Canadian celebrity chefs take on a whole new challenge in 'Fridge Wars'

By Ruby Asgedome

Photo: fridgewars via Instagram

Fridge Wars is bringing something new to cooking television. The show, which premiered on CBC on Feb. 27, hosts two different Canadian celebrity chefs each week who compete against one another to create exceptional meals for two different families. The twist? The meals are prepared using ingredients from the fridges of these families. 

Canadian actress and host Emma Hunter goes searching for families of different cultural backgrounds every week so that the chefs are challenged in what they create. Every episode starts with Hunter visiting the homes of the families where she shows viewers what’s inside their fridge, then selects what she will bring back to the Fridge Wars studio for the chefs to cook. 

The show invites world-renowned chefs to appear, bringing their various backgrounds of cooking along with them. In the first episode, Matt Basile and Massimo Capra went head to head. Basile is known for his famous Toronto-based street food and Capra is a restaurant consultant who has been featured on many Canadian cooking shows. Both chefs come from very different cooking backgrounds which is exactly what spices things up. With the rotating and diverse roster, viewers will constantly be finding themselves cheering on their favourite chefs.

The chefs at the studio are given a mere 45 minutes to cook up the most creative recipe they can with what they are given. You may be asking yourself, how do they declare the winner? Well, that’s up to the family who provided the ingredients to decide. These chefs are expected to cook for families who they know nothing about and the most they can do is get an idea on their taste based on what’s in their fridge. What could possibly go wrong?

In the middle of the studio, a huge clock shows chefs and viewers how much time they have left. The pressure is on as the chefs scramble through a fridge with the family’s ingredients and conjure up some kind of recipe that incorporates everything. When the 45 minutes are up, each chef's meal is presented to the family. The family ranks each meal based on originality, taste and look and the marks are tallied.

Photo: fridgewars via Instagram

However, the chefs will have to wait for their scores to be revealed as a second challenge with a whole new family and set of ingredients awaits them.  The chefs are again given another 45 minutes to come up with an out of this world meal to present to this new family. But this time, the chefs are hit with a mini challenge as they prepare this meal. A ‘What the Fridge’ challenge, which changes from week to week, throws a curveball at the chefs. This challenge is a curveball for both the chefs and the viewers at home who are wondering what the challenge could be. During the premiere, the challenge was the addition of four new family members which meant that the chefs had to now prepare more food in the time they had left. 

The food is then presented to the second family and the chefs are once again scored on originality, taste and look. With all the scores added up from the first and second families, the week’s Fridge Wars champion is announced.

The show lasts about an hour but because everything happens so fast; time flies. As viewers watch, it’s very easy to learn new recipes along the way. The show also puts a great emphasis on how you can make so many different meals from your fridge items even when you think ‘there’s nothing to eat at home.’

Host Emma Hunter does a great job limiting how much she inserts herself into the show. Although she is the one who goes to the houses of the families invited on the show and picks what she wants to be used from their fridge, when the time comes, she gives the chefs space to prepare their meals. She checks in from time to time but her presence isn’t overbearing. 

Overall, Fridge Wars brings out a whole new side to cooking shows and has proven to be unique and fun to watch.

Fashion bloggers: Let’s get down to business

Three fashion bloggers share their experiences with the business behind the job

By Mariah Siddiqui

Allysha Yung, Toronto-based fashion blogger, wakes up at 9 a.m., fixes herself a smoothie or tea, and starts her work for the day. She will check her emails and respond to them, shoot her content around 10:30 a.m. and then it’s time for lunch. After lunch, she’ll edit some of the images from her shoot, answer some more emails, send invoices and follow ups and work on her clients social media platforms as a part of her side business. Then, she moves on to dinner while constantly brainstorming more ideas for her platform.

After a productive day, she allows herself a break from the busy blogger life and sets her alarm for 9 a.m. the next day. Sounds busy, right? It’s just a day in the life of a fashion blogger. 

Titled after her name, Yung established her fashion and beauty blog around 2014. Her hobby and passion turned into something she could eventually call her main job. She is a full-time fashion blogger and consults and manages other people’s social media as a side business. 

“Ever since a young age, I’ve always had a love for fashion. My mother would love to dress me up and pick out my outfits when I was younger,” said Yung. “That was just something that we did, it was like a ritual.” 

Photo: Allysha Yung via Instagram

In high school, she worked in fashion retail and started blogging and sharing her style on Instagram.

Yung also acknowledges that working for yourself can have its own challenges. “There is never an end, whether that be brainstorming ideas, creating content for all social media platforms, or finding new clients,” she said.

Yung thinks it’s definitely important to give yourself a break and take time to sit back, take a deep breath and relax. She has a schedule that helps her organize her time and with the job she has, when things pop up, she adjusts along the way.

Blogging and managing others social media platforms is the main source of her income. She also earns money through sponsorships and brand deals. With a blogging platform, it is common for many brands to reach out to someone through social media to work with them, but not all brands are legitimate and trustworthy. 

