincing cases. Of Chardonnay, that is. Oliver-based CheckMate Artisanal Winery, where he is winemaker, produces five $80-$125 Chardonnays with chess-related names like Little Pawn and Queen Taken. The winery’s Merlots include Black Rook, End Game and Silent Bishop. Let’s see if future labels acknowledge a chess gambit familiar to players and over-exuberant wine quaffers alike: Fried Liver Attack.

Caren McSherry welcomed TV chef Lidia Bastianich to a cookbook-signing at her Hastings-off-Clark Gourmet Warehouse emporium.

CHOW BELLA: Folk once flocked to Hastings-at-Clark’s since-razed Famous Foods store for good, cheap ingredients. Famous foodsmith Lidia Bastianich appeared at that intersection recently to launch her $45 cookbook, Mastering The Art of Italian Cuisine. The locale was Caren McSherry’s The Gourmet Warehouse, where shelves are loaded with foodstuffs and devices to prepare, cook and serve them. Bastianich fans jammed the joint to buy restaurateur-TV host’s 460-page book and the gear to execute its recipes. Four Seasons hotel executive chef Weimar Gomez tipped his toque to Bastianich later when a tribute banquet benefited the Les Dames d’Escoffier organization’s outreach and scholarship programs.

CHOICE TASTER: Invitees got high literally at the Mark Anthony Wine & Spirits concern’s mid-afternoon tasting in Telus Garden’s 24th-floor penthouse. The 90-bottle offerings ranged from Hayman’s London Dry Gin, $20.90, to Marchesi Antinori’s mostly Cabernet Sauvignon Solaia, $244.65. A closing shot of Dalmore 18-year-old single-malt scotch, $162.52, gave attendees plenty of time for a bracing stroll before happy hour.

BrandLIVE principals Paul and Catherine Runnals devised clear PA for the acoustically challenged Rocky Mountaineer station’s Brilliant! event.

NOW YOU HEAR: After falling out with the Brilliant! pageant’s successful originators, the St. Paul’s Foundation moved the charitable event’s fourth-annual running from the Commodore Ballroom to the Rocky Mountaineer railway station. Stripped of what was deemed to be gay-flavoured content, the event reportedly raised $1.5 million to help fund the hospital’s mental health and addiction programs. Half of that sum entailed a donation from the Vancouver Police Foundation. The locale is haunted by acoustics that approximate those of a train wreck in a deep tunnel. Not this time, though. Organizers retained Paul and Catherine Runnals whose Brandlive firm stages major rock concerts. By placing many small PA speakers in the cavernous station’s nooks, they made every microphone-spoken word clear. Brilliant!

Livingspace Interiors owner Ross Bonetti showed a 3D-printed version of Piero Lissoni’s Frog chair that may lead to full-size versions. 

Highland dancers Susannah Bowman and Adrienne Quane flanked Shot of Scotch leader Susan Nase at a Seaforth Highlanders of Canada tattoo.

SECOND SHOT: Skirling bagpipes echoed across Kitsilano recently as Seaforth Highlanders of Canada marched to their renovated Burrard Street armoury. Vancouver Police and 15th Field Artillery bands joined the Chor Leoni choir at a subsequent military tattoo in the 80-year-old building. Softening the crash of army boots, the Shot of Scotch highland dance company also entertained. Saskatoon-raised tap dancer Susan Nase co-founded that troupe amid the glens and burns of Manhattan, then located here in 2011. Proving that not only young women reel and fling, Nase recruited six of the regiment’s kilted warriors who, after basic training, “danced very well.”

WHO YOU KNOW: While many Okanagan wineries offer early-afternoon swigs, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited only Mission Hill Tuesday. Then again, Anthony von Mandl’s luxuriant hillside facility is familiar territory for Justin Trudeau, who OK’d the ducal itinerary. He and bride Sophie Gregoire got the royal treatment themselves while staying in Mission Hill’s guest house soon after their May, 2005 wedding.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

The Romeo Section

Oct. 5, CBC 9 p.m. 

For its second season creator Chris Haddock has planted the espionage thriller The Romeo Section firmly against the veiled landscape of dark government activity.

Set in Vancouver, the CBC-produced series’ central storyline has operative Wolfgang McGee (Andrew Airlie) investigating an alleged terrorist incident. In doing so he opens doors into the shadowy side of intelligence.

“I think there has been a lot of effort over the years by government agencies to keep the public’s prying eyes off what is going on,” said Haddock about the show’s focus.

Chris Haddock creator, writer and producer of The Romeo Section.

“Everyone treats conspiracy as a nasty word, but really that is what we humans do,” said Haddock, who has a long list of credits including DaVinci’s Inquest, Intelligence and Boardwalk Empire. “If somebody is a conspiracy theorist they might just be a good thinker. You can’t just automatically dismiss them.

“They said Edward Snowden was a conspiracy theorist until he comes up with the evidence,” added Haddock from the set during the shooting of season two’s eighth episode.

Chris Haddock checks his computer during a break on the set of The Romeo Section.

“This world has always been attractive and intriguing to me. To the point I also follow it domestically,” said Airlie, who lectured for two years at U of T. “When you drill down a little bit on that (C-51) omnibus bill there is a lot of latitude that was being created for our intelligence agencies.

“So some of the things that might have been suggested in our show are not a stretch.”

Andrew Airlie poses for a photo on the set of The Romeo Section.

For that new role Haddock turned to old friend Brian Markinson.

Years ago Markinson played the top cop in DaVinci’s Inquest but in this series he is working blue not wearing blue as he brings to life Norman, the morally corrupt, blackballed spy.

Brian Markinson joins the cast for season two of The Romeo Section. 

“Wolfgang says he is addicted to everything,” said Markinson about Norman. “He’s addicted to young men and he’s addicted to alcohol and drugs and he’s become a bit of a pariah. That’s when we first meet him. He’s been out the game for quite a long time.

“It’s a really neat relationship because you’ve got this guy who is sort of a loose cannon and it knocks Wolfgang out of his comfort zone.”

Markinson’s Norman is the type of character that you root for even though you never trust him.

“This is a guy who has done wet work in the field,” said Airlie. “He’s served some real time in some very dangerous scenarios and done things that most Canadians would like to believe that we don’t do. Sure, the CIA does stuff like that but CSIS doesn’t do things like that.”

Brian Markinson (l) and Andrew Airlie (r) star as spies in season two of The Romeo Section.

“This has blown open a portion of my mind,” said Haddock. “When you are writing contemporary stuff and making contemporary television any little thing that is off I go, ‘Ugh that’s not real,’ but if you go into a period picture the audience doesn’t know what it was like in 1840 China. Things become simpler about establishing verisimilitude.

“And you can just start talking about very timely human things that are basically human forever.” 

Like good storytelling.

dgee@postmedia.com

twitter.com/dana_gee

Timeless

Oct. 3, 10 p.m. | Global TV

More info: globaltv.com/timeless

Politicians and pundits warn weekly of the ramifications of terrorists getting their hands upon a nuclear device. What if a criminal with a masterplan got ahold of history? That is part of the plot of Timeless.

A new Vancouver-filmed NBC action/adventure/science fiction series, it features oddball heroes, one very charismatic bad guy (or is he?), and a time-travelling conspiracy threatening all of humanity.

