The first thing you should know is that a book like Secrets of a Supersexpert is not good gift idea. It would automatically suggest that the recipient has no idea what they are doing in, as the French say, le sac. You know that, right? A book like this, crammed with sex advice and relatively tasteful pictures of naked people (pretending to) love-tussle, might make an amusing accompaniment for a night of love eros rumpy pumpy whatever you call it in your household, but there are limits to its stated use.
Archive for February, 2009
The mid-Smith cuckoos
Oh, this is rich. Earlier today, Universal Music UK received an advance shipment of an album being released in exactly two weeks, on March 9. The discs, reportedly hundreds of them, sported the correct art, but contained the wrong music. The ‘right’ recording artist is 13-year-old Faryl Smith, who took third place in the 2008 edition of the Britain’s Got Talent TV show. The ‘wrong’ artist—very, very wrong—is The Fall, a cult band near and dear to this journalist, led by crotchety 51-year-old Mark E Smith.
You can probably see not only where this is going, but also how it got there. Still, you’ll find some ridiculously casual maths, not to mention a Smith vs Smith photo comparison, after the fold.
The DRIVEN calendar, “Soon”:
The Drawer Boy
Feb. 24-March 15, Ottawa—The Drawer Boy explores the lives changed by the act of researching a play. Michael Healey’s script presents the story of two farmers and lifelong friends, whose lives are interrupted when an actor comes to stay with them and investigate their lives, as background material for a stage piece. In the midst of his character study, the young actor unwittingly exposes secret truths from the farmers’ pasts.
Sense and Sensationalism
It looks like we’re finally seeing the backlash to Jane Austen’s rise in popularity over the past decade or so. Maybe backlash isn’t the right word: It’s more of a side-lash, a re-appropriation. Hollywood’s treatment of Austen has typically targetted the female demographic, full of lush escapism and romantic intrigue. Well, no more. Wresting her work from the clutches of sentimentality are a bunch of projects which marry the Victorian stories with the most sordid aspects of Pulp genre fiction.
The DRIVEN calendar, “Soon”: Fringe Rewind
March 12-14 & 19-21, Calgary—For two weekends, six of the most popular artists of Calgary Fringe Festivals past have been invited back to perform in special encore presentations of their shows, in Fringe Rewind.
The beauty of the Rewind is that it’s a kind of greatest hits package, pre-filtering the flops and failed experiments inevitable in any full fringe theatre line-up. You’ll find that record of success all the more reassuring as you wait for the curtain to rise on the well-enough-titled Jihad Me at Hello. More titles after the jump. Read More
DVD Review: Pineapple Express
Now that the 81st Academy Awards are behind us, we can spend this week examining a series of less… artistically celebrated films from 2008, which are now available on DVD. First up is the stoner action comedy Pineapple Express, co-starring Seth Rogen and James Franco—that is, Oscar-nominee James Franco.
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Banking on Oscar: Talk about a million-dollar baby
Doorstop, nutcracker, toilet room conversation piece—some Academy Award winners discover practical alternate uses for their gold-plated trophies. For most, though, not only does Oscar bring loads of peer respect and opportunities for even better roles, the shiny little fellow also adds several more zeros to those paycheques.
Below the fold, a few of the biggest post-Oscar paydays.
Recently on DRIVENmag.com
Tygers, Friday the 13th, Baby safety, Laptop theft, M. Ward, The Atlantic vs. Toronto, Oscars, Taking sides
The DRIVEN calendar, “Scene”: Van Dongen, Painting the Town Fauve
Until April 19th, Montreal—Art lovers can visit Van Dongen, Painting the Town Fauve, in the first major North American retrospective of the art of Dutch painter Kees Van Dongen.
Coproduced by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Nouveau Musee National de Monaco, the collection ”brings together some 200 works, including over a hundred paintings, as well as forty rare drawings, prints and other archival documents and photographs, and, for the first time, a dozen Fauvist ceramics.”
And the pot from the office Oscar pool goes to… you!
Unless you’ve spent the past six weeks under a rock, you’re well aware that it’s just about time for the biggest, sexiest and campiest dog-and-pony show on the planet: the Academy Awards (81st annual).
The Oscars are traditionally preceded by a somewhat lesser dog-and-pony show, although one in which you might be more personally invested: your workplace’s annual Oscar pool. If you are determined to finally defeat that crowing nit in Sales who seems to win year after year, stop listening to the empty Oscar chatter in the elevator, and fill in your Xeroxed ballot with DRIVEN’s predictions, to be found after the jump.