“A lot of sponsorships reach out to me by email, [offering] compensation in exchange for posting,” said Yung. “For me personally, I’m selective with the brands I work with as I want to make sure they are aligned with my brand.”

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Cold? Don’t know her 🙃.

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Photo: Allysha Yung via Instagram

Toronto-based fashion blogger, Emily Kaitlyn, feels the same way. A pro tip she stands by: work with the brands that address you by name in their email. She also thinks there’s a huge misconception of bloggers posting ads just for money. 

“Majority of people including myself, we usually don’t just post an ad out there to post an ad. It doesn’t make you look better or worse, it’s nice to be recognized by a brand with a product that you like and think your audience will like as well,” said Kaitlyn. “A lot of work does go into creating a post, I don’t think a lot of people see that. You have to brainstorm the idea and then create it.” 

Often times, it’s frustrating for her when brands offer her 25 per cent off of their products, but ask her to post them on her social media, market it and get her followers to follow their page with no compensation, only a discount.

“That’s not how this works and there’s a lot that goes into it. If I genuinely like your product I’ll buy it and do that,” she said. “I never do an ad or get paid to do something I don’t want to talk about or don’t genuinely enjoy. If things are gifted to me, I always give my full, honest opinion or just don’t talk about it.”

Photo: Emily Kaitlyn via Instagram

Kaitlyn has been blogging since 2018 and uses her marketing skills from another job to constantly grow and evolve her brand. She does not blog full-time yet, although she would love to in the future, and holds several jobs while managing her Youtube, Instagram, her own social media business, and her fashion and lifestyle blog, titled “EmmyKBlogs”.

Throughout her blogging career, she has grown and learned a lot along the way. When Kaitlyn first began to blog, she noticed buying staple wardrobe pieces and practicing minimalism when shopping has saved her quite a bit of money.

“Seeing my finances from when I first started blogging, I’ve seen a huge difference on how much I was spending then, versus now on clothing,” she explained. When she first started out, she fell into the pressure of doing what everyone else was doing, but that can turn out to be a slippery slope to an overflowing closet and an extremely long receipt. 

“I found that I was spending a lot of money, which was definitely a challenge. Falling into the Zara and H&M hauls, and wanting to have what was working for each season,” she said. “I started finding that it was a bit too much financially and space wise, but then a year ago, I transitioned into what I usually wear, which is basic and minimal.”

She realized that she could build a staple wardrobe and wear the same pieces in a variety of ways. Her style matured with her as she picked up tips and tricks from the industry.

Photo: Emily Kaitlyn via Instagram

As a Canadian blogger, Kaitlyn’s biggest challenge might not be much of a surprise. 

“[It’s] definitely the weather. In the winter time, it’s hard to shoot outside as you’re freezing your butt off trying to get that street style shot,” she said with a laugh. She’s also noticed that many other countries have a larger variety of clothing stores and here in Canada, she usually has to order online to get what she wants. There are also many more opportunities to work with larger brands that are based elsewhere. At events, people have assumed she was American at first glance and are often surprised that her blog is Canadian-based.

Shivani Rana, American-Desi fashion blogger, owner of her own clothing brand and influencer coach, has her own hot take on the fashion and blogging industry. She’s noticed that the industry has become more saturated, but she doesn’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. 

“When it comes to fashion, most people have different styles and the fashion industry is willing to let everyone in,” said Rana. “The dilution is just allowing people to express themselves through fashion, which is a great thing.” 

Photo: Shivani Rana via Instagram

Rana is a big advocate for diversity, inclusivity and representation and recognizing that these things are important and needed.

“Social media has created a voice for everyone and has helped brands realize that every body type and every colour is beautiful,” she said.

Against those that claim that being an Instagram blogger or model is not a job, Rana argues that a lot of time and effort goes into being a full-time blogger. 

“The amount of work, planning and effort that goes into it is unfathomable. It takes aspects of business, psychology and entrepreneurship to convert sales for other brands,” she explained.

In response to money concerns, with a little laugh she said, “I know for a fact that the paycheck is not bad.” 

Rana started blogging seriously almost two years ago. She explained, “Once I had received my first sponsorship, I started taking blogging seriously. Since then, it’s just been a continuous effort to be better and for constant growth … Even though I am not as big as most bloggers, I consider myself lucky to be able to live out this blogger life.”

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you’re a catch but i’m not a receiver

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Photo: Shivani Rana via Instagram

When asked about which clothing item they’d wear every day for the rest of their life, each blogger stopped in their tracks. If Shivani Rana had to pick, she’d be rocking a pair of mom jeans. 

“Mom jeans are so versatile and I’d have no issue never removing them. I love me a good pair of mom jeans,” she said.

Emily Kaitlyn would have to go with a black turtleneck. “It’s one piece of clothing I wear every day basically, I live in a black turtleneck,” she said. “It’s the easiest day-to-day piece.”