A discredited spy named Garcia Flynn (Goran Visnjic; ER, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) jacks a time machine from a industrialist’s research lab and a chase party is assembled. History professor Dr. Lucy Preston (Abigail Spencer; Mad Men, Suits, Cowboys & Aliens), Black Ops specialist Wyatt Logan (Matt Lanter; 90210, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and scientist Rufus Carlin (Malcolm Barrett; The Office, The Hurt Locker) are hardly a crack team. But each has unique skills required for hot pursuit through the centuries.

Wait, don’t the rules of time travel say no messing with the past or it’s trouble?

“Well, yes, and that is something very different in Timeless where someone is trying to upset history,” said Goran Visnijc. “We made a couple of barriers for ourselves we can’t break, like you can’t go to the period in time where you previously existed and change something that happened. To, say, stop someone who perhaps killed your family that you are accused of killing, you have to go back and maybe kill their father.”

Foreshadow much, Mr. Visnijc?

The actor allows that his character is complicated. As the series unfolds, it becomes clear to all that any time travel carries consequences. Timeless harbours many undercurrents. The budget enables attention to detail in costuming, sets and effects, as was clear during a set visit to a Watergate-era set episode. There were gorgeous vintage muscle cars, big afros and plaid polyester bell bottoms straight out of a Wild and Crazy Guys skit. 

“We’ve been having a blast going through different periods of time, right down to the pants, which are my own personal pair,” laughs Matt Lanter. “It’s sort of Mission Impossible meets Quantum Leap with some very Spielberg-esque qualities. There is a good mix of tongue-in-cheek comedy in the action I really enjoy as well.”

This is echoed by Abigail Spencer and Malcolm Barrett. Both their characters find themselves living more fully realized lives chasing Flynn across the ages than they do in daily life, only to learn that comes with a price.

“Lucy is one of the most respected historians around and, because they can’t take Google back in time, they send her because she has it all in her head,” said Spencer. “Of course, she is not prepared, which leads to major complications. She quickly learns that there is more to the story of her being selected too.”

“On the other hand, I have the pretty clearly defined role of being along because I’m the only guy who knows how to pilot the ship,” said Barrett. “Of course, I’m exposed early on keeping secrets from the others, and no one is there without ulterior motives. We keep learning backstories on set as we film.”

Timeless joins a host of other new programs — Showcase’s Travelers, the Kennedy Assasination-themed mini-series 11.22.63, comedy Future Girl and others — including some aspect of time travel. The easy answer to why that is at this time just isn’t happening.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

FIVE CLASSIC TIME-TRAVELLING TV SHOWS

In 1895, British author H.G. Wells published the Time Machine and the world of science fiction was forever altered with the concept one could cruise through the centuries by using technology. Here are five TV shows that feature temporal shifting as a central premise:

Dr. Who (1963 – 1989; 2005 – ongoing): The tales of the rogue Time Lord from Gallifrey known only as the Doctor have enraptured generations with some of the best baddies in history (Daleks, Stone Angels, Cyberman) and a foppish frontman. Filming in B.C. this season.

The Time Tunnel (1966 – 1967): Two scientists get trapped in the time stream when their secret time project glitches. Notable for some of the coolest graphics ever.

Quantum Leap (1989 – 1993): Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) jumps through spacetime during an experiment to bounce around history righting wrongs. TV Guide named it one of the top cult TV shows. 

Sliders (1995 – 1999): A group of people “slide” — hence the name — through parallel universes via a convenient wormhole for limited time adventures. 

Outlander (2014 – ongoing): British nurse Claire Randall jumps from 1945 to Scotland, c. 1743, where the dashing Highlander Jamie Fraser and her hit it off big time. If you thought long distance relationships were messy, you have no idea how much worse it can get.

Ski, Skate, Ride: Filmmakers From Sea To Sky Country

Oct. 8, 8 p.m. | Vancity Theatre

Tickets and info: Viff.org

Rick McCrank spent years as a professional skateboarder. The owner of Main Street’s busy Antisocial skate shop has taken on a new role recently: TV host.

In the new Viceland series Abandoned, McCrank travels North America looking at stories of urban decay, local survival, community renewal and — duh — places to shred along the way.

McCrank is part of the Vancouver International Film Festival special event session Ski, Skate, Ride, showcasing local filmmakers such as Jordan Marley, who shot A Skier’s Journey in the steep and deeps of China and Iran, and dream day director Leo Hoorn.

Here are five things the host of Abandoned had to say about the series:

1: Abandoned is Philosophical: “We’re trying to explore loss and memory and, perhaps, hopefully inspire new ideas for change in the places we go, like St. Louis, which has all of these abandoned schools you can buy for around $200,000, which is a downpayment here. Being a professional skateboarder gives me a different perspective on what you’re seeing because we typically tend to see the positive in negative spaces.”

2: Skaters are Always Moving Through: “Skaters are always flowing through spaces, scanning for rocks and cracks and anything else that could arise. This means that we are often attracted to those empty and rundown spots, such as the whole community cookout and ride in the New Orleans episode.”

3: TV is Hard(ish): “This is the closest I’ve had to a proper job in the past 20 years. Even as a parent, getting up really early in the mornings is still not something I’m good at. I’m also a total introvert, and going up and talking to people on the fly was really something difficult for me and I bailed a few times.”

4: Urban Decay Creates Art: “In the first episode in Northeastern Ohio — the mecca of abandoned shopping malls — we met these people who go from goofing around with their friends with cameras to making short films and then getting better at it. Spike Jonze came from that same world and so will others.”

5: Abandoned is Heartbreaking: “A lot of the locations were selected from research into sources such as the urban exploration photography scene. What we were really looking for was the human story behind these places, and there were times when I became really emotional because of what people would say about their real feelings about living in these rust-belt towns and once-great cities like Detroit. But Detroit is really cool and it’s coming back, and we show that.”

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

Cabbie

Vancouver International Film Festival

Let’s Compare Mythologies (Canadian Shorts): Cabbie

Oct. 9, 3:15 p.m.

Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour

Tickets/Info: viff.org

How long does it take to make a 12-minute film about a trio of Vancouver taxi drivers discussing their jobs and philosophies of life? 

For filmmakers Jessica Parsons and Jennifer Chiu, making Cabbie not only included hours and dollars devoted to breaking the ice with local drivers during trips, but also having to cast actors to replace their interview subjects. The taxi profession keeps to itself and finding someone willing to break that ice took months.

“Jennifer and I both always found the long conversations we had with cab drivers about the job, where they were from, why they did it and so forth, very interesting,” said Parsons. “Even s0, it turned out to be very hard to get actual subjects for the film. A lot of companies have a clause that says drivers can’t speak to media and that made it quite difficult, so we guaranteed anonymity and cast actors in their places.”

After trial-and-error, Craigslist ads and more research, two subjects of the film were located. The third driver came to the project from an acting class that Parsons was in. The final film follows the trio through a night shift while each character — a Caucasian woman, Indo-Canadian immigrant male and a Vancouver-born-and-raised Chinese-Canadian male — offers up what passes for life philosophy as it relates to driving.

“All of the audio is from actual interviews and you get the actors’ faces up onscreen,” she said. “Not only is their insight about the different rhythms of the city that we inhabit really unique but also all of the people that they meet. There could be a feature in there and I think that a lot of people don’t understand that they pay rent for the cars and it is a very hard job.”

This is Parsons’ first time having a film in VIFF. She also acts in Sophie Jarvis’ Homesick (VIFF 2016  Metamoprhoses (Canadian Shorts), Oct. 11, 4 p.m., Vancity Theatre). 

