Growing up biracial in the eighties, elderly couples used to stare at my family as we would pass in the street. Kids would ask awkward questions at school. It was almost impossible to understand myself in relation to popular culture or even my own family tree. So seeing a biracial woman become a princess and…
Month: November 2017
The Blissful Melancholy of BoJack Horseman
On paper, BoJack Horseman seems somewhat derivative. A Hollywood satire about a faded sitcom star hoping to reclaim former glories? That’s HBO’s The Comeback. An alcoholic haunted by his past and locked in a cycle of self-destructive behaviour that impacts his loved ones and coworkers? That’s AMC’s Mad Men. A mature animated series featuring an…
The Ballad of Bruce and Selina
Batman Returns has always been a pretty singular film for me. Even after a film studies degree, a few years kicking around the industry, and a mental back catalogue of countless art films, I still hold it in incredibly high regard. It could be that I saw it as a kid, squished into a packed theatre…
The Return of Miss Jackie Shane
Sometimes it takes fifty years for popular culture to catch up, huh? In the record store this afternoon, I was pleased to see the new Jackie Shane record sitting alongside St. Vincent, Lana del Rey, and Wolf Parade on the HOT NEW ALBUMS shelf. There’s Miss Jackie, resplendent in a hot blue belted number, casually…
Justice League Tanks, Search Party Returns!
Please watch Search Party. It is an excellent show. Just like the stuff of dreams, and I wish I had created it. Hilarious, and dark, and genuinely thrilling. The writers (Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers, Michael Showalter) and performers (Alia Shawat, John Early, Meredith Hagner, and John Reynolds) execute a real juggling act in the first season,…
A League of Their Own
The Justice League comes out this weekend. And the reviews are terrible. Woo hoo? Watching Batman, Superman, Flash and Wonder Woman fight together on the big screen should be the fulfillment of a billion childhood fantasies. It is basically the filmic equivalent of dumping all of your action figures on the floor and smashing them…
Naked Hearts & Reel Asians
Some people go to bars, but the nerds go to bookshops. The first spot I visited as a baby gay was Glad Day Bookshop, and that was when it was a tiny store tucked up a massive flight of stairs on Yonge Street. The man behind the desk paid little attention to the tiny beige…
Across the Cinematic Universe
The hot news out of Tinseltown today is that the architects of Universal’s Dark Universe have jumped ship. This is not incredibly surprising given the deluge of bad reviews, middling box office receipts of The Mummy, or the fact that discussions of the overall universe direction were vague at best. But, I mean, why would…
CBC Arts: Naked Heart Festival & Glad Day Bookshop
CBC’s Peter Knegt did some coverage of the upcoming Naked Heart Festival at Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto, and I had the opportunity to share some thoughts on the evolution of the shop from a standard bookstore into a thriving community hub. There’s even a sexy pull quote: You can find the full piece on…
JP Larocque 