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

Shoot the Messenger

Oct. 10, 9 p.m. | CBC

Actor Elyse Levesque and her character on the CBC drama Shoot the Messenger have something in common — both are enjoying big career moves.

Levesque, a native of Regina who honed her craft in Vancouver, is the lead in the new series. She plays Daisy Cunningham, a journalism-school graduate who has just landed a job on a big-city daily newspaper.

Elyse Levesque, who plays Daisy Channing in the new CBC drama Shoot the Messenger, is seen here in a scene with Lucas Bryant, as fellow reporter Sam Olenski. 

At the centre of the series, which airs on  Oct. 10 on CBC, Daisy has a notebook full of complicated professional and personal issues.

The  season begins with her witnessing a gang-related murder and covering it for the paper. Unfortunately for Daisy, the thrill of a scoop quickly fades when it turns out that she has misidentified a person involved.

To further complicate her life, Daisy is secretly sleeping with the case’s lead homicide detective, Kevin Lutz (Lyric Bent).

As the season unfolds, further investigation into the shooting leads Daisy toward a world that presents dark political, social and even family ramifications.

To prepare for the role, Levesque picked the brain of a former reporter and dove into media of all kinds.

“I think the one thing that it taught me really was not to take everything verbatim, to not take what I read as the absolute truth. Things are spun sometimes for different reasons,” said Levesque of her research and her role.

“I think it taught me to think more for myself.”

Created by Sudz Sutherland and Jennifer Holness, Shoot the Messenger is a fully packed drama with multiple storylines. The cast includes Lucas Bryant as a hotshot reporter and the wonderful Alex Kingston (E.R., Dr. Who) as a fiery Brit boss. Hannah Anderson plays Daisy’s sister Chloe, a political insider with her own secret.

The series has a ripped-from-the-headlines feel, with stories revolving around refugees, organized crime and political payoffs. The series will remind viewers of DaVinci’s Inquest, arguably CBC’s best drama ever. That nostalgic nod is made a little more pronounced by the fact that DaVinci himself, Nicholas Campbell, shows up in this new series as Daisy’s father.

“I wish everyone could see how he works behind the scenes,” said Levesque. “He’s just so alive in his acting that you don’t know what he is going to do. What is so great is that he challenges you from a pure place of love, wanting you to be great, too. That is the mark of an amazing artist and actor, they are just really available for you.”

Levesque’s resume is a varied one. Most recently she worked on the new TV series Notorious and Motive. In 2014 she won the best supporting actress award at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival for her turn in the feature film Spare Change.

A little show called Stargate is also on her list of credits.

New crime drama Shoot the Messenger centres around Elyse Levesque’s character as an ambitious young journalist for a large daily newspaper.

dgee@theprovince.com

twitter.com/dana_gee

At a 2009 screening of Facing Ali, Muhammad Ali inspired Ben Ratner and Aleks Paunovic to make Ganjy, a short movie dedicated to him.

RINGING SUCCESS: Sixty-seven professional bouts led to the pugilistic dementia that hastened gutsy featherweight Bobby Chacon’s recent death at age 64. Guts were involved, too, when actor Ben Ratner played the vacant-faced, near-incoherent-voiced role of a similarly afflicted boxer. Still, he did so convincingly in Ganjy, a movie Ratner wrote and directed and Tony Pantages produced. The 14-minute picture is dedicated to the late Muhammad Ali, who appears in it in a real-life 2009 photo with Ratner and co-star Aleks Paunovic. Boxers themselves, the two and actors Zak Santiago and Donny Lucas give Ganjy unforced authenticity. Two soundtrack songs by city-based Jesse Zubot float like butterflies. The Haven Films picture will screen before Marrying The Family at International Village 10 at 1:30, Oct. 8. Crowd-funding for feature-film development may see Ganjy go the full 15 rounds. It’s already a knockout.

Talent agent Carrie Wheeler and screenwriter-spouse Jaman Lloyd produce all-organic goods at Bowen Island’s Copper Kettle Fine Foods.

BOWEN SANS BONE: The dismissive word “ham” for performers may be as old as show business. Not that the 30 actors that agent Carrie Wheeler sends out for film and TV roles necessarily warrant that designation. And there is certainly no ham in her and director-screenwriter-husband Jaman Lloyd’s personal life, as both are vegans. “But you don’t have to be one to eat our products,” Wheeler said. She meant the all-organic sauces, rub and ketchup their year-old Copper Kettle Fine Foods firm produces on Bowen Island. Although residing there, the seven-year-wed couple hope to see their existing and newer products retailed far beyond local farmers’ markets and online. As for business premises, “You’ve got to go to what’s available on Bowen Island,” Wheeler said regarding Copper Kettle’s location in the thoroughly carnivore Alderwood Farm butcher shop.

Brian Yeung briefed Andrea Eng on the education prizes Tencent internet firm co-founder Charles Chen Yidan endowed with US$320 million.

CUM LAUDE: Commercial realtor Andrea Eng had a stellar career before edging from the spotlight to strategize global property deals for the likes of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s son Richard. Now she has a link to a similar entrepreneur who seems determined to give away some of his billions. Charles Chen Yidan, 45, co-founded the now-enormous Tencent holding company and endowed central China’s private, non-profit Wuhan College before establishing the Chen Yidan Foundation. Chen recently added to earlier commitments by endowing US$320 million to provide Yidan prizes for education research and education development. In consequence, he may now be China’s largest philanthropist.

Of the fiscal resources he amassed, Chen said: “They just happened to fall in my hand for a while, and I ought to put them to good use. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to do so.”

Helping ensure that good use is Rhodes Scholar-journalist Brian Yeung, 29. With senior Chen staff, he conferred with Bill Gates en route to a first-in-Canada meeting with UBC brass regarding the Yidan prizes. Impressed by her founding role in the Tom.com Internet portal that became CK Hutchison Holdings’ online Tom Group, Yeung then powwowed privately with Eng.

Jacqueline Dupuis launched year-round programming for the 35-year-old Vancouver International Film Festival she’s headed since 2012. Photo for the Mac Parry Town Talk column of Oct. 8, 2016. Malcolm Parry/PNG [PNG Merlin Archive]

Jamie Goehring and Kristen Bell fronted a Lighthouse Pictures party at the Imperial theatre late Oscar winning producer Bill Vince founded.

Brightlight Pictures’ founder-chair Shawn Williamson greeted partier Bill Millerd who gave him an Arts Club stage-manager job in 1983.

Brightlight Pictures guest Jodelle Ferland showed a photo of herself at the 2006 event when she was 11 and had acted for seven years. 

Auctioneer Barry Scott will be honoured at Arts Umbrella’s Splash gala and less formally thanked by the many charities his skills have benefited. 

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

School is out for the day and coconut beurre blanc is on 13-year-old Hudson Stiver’s mind.

The combination of butter and coconut milk, reduced down to a rich sauce, will be a key part of the supper he’s cooking for his family tonight. There will also be cod, rice and sautéed vegetable, he says.

“I’m going to keep it pretty simple.”

The Bowen Island teen’s culinary endeavours are often more complex and recently took him to Toronto to compete in the Food Network Canada reality cooking show, Chopped Canada. The episode airs Nov. 6.

Stiver can’t share details about his brush with several celebrity chefs or the dishes he created to compete against three other junior cooks (all from Eastern Canada), but he said the experience was a nerve-racking one.

“I was really nervous when I was in the kitchen. Most of my cooking happens here at home, so it was a change to be in a big kitchen,” he said in an interview Friday.

Stiver has been cooking since he was three years old, said his mom Abbey-Jane McGrath. His dad, John Stiver, is a musician and works nights, so father and son would spend many happy hours combing the local seafood and produce markets to make amazing meals.

“We bonded that way when I was younger,” said Stiver.

In grade school, he began reading recipe cards instead of storybooks. At age six, soccer became his passion and took him away from the kitchen for a time. But over the last two years, he’s returned and often makes dinner for his family.

“When he comes home after school and starts cutting onions, we know he’s processing his day,” said McGrath.

Fresh, local ingredients inspire the young chef, who describes his cooking as “West Coast cuisine with an Asian influence.” For a school project this year, he’s working on a cookbook. He loves to explore new flavours and cooking styles — he once experimented with a neighbour’s Buddha’s Hand (a citron variety) and created a delicious ice cream.

Stiver said his favourite food at the moment is Vietnamese Spring Rolls with local salmon and fresh vegetables.

But the teen’s two younger sisters — aged four and 10 — have caused him to be flexible as well. One will “spit it out if she doesn’t like it,” he said, while the other favours Italian food and sweets. “She’s not a big fan of adventurous foods.”

This Thanksgiving, Stiver and his family will head to his grandparents’ home for the traditional meal, which includes his grandpa’s signature mashed potatoes with a cheddar cheese crust. Stiver hopes to help him make them.

gluymes@postmedia.com

twitter.com/glendaluymes

The Architect

Oct. 11, 6:30 p.m. | Vancouver Playhouse 

Oct. 13, 11 a.m. | International Village 9

Oct. 14, 9:15 p.m. | Vancity Theatre

Tickets and info: viff.org

Just how far would you go to build your dream home, and what if it became a nightmare? 

In director Jonathan Parker’s comedy the Architect, Eric McCormack and Parker Posey play a couple who hire an architect played by James Frain to design them their perfect home. Things go very much awry right from the start as architect Miles Moss is anything but the right guy for this build.

“I read the script and I love it because my wife and I built a house here in Vancouver and we had a great architect,” said McCormack. “But imagine if that architect was the wrong guy, a little bit insane and slept with your wife?”

Shot just North of Seattle in Mukilteo, the film was completed two years ago but wasn’t released until this year at the Vancouver International Film Festival due to the time it took for the CGI to be completed. The Architect’s premiere at VIFF marks another milestone in town this year for McCormack who began his career in Vancouver working in TV.

He has been back here with his family since March working on the new sci-fi series Travellers which debuts Monday at 9 p.m. on Showcase.

Hear him discuss the Architect and more in a candid video at vancouversun.com.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

Wild Archaeology

Oct. 12, 2 p.m. & Oct. 14, noon, and online | APTN

More info: aptn.ca

From high alpine steep to underwater deep in Lake Huron and far north of Inuvik, APTN’s Wild Archaeology investigates 15,000 (or more) years of human history that colonial record books ignored. Premiering this month, the show is a fresh, rugged reassessment of Indigenous technology, arts and culture as well as an adventure for anyone interested in the great outdoors.

In 13 episodes, co-hosts Jacob Pratt (Dakota/Salteaux) and Jenifer Brousseau (Ojibway/French Canadian) — along with Rudy Reimer/Yumks (Squamish), assistant professor in Simon Fraser University departments of First Nations Studies and Archaeology, and SFU’s Indigenous Research Institute — venture in search of discoveries that enhance the historical record of Indigenous peoples. Along the way, the three prove to be natural born comedians as well as dedicated investigators.

“One of the main premises of the show is to illustrate the bridges between the science of archeology as well as cultural knowledge, including oral history, traditions and so on,” said Reimer. “As a professor here at SFU, it’s always a point that comes up in the classroom that books in the field tend to start 5,000 years ago and here in North America we have a record that goes back 15,000 or more years. To be able to show the research actively going on in Canada that is pushing the boundaries is really exciting and, in time, that will change the textbooks, too.”

Besides the implications for Wild Archaeology to reset academic records, it provides valuable insight into the myriad Indigenous peoples across Canada and the places where both differences and similarities occur. The opening episode has plains-based Pratt amazed at the altitude rise to get to a site above the tree line in traditional Squamish territory. But when the team comes upon a thunderbird pictograph, he is quick to spot the similarity of the design to that of the same figure on the plains and conducts a ritual to honour the relationships.

“Every set of episodes really illustrates the geographic differences across Canada and the completely different kind of archeaology we researchers use to interpret what we’re finding,” said Reimer. “The name of the show really appealed to me because it not only reflects where I do the work I do, but also because it references the research being done at sites that aren’t right on the doorstep in what are, in many cases, modern cities today.”

From left, Jacob Prat, SFU’s Rudy Reimer/Yumks and Jenifer Brousseau check out paintings on stone.

Wild Archaeology executive producer/writer/co-director Tracy German teaches film at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont. She conceived of the show while filming an activist video around a conservation effort. There, she came into contact with an archaeologist working with a chief who pointed out that there was no national repository or record of all of the findings.

Coupled with the effects of climate change on sensitive areas, it was clear that there was something to say about this potentially lost history. Season 1 took two years to complete.

“I am a non-status Mohawk who didn’t grow up in the culture and wasn’t exposed to it and I wanted to know about this history that is under, or even, misunderstood,” said German. “Both Rudy and Jacob have those ties, but Jenifer came to them later and that becomes a real part of the story, too.”

Anyone with an interest in history will enjoy the revelations of Wild Archaeology. Viewers get to see a wide sampling of what’s out there waiting, including 6,900 year-old obsidian (volcanic glass) micro blades used on spears 10 times sharper than surgical steel and mammoth tusks almost too heavy to lift.  

Depending on how Season 1 goes, all involved hope Wild Archaeology will get the chance to delve even deeper. 

Maudie, the life and times of 1930s Nova Scotia native art movement icon Maude Lewis captured the hearts of 2016 Vancouver International Film Festival viewers to win the VIFF Super Channel People’s Choice Award.

Vancouver’s Nettie Wild took the Women in Film and Television Vancouver (WIFTV) Artistic Merit Award by unanimous vote for her film KONELINE: our land beautiful, a documentary about the ongoing conflict between humankind and nature.

The awards were announced at the VIFF Closing Gala on Saturday at the Telus World of Science where director Terrance Mallick’s Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience screened. The film has its public opening at the theatre on October 22. 

Additional audience awards — determined by audience voting — included VIFF Most Popular International Feature Winner: I, Daniel Blake from legendary UK director Ken Loach. Human by France’s Yann Arthus-Bertrand was the VIFF Most Popular International Documentary winner.

In a particularly poignant moment in the awards announcements, director Pete McCormack and singer John Mann came to the podium to collect the VIFF Most Popular Canadian Documentary for Spirit Unforgettable. The film — about the band Spirit of the West and its lead singer’s (Mann) struggle with early onset Alzheimers — is a candid and moving look at the ties that bind family, friends and bandmates facing an inevitable end. 

“I just really love to help people,” said Mann. “Thank you.” 

The audience applause clearly indicated how the man and his music have been a part of the Canadian cultural landscape for a generation. 

Over 300 films screened over the 16 day long film festival and many of those could have sold out additional viewings. In recognition of the fact that many wanted to see some of the audience favourites and couldn’t, VIFF Repeats will give everyone a second chance to see some key titles.

Among the selections are Vancouver director Ann Marie Fleming’s Window Horses, the documentary Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping and director Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, The Cannes Film Festival Best Director Prizewinner. 

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

VIFF Repeats full schedule

Tickets and info: viff.org.

Saturday, Oct. 15
12:30 p.m.: Seasons
2:30 p.m.: Two Trains Runnin’
4:30 p.m.: Kedi
6:30 p.m.: Window Horses
8:30 p.m.: Goldstone

Sunday, Oct. 16
12 p.m.: Strangers on the Earth
2 p.m.: Where the Universe Sings
4 p.m.: Twilight Over Burma
6:15 p.m.: Like Crazy
8:45 p.m.: Teacher

Monday, Oct. 17
10:30 a.m.: French Tour
12:30 p.m.: 1:54
4:30 p.m.: Infinite Flight of Days
6:30 p.m.: Freightened: The Real Cost of Shipping
8:30 p.m.: Elle

Tuesday, Oct. 18
4:30 p.m.: RiverBlue
6:30 p.m.: A New Moon Over Tohoku
8:45 p.m.: Personal Shopper

Wednesday, Oct. 19
4:30 p.m.: Vita Activa
7 p.m.: Yohji Yamamoto | Dressmaker
9 p.m.: Cadence

Thursday, Oct. 20
2 p.m.: Playing Lecouna
4:30 p.m.: Portrait of a Garden

The Vancouver Economic Commission has named David Shepheard as the first Vancouver film commissioner. A specialist in running film commissions in global markets, Shepheard brings 16 years of experience to the position, including his most recent role running the film commission services for Film London, the U.K. capital’s media development agency.

The commissioner will market Vancouver and its $2 billion-plus creative industries to strengthen its position as North America’s third-largest production centre, assume an advocacy role for the film and TV industry with all levels of government to keep growing the business, and help bring in future investment.

“There are few cities around the world that has both the brand and recognition that Vancouver has, both in day-to-day life but also in this industry,” said Shepheard. “Vancouver has such a successful and vibrant industry with a massive opportunity to grow it further.”

The Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC) felt that the creation of the new position, in addition to the Vancouver Film & Media Centre under executive director and industry veteran Nancy Mott, was urgently needed following a 67 per cent increase in business between 2015 and ’16 and even higher numbers predicted by year’s end.

Mayor Gregor Robertson stressed the importance of having a dedicated office working to “position Vancouver as the premier global destination for film and TV production, talent and investment.”

With their combined global experience, Shepheard and Mott are well-positioned to step up business opportunities in digital entertainment and interactive, particularly in such economic hotbeds as China, Japan and Korea. This will require additional studio spaces, more skilled labour and further investments into cutting-edge technologies. As VEC CEO Ian McKay noted, it’s time for urgency to assure continued success and growth ; he said a report and recommendations will be presented to the provincial government next year addressing issues related to maintaining a healthy business climate.

“For too long the film, TV and screen-based industry here has been driven both by perception and reality by currency rates, and I understand as well as anyone the effects that this has had on ebbs and flows of activity here over the years,” said McKay. “A big part of our job, as articulated by our friend Chris Carter from the X-Files when he was at VIFF last week, is to build upon the excellent brand that Vancouver has globally as a production centre that has the best and most reliable crews in the world, the most modern and reliable studio infrastructure and unmatched technology partners and visionary leadership.”

Foreign exchange rates need to be only one factor determining business activity. Mayor Robertson noted that with 1,000 studios and offices employing over 40,000 people, there is no time like now to re-energize the already successful industry.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

Morning anchor Randene Neill announced today she is leaving Global B.C.

“I’ve been given the opportunity for another job,” Neill said during an emotional Global broadcast. “It’s the only other job that could parallel my love for Global B.C.”

Neill said she will be leaving in two weeks to start her new career.

“I’m going to cry a lot in the next little while,” Neill said.

One of Neill’s most memorable segments was the time an overly enthusiastic dog wouldn’t stop licking her during a broadcast.

Along with the current morning show assignment and stints anchoring the weekend news, Neill is best known to Global B.C. viewers for her years anchoring the Noon News.

Her departure follows the controversial decision to eliminate the position of fellow Global anchor Steve Darling, which caused an outcry among viewers. A Facebook group called Steve Darling Deserved Better Treatment has attracted more than 22,000 members.

The station indicated that Neill’s announcement is unrelated to Darling’s departure.

“Randene is leaving the journalism industry altogether to pursue a new opportunity at a different organization,” Global BC posted on its Facebook page.

Global B.C.’s staff restructuring comes months after Corus Entertainment completed a $2.65-billion purchase of the Global Television Network, along with 19 specialty channels including the Food Network, from Shaw Media.

pdarbyshire@postmedia.com

Sbrown@postmedia.com

Spark Animation 2016

To Oct. 23, various times | Scotiabank Theatre, Vancity Theatre Centre, Wall Centre

Tickets and info: sparkfx.ca

Brenda Chapman‘s resumé reads like a “best of” list for animated features. The American animation story artist, writer and director is the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature as a director of Brave (in 2012). She was also one of the first to land a directing role for a feature by major studio. A shortlist of her credits includes The Prince of Egypt, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Chicken Run and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Small surprise that she is speaking at the business symposium for Spark Animation 2016. Reflecting the size and scope of the local animation industry, the annual event has grown into a three-prong affair. 

The festival also includes an industry conference at the Wall Centre as well as the animation festival. That opens Thursday with the Canadian theatrical premiere of Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, the precursor to the super-hyped Final Fantasy XV video game. A full program of features and shorts is screening at the event.

On the phone from her hometown of Beason, Ill., where she just launched a film festival, Chapman cut to the chase about a key element of her contribution to the conversation on Friday (5:45 p.m., at VIFF Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour St.) with Warner Animation Group executive producer Jinko Gotoh, titled The Global Landscape of Animated Features. 

“I’m sure that women in film will be discussed as well as what is out there and coming on the creative side and from where,” said Chapman. “But increasingly my goal these days is to inspire young people to work for their dreams. Not just to dream them but to actually achieve them, because this business is really hard and you have to never forget to go for what you have passion for.”

‘Increasingly my goal these days is to inspire young people to work for their dreams. Not just to dream them but to actually achieve them’ — animation story artist, writer and director Brenda Chapman

Chapman says that while this approach might not always result in the best pay, it is “what keeps you sane when things get crazy.” Anyone working in the animation business can testify to both the long hours and frequently frenetic pace of work. Controversies about contracts, remuneration rates and credits arise. 

“Ultimately, do what speaks to you creatively in the end,” said Chapman. “It will give you a great sense of pride, a sense of achievement and that passion will be reflected in your portfolio, which is your calling card.”

Chapman started with drawing and it remains key to her love of animation, although she expresses equal excitement with stop-motion, 3D and other forms. Not surprising is that a good story well told is always key. Chapman says there has been a surge in script quality with the increased competition in the industry, and that benefits creators and consumers alike.

“The worst animation in the world can’t destroy a good story, but the best animation can’t save a bad story and make it worth your emotional investment,” she said. “There are so many factors going into making something that rises above the rest, and sometimes it can be a long and frustrating process to get where you want. Brave took eight years because of Disney purchasing Pixar and bumping the release date back twice.”

Typically, three to four years is pretty standard for bringing an animated feature to screen. Those sorts of limits can mean a lot of cooks coming in and out of the mix. Chapman broke the glass ceiling for female directors on major features for The Prince of Egypt as one of a team of three directors.

“It wasn’t in my mindset or my goal to break that ceiling, I just wanted to do a great job directing,” said Chapman. “But the truth is it still needs to be broken regularly. There still aren’t enough of us out there and you still rarely see women in executive roles either. It all is moving too slow.”

Clearly, she has carved herself out a place in the industry, inspiring more women to follow. As a closing point, she says that the trend these days at all studios is marketing driving the creative types.

“That’s the tail wagging the dog, I think it’s backwards — marketing says we don’t know how to market that movie so make it this way.” she said. “If I said I didn’t know how to direct that movie, I’d get fired and replaced. This has to change or else people are going to get tired of seeing the same thing.”

Chapman is now working on an indie film about a Chinese folktale about two sisters. The feature will be for western release, but funding is being secured from China. Chapman thinks this international model is likely to become more common as animation is a pan-cultural and global experience, a trend that will be touched upon in her talk.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

Related

• Quick on the draw: Vancouver's animation film industry takes off
• Contract city: Vancouver animation bonanza rolls on, but with push for more proprietary work

Dylan Moran: Off the Hook

Nov. 2, 8 p.m. | Vogue Theatre

Tickets and info: $40 at ticketfly.com

Asked why there are so many internationally acclaimed comics from his homeland, Irish comedian Dylan Moran has a simple answer.

“Well, we’ve never invaded anyone have we?” he said. “Perhaps that helps people identify with the humour better than they might from other places, both nearby and farther afoot.”

On stage, film and television, the 44-year-old is a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award winner for his series Black Books (now enjoying another go-round on Netflix). Film credits include such hits as Shaun of the Dead, Run Fatboy Run, Notting Hill and director John Michael McDonagh‘s tour de force 2014 black comedy Calvary with Brendan Gleeson and Chris O’Dowd. But it is in his various acclaimed stand-up performances that Moran has truly gone global.

He is touring his latest show, titled Off the Hook, across Canada and comes to Vancouver next week. Off the Hook has been to South Africa, Australia and Europe receiving almost universal rave reviews.

How is it that his wry, observational humour has gained such a worldwide appeal? There is no denying his homeland inspires much of his work. Moran was born in Middlesex, England. He and his family moved to Ireland when he was two. Now he resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.

“Well, I know that the response is every bit as favourable in Poland and Kazakhstan as it is in London,” he said. “I don’t think that my particular comedy hinges on the successful inclusion of the name of a specific brand of crisps for the punchline. Er, PO-TA-TO chips.”

Indeed it is the glaring everyperson aspect of Moran’s characters and observations have made his work cross borders since he first gained attention on the U.K. stand-up circuit. Bernard Black, the beyond-cranky, pickled and nicotine-stained wretch book shop owner in Black Books has a comparable in every town. His take on human folly, life’s absurd realities and love and politics aren’t exactly new terrain for the aging hipster. 

But he more often than not cuts to the bone with a precision that few comics manage.

His analysis on what it really means to be a middle-aged man, from Off the Hook, is a good example, simple and succinct: “You’re a jelly baby with a few quid, that’s all you are. I wasn’t ready for anything in my life. Men spend their whole life like this asking “what now?” and that’s when they die.”

From family dynamics to the differences between the sexes, his is usually a refreshingly new take on what can easily become stale jokes. He has a nimble wit navigating the often dangergous waters of political comedy too. Moran’s is biting without being a poster boy for any obvious side. But how hard is it to keep a happy face with movements such as Brexit putting a damper on things at home?

Moran turned the query on its head with a Canadian comparison.

“Well, things do seem to be headed in a similarly unpleasant direction all around at the moment, don’t they?,” he said. “But then look at the bright light that is Canada, with your progressive Ken doll of a PM. Tell me, does the man have a bad angle in a photograph?”

Touché.

Doubtless, he’ll manage to take on the media circus below the border leading to the November election with equally sardonic zeal. However, Off the Hook is a journey that never stays on one topic too long and tends to view everything from an almost sage long lens.

Moran is a bit of a combination of ADD with A-type proficiency. On top of his stand-up, TV and film work, he’s also found time to pen a series of pretty surreal illustrated books such as Bessie the Edible Doormouse Gets Down and Pig Gets a Quadruple Bypass. His website includes a gallery of his watercolour illustrations.

“I just far prefer to remain busy, as the alternative isn’t appealling,” he said.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

Steve Darling and Randene Neill have left Global BC and Sonia Sunger is joining the network’s morning show.

Global’s early news broadcast became the news itself recently when it laid off Darling, a popular anchor. The move caused an outcry among viewers, with many vowing to switch to rival networks. A Facebook group called Steve Darling Deserved Better Treatment Global BC quickly grew to more than 25,000 members.

Shortly after Darling was laid off, fellow host Randene Neill announced she was leaving Global as well. In an emotional broadcast, Neill said she’d been “given the opportunity for another job” and added “I’m going to cry a lot in the next little while.”

Related

• Anchors away: First Steve Darling was laid off, now Randene Neill is quitting Global BC
• Global BC anchor Steve Darling let go after position eliminated
• Dr. Sport: Time off nice, but longtime TV host Steve Darling would like to get back to work

The station indicated that Neill’s announcement was unrelated to Darling’s departure.

“Randene is leaving the journalism industry altogether to pursue a new opportunity at a different organization,” Global BC posted on its Facebook page, although no details about her new job have been officially revealed yet.

Global dedicated much of Neill’s final broadcast to her, as Global personality Squire Barnes joined Neill to look back at some of their lighthearted moments together over the years.

One of the most memorable segments in Neill’s history with Global was a viral video of a pit bull puppy that wouldn’t stop licking her face, causing her to break down in laughter.

The puppy, Ginger, is now fully grown and also stopped by the set to send off Randene. Yes, there was more enthusiastic — and perhaps bittersweet — face licking. “Ginger, you and me forever,” Neill said, before adding “Your breath is much worse.”

Global announced B.C. native Sonia Sunger will be joining the show. In a tweet, the BC1 anchor said she will host the morning show on Halloween Monday.

Members of the Steve Darling Deserved Better Facebook group praised the sendoff for Neill, but criticized Global for not doing something similar for Darling. “It would have been really nice if Steve Darling got the opportunity to have the same farewell,” said one user, while another added, “It made me more outraged why they didn’t do this for Steve.”

Global BC’s staff restructuring comes months after Corus Entertainment completed a $2.65-billion purchase of the Global Television Network, along with 19 specialty channels including the Food Network, from Shaw Media.

pdarbyshire@postmedia.com

– With a file from Scott Brown

David Leitch (John Wick) is reportedly the favourite to take over the director’s chair from Tim Miller on the upcoming Deadpool sequel.

Miller split from the movie last week over apparent “creative differences” with Vancouver-born star Ryan Reynolds.

Ryan Reynolds wants to keep Deadpool small and raunchy.

According to The Wrap, Miller wanted to turn Deadpool 2 into a mega-budget superhero movie, while Reynolds, along with original screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, want to stay with the original formula — lots of raunch and mayhem on a smaller budget.

Deadpool is the surprise smash of 2016. The Vancouver-filmed movie based on the popular Marvel anti-hero made more than $780 million on a $58-million budget to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever.

Mashable is reporting that first in line to take over from Miller is Leitch, a former stunt coordinator who worked with Reynolds on X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the actor’s first go-round as Deadpool. 

Leitch co-directed 2014’s John Wick, which, like Deadpool, was a violent action film peppered with humour with an anti-hero as its titular character.

His next movie is The Coldest City starring Charlize Theron as a British agent.

Meanwhile, Deadpool 2 is still searching for an actress to play the popular Marvel character Domino. The shortlist includes Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex, The Interview), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (The Thing), Sienna Miller (Fox Catcher), Ruby Rose (Orange is the New Black) and Vancouver’s Mackenzie Davis (The Martian, Bladerunner 2049).

The Predator details

Director Shane Black has released some new details about The Predator, his upcoming Vancouver-filmed sequel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger action classic. 

Director Shane Black says The Predator will be a thriller.

Black told Collider that he will be arriving in Vancouver in the next couple weeks for pre-production but shooting won’t probably begin until mid-February.

The writer/director, who has been so successful in combining action and comedy in features like Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys, promises The Predator will be full of laughs to go along with the explosions and blood splatter but, like the original, will also have its share of scares.

“I think the Predator movies have slightly veered from typical sci-fi in that there is a sort of thriller aspect to them. I think it should be scary, I think it should be funny, and I think ultimately it should be wondrous and about perceiving things that human beings very seldom get a chance to see … I don’t mean movie audiences, I mean characters in the movie. I’m not saying the movie will be nothing anyone’s seen before (laughs),” said Black, who has a small part as a member of Arnie’s merry band of commandos in Predator.

Boyd Holbrook (Narcos) is rumoured to star in The Predator, which is scheduled for February 2018 release.

More Will & Grace?

Vancouver actor Eric McCormack, who has been enjoying working close to home on the, Netflix/Showcase time travelling series Travelers, might reprise his most famous role as talks are underway for a potential revival of Will and Grace.

Variety reports that NBC started discussions to resurrect last month after the cast reunited to create an election-themed online video.

Will & Grace, the first primetime show to feature two gay series regulars, won 16 Emmy Awards during its eight-season run (1998-2006) on NBC.

Debra Messing, who played Grace to McCormack’s Will,  recently told the Hollywood Reporter that she would “never say never” but figured a Will & Grace revival might work best on a non-network TV platform.

“Now there are platforms where you can do six or 10 episodes. I don’t believe we would ever come back to network (TV) again,” Messing said. “I think that the logistics of all of our lives — there would just be way too many things to hammer out. But for something shorter-lived and maybe having the limitations of being on network TV lifted may give us a fun, fresh opportunity because we could be really, really naughty!”

Sausage love

Speaking of raunchy Vancouver-made movies, the folks behind Sausage Party, Seth Rogen’s animated hit about food items trying to escape their gastronomical fate, are hoping for some Oscar consideration.

The Hollywood Reporter says Sony Picture will be pushing for a best animated feature nomination.

“Academy members are way smarter and more forward-thinking than people realize,” Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman said. “They want to recognize bold, original, risky breakthroughs, and that’s what Sausage Party is, however subversive. Plus, it’s just plain cool.”

Rogen, who voiced the lead sausage and co-wrote the movie with creative partner and Point Grey Secondary schoolmate Evan Goldberg, said the R-rated movie ventured into uncharted territory.

“It’s rare you really get to break new ground, and we hope that people view it as a good thing for the medium.”

WOW!, a cartoon merger

Vancouver’s Rainmaker Animation has acquired the New York-based Frederator Networks and has combined the two studios to create a new animation heavyweight, WOW! Unlimited Media.

Rainmaker is best known for the groundbreaking CGI series ReBoot and Beast Wars: Transformers, while Frederator makes a variety of TV titles for Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network, including the subversive hit Adventure Time.

ReBoot was a groundbreaking TV series that made by Vancouver studio Rainmaker. 

sbrown@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/Browniescott

Related

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Aprilynne Haqq, Jordan Chin and Jana Wollesen backed Lindsey Turner when the Night to Dream gala she chaired reportedly raised $415,000 to benefit Ronald McDonald House.

HAPPY MEAL: Banished in the creepy clown era, Ronald McDonald sidestepped the recent Night to Dream gala. At night’s end, though, chair Lindsey Turner said the Hotel Vancouver event had raised $415,000 to support his namesake Ronald McDonald House on the B.C. Children’s Hospital campus. Its 75 bedrooms accommodate the families of 2,000 out-of-town patients each year. A satellite four-family facility serves Surrey Memorial Hospital. Each provides “a space of hope,” for the parents and siblings of seriously ill children, CEO Richard Pass said.

Gala-goers dined not on Big Macs but beef short ribs, sablefish or quinoa and mushroom tenderloin. Wines donated by U.S. Consul General Lynne Platt kept their spirits up, and a Harpistry quartet’s playing likely increased attendees’ determination to help health-threatened youngsters stay here on earth.

Jake Dean, whose early diabetes spurred the $14-million Rockin’ for Research campaign, with parents Denise and Loverboy guitarist Paul.

Mary Jane Devine, who really plays clarinet and flute, chaired the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation’s $1.3-million Rockin’ for Research benefit.

LUCKY ONES: Loverboy lead guitarist Paul Dean may have remembered the band’s 1986 song, This Could Be The Night, when the Rockin’ For Research gala benefited the Junior Diabetes Research Foundation recently. Loverboy musicians sparkplugged the annual fundraiser in 2000 when Dean and wife Denise’s then-four-year-old son Jake contracted diabetes. The recent running reportedly added a record $1.3 million and change to the $12.7 million raised previously. Delighted by that haul, 12-time gala chair Mary Jane Devine could have tootled another Loverboy hit, Take Me To The Top. Sadly, the Mio Global firm president had left her flute and clarinet at home.

SEEING DOUBLES: “Brand ambassador” Gary Hayward launched Bombay Sapphire London Dry Gin at Telus Garden’s Glowbal Grill recently. More global than its name, the premium hooch was infused with “botanicals” from China, Ecuador, Germany, Indochina, Java, Morocco and Spain, and especially Italian juniper. That ingredient’s Dutch name, genever, was adopted for 18th-century British gin. Pronounced like the Swiss city, it appeared in a saucy, same-era song about a girl named Phyllis learning of liquor-drinking’s perils: “Her mother, when encouraged by warm genever’s dose, would cry to her, ‘Dear Philly, pray keep thy haunches close.’” Sage counsel still, albeit as little heeded as it was then.

Janet Coupland in 2014 with husband-physician-pilot-rancher-sports champ Dr. Douglas Coupland who died recently after 90 eventful years.

TAKE A BOW WOW: At the B.C. SPCA’s recent Offleashed gala in the Four Seasons hotel, attendees sat down to executive chef Weimar Gomez’s banquet fare. Younger ones merely wanted to nap. That was especially so for siblings who had left Williams Lake two days earlier. The seven-weeks-old, husky-shepherd crosses, Champagne and Boots, spent the pre-dinner reception entrancing gala-goers in a “cuddle lounge” beside the ballroom. Snoozing over, the pups headed for the SPCA’s Burnaby shelter where, neutered and with all shots administered, they’re ready to give years of love for $499 each. As for bigger bucks, gala chair Tracey Wade and honorary advisory chair Wayne Deans said Offleashed raised $360,000 for SPCA’s sheltering, cruelty-investigation and youth-education programs.

GENERATION V: Dr. Douglas Coupland died recently after 90 years of being a family physician, oral surgeon, dentist, jet-fighter and bush pilot, rancher, ski- and skeet-shooting champ, and 59-year husband to Janet with whom his four sons included the same-name, globally feted author-artist.

Langara College journalism students Chantelle Deacon, Alyd Llewellyn, Brian Kurokawa, Alison Pudsey, Daniel Cantarino. Simran Gill, Robert Filho and Nico Hernandez attended the Jack Webster Awards. 

Broadcasters Mike Killeen, Peter Mansbridge and Tamara Taggart fronted the Jack Webster Awards event now entering its fourth decade.

SPRINGING ETERNAL: 900 Jack Webster Awards attendees applauded when retired Sun reporter-columnist Shelley Fralic received the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award recently. However, even Fralic’s 41 years of newspapering paled beside one-time Sun columnist and editorial director Hutchison’s 61.

B.C. Lottery Corp.’s Kevin Gass and Angela Koulyras launched a lifetime $1,000-a-day lottery amid Jack Webster Awards attendees.

Accepting the first such award in 1991, then-90-year-old Hutchison saw media “falling behind in the race between wisdom and necessity.” The race today is between trained reporters and jobs. Journalism students at the Webster event’s back-of-the-room tables likely compared their career hopes with Hutchison and Fralic having jointly logged a century of gainful and satisfying employment. For other dreamers, B.C. Lottery Corp. VP Kevin Gass arrived to dangle the new Daily Grand lottery’s lifetime prize of $1,000 daily.

Trenchant reporter-broadcaster Jack Webster died in 1999 but a journalism awards program in his name lives on as lustily as ever.

VERY NICE: For students and others with no memory of reporter-broadcaster Webster, who died in 1999, here are some of the crusty Scot’s words from earlier events.

1995: “People are so sensitive today, there are only two people you can insult: the Scottish, who are beyond insulting, and the English, who don’t know they are being insulted.”

1996: “When I was drinking, I couldn’t stand up. Now I have my (surgically installed) new knees, I can’t sit down.”

1997: “When I joined The Vancouver Sun in 1947, the city was filled with two-bit crooks and whorehouses.”

Plus que ça change.

To awards foundation board members and sponsors shortly before his death: “It’s nice for me, who was a bit of a nagging son of a bitch, to … freely admire all the things you people have done.” Then, catching himself: “Well, I hate every politician, and the goddamn country is going to hell in a hand basket. But otherwise we have it very nice.”

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: The mice-type “unsubscribe” boxes that end intrusive, unsolicited emails are akin to French Revolution victims having “unexecute” invitations follow their heads into the guillotine basket.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

The exodus continues at Global B.C., as Sonia Beeksma has left the network, following the departures of Steve Darling and Randene Neill.

First beloved morning news anchor Darling was laid off under mysterious circumstances in October. The move was unpopular among viewers and led to the creation of the Facebook group Steve Darling Deserved Better Treatment Global BC, which has more than 26,000 members.

Related

• New anchor named at Global BC as Steve Darling and Randene Neill leave
• Anchors away: First Steve Darling was laid off, now Randene Neill is quitting Global BC
• Global BC anchor Steve Darling let go after position eliminated

Shortly after, fellow anchor Neill announced she was leaving Global. In an emotional broadcast, Neill said she’d been “given the opportunity for another job” although it wasn’t immediately clear what her new position would be.

Global indicated that Neill’s departure was unrelated to the Darling situation. The network later announced that BC1 anchor Sonia Sunger would be joining the morning show.

Neill tweeted on Monday, Nov. 7, that she is joining Anthem Properties as the director of corporate marketing and communications.

Shortly after Darling and Neill left the show, Beeksma also announced her departure. On her Twitter account she said loved her Global family and was only moving on because of another opportunity. On Tuesday, Nov. 8, she tweeted that she was joining CTV Vancouver.

Like Neill, Beeksma got a special farewell video from Global.

Fans of Darling have noted that he did not receive the same treatment as Neill and Beeksma when his departure was announced. Darling has remained fairly quiet about his dismissal and future plans, stating on Twitter that the relationships he made at Global meant a great deal to him and he is now “looking for new opportunities.”

The situation has raised many questions, including the one almost everybody is asking: who’s next?

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Denis Villeneuve’s first-contact thriller Arrival opens this week. The film stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker, as well as Chinese-Canadian actor Tzi Ma in the key role of Chinese commander General Shang.

He won’t say much about it.

“Arrival is a tough interview because there is so much in it where you could just spoil it for the audience, and you really should see it,” said Tzi Ma. “But my character is the leader of the Chinese military; well known, highly respected and feared by armed forces around the world and his nickname is the Big Domino. He’s that piece in the story and that’s all I can say.”

Active in film and television for many decades, Ma is familiar to many viewers for his role as General Onoda in the locally produced Amazon show Man In The High Castle. He also played Tao on AMC’s Hell On Wheels, which wrapped up its fifth Alberta-shot season in July.

The 54-year-old’s Hollywood North resume runs deep, beginning back with one of the original hit series to put the local industry on the map.

“The first time I came here was in 1989 when I did MacGyver,” Ma said. “A long time ago, but I fell in love with the city and how clean, safe and easy it was to find parking. That may not be true anymore but I still love it here and work here a lot.”

Along with the turn as General Shang in Arrival, Ma has a recurring role in ABC’s fairytale drama Once Upon A Time as The Dragon. The magical herbal shop owner is no closer to Ma’s real persona as his frequent roles as military men.

“De-military background is better; zero,” he said. “I was close to getting into the air force, but that didn’t happen. I’m not sure that it would help me out in those roles now as, these days, there are experts on hand all the time and research is easy to do.”

Not so in the past, he laughs, when actors needed to do so much of their own investigating to develop their characters. For both the talent and the writers, a role “often mean heading to the library to look at the microfiche” (ancient information storage technique using photo documentation like screen grabs … ask a grandparent). 

The Hong Kong-born and New York-raised actor says it was often an uphill battle to escape standard Asian stereotypes earlier on. He has been outspoken on the issue.

“About 85 per cent of the Writer’s Guild is white male, so what do they know about us as a minority? There tended to be these characters that were completely unfocused and mixed up,” he said.

“Today, they can’t get away with that and there are roles that are much more rounded. Thank Google for that. Thank the expansion of the delivery of the material today, enabling much more meaningful roles and a much more open approach to character development within the scripts too.”

He notes that the global marketplace and the expansion of broadcasting into all the different digital delivery titans such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and so forth has meant the flourishing of new programs and new storytelling. A program such as AMC’s martial arts-laden Into The Badlands features Asian and African-American lead characters and a mixed race cast that resembles the typical make-up of a Lower Mainland street.

Ma feels these sorts of programs arise out of writing and production “liberated from the conventions of network.”

“There are understandable reasons for networks doing things a certain way, but now they are also responding to that new reality of all the competitive content delivery,” said Ma. “We’re seeing better scripts than we ever did in the past and everything is getting more cinematic with larger screens and HD and the like. All that means you can explore roles in a deeper, more realistic way and it’s a big improvement.”

Besides the other shows, Ma has been working on ABC’s The Catch, Beyond Borders with Gary Sinise and about nine other TV shows. He says the spectrum of characters he played in the past 12 months was unlike any previous year. The future looks bright indeed.

“I’ve been a Singaporean, a Laotian senator on The Chase and seem to be getting into something of a Meryl Streep of Asian origins,” he said. “It’s interesting that speaking both Mandarin and Cantonese hasn’t been such a big factor in me getting work so far, but I think that China is going to be somewhere that all of us are going to be working in the future and I’m pretty excited about it.”

Given the wide range of roles and content he has played, is there anything he has a personal preference for?

“Not really, but Arrival is really something special, please go see that film,” he said. “If nothing else, it’s one of those films where you walk out of the place and see the world a little differently.”

Arrival opened across Canada this weekend.

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