Allysha Yung chose a different path. “One piece? Only one? I want to say sweats, because I think that is something that I realistically wear the most and am most comfortable in. I realized you can actually style it in numerous ways without making it look sloppy,” she said.

Yung stands strong in her stance that fashion blogging isn’t something that every single person will like or understand, but she is just sharing what she loves on her platform. 

“Not everyone is going to like it, but it is a niche demographic and audience that you are really trying to target,” she said. “If you are passionate and genuinely love what you do, there is no problem at all. It’s a great way to express yourself and your creativity.”

The development of contemporary art from the 60s to now

An introduction to the modern movements that changed art forever 

Photo: Amaury Salas/Unsplash

Photo: Amaury Salas/Unsplash

By Will Lofsky

The 1960s

From the counter-culture rebellion and rise of rock n’ roll to the domination of the Vietnam War, and assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and John F. Kennedy, the 1960s was one of the most culturally significant periods in the 20th century.

Pop art was born out of rebellion against the drama of abstract expressionism. High art was pushed for low-brow art and artist’s identities were thrown away to be replaced by famous images from pop culture. 

Photo: Alice Donovan Rouse/Unsplash

Photo: Alice Donovan Rouse/Unsplash

The 60s saw the mass development of technology and consumerism notably expressed in notorious pieces such as Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans released in 1962 and his comic-book style screen-printed Marilyn Monroe work released in 1967. 

This was also the birth of minimalism, which began when artists used mass-produced materials such as steel, neon and bricks to make installations and sculptures using as few materials as possible. Minimalism’s radical use of space created an entirely new avenue to explore in the art world. 

American sculptor and visual artist Tony Smith’s Die sculpture, a brooding, ominous 500-pound cube designed proportionally to the human body, was made of hot-rolled steel that was shown in the Whitney Museum of Art in New York in 1962. 

Agnes Martin, an iconic Canadian minimalist artist from Macklin, Sask., painted until four months before her death at age 92. Her work, The Tree, a six-foot square canvas with faded grey and white horizontal bars created with oil and pencil is a testament to the beauty of deliberate imperfection as the drawn lines are off kilter. 

The 1970s

The 1970s art scene was deeply affected by the fallout of the hippie movement, and male artists were now no longer the dominant creators. Influenced by photorealism and 60s pop art, the pictures generation was born, along with land, performance and feminist art. 

Photo: Nicola Peratoni/Unsplash

Photo: Nicola Peratoni/Unsplash

As land was evolving from a source of materials to a canvas itself, impressionism painters moved from their easels to the great outdoors. Robert Smithson’s stonework Spiral Jetty built in a Utah salt lake and created using “over six thousand tons of black basalt, rocks and earth from the site” challenged the conventions of art and its relationship with exhibitions and marketing. 

Paul Wong, an artist from Prince Rupert, B.C., has experimented with performance art his entire career. His first piece, the 32-minute long video, EARTHWORKS IN HARMONY, was shown at the Burnaby Art Gallery in 1974. 

Wong’s first film shot in colour, 60 UNIT; BRUISE, released in 1976, shows Wong’s friend Kenneth Fletcher withdrawing blood from his own arm then shooting it into Wong’s shoulder to create a bruise. Although the piece was created to symbolize their friendship, in retrospect it speaks volumes about the AIDS crisis in the the 1980s, nostalgic innocence and the dangers of drug use. 

In this era, feminist art also stepped boldly forward, amidst queer and civil rights actions, anti-war demonstrations and the beginning of the Women’s Liberation Movement along the West Coast of California. 

Judy Chicago, Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman opened the doors for female creatives to enter male-dominated circles. Chicago’s iconic installation, The Dinner Party, is made up of a gigantic banquet table with 39 place settings, each honouring a historically important woman. With this, another 999 women are commemorated with gold inscriptions on the white tiles below the triangular table. 

The 1980s

Jean-Michel Basquiat, a famous American artist who broke out in the 80s, grew up in the New York punk scene and evolved from having his graffiti art spread along the walls of Manhattan to his neo-expressionist paintings being exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.

To this day Basquiat’s pieces are still sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. In May 2017 a Japanese billionaire purchased Basquiat’s 1982 Untitled painting at a Sotheby’s auction for $110.5 million. 

Throughout Basquiat’s career, he became friends with his favourite artist, Andy Warhol, and lived lavishly spending thousands of dollars on Armani suits and staying in the finest hotels in the United States. 

Photo: The Andy Warhol Museum (thewarholmuseum) on Instagram

While Basquiat was very successful, he had a serious drug problem, which got dramatically worse after Warhol passed away despite a falling out that occurred between them. Basquiat passed away on Aug. 12, 1988, from an accidental overdose at the age of 27. At the time he had completely isolated himself from his family and friends and was using 100 bags of heroin a day.

Basquiat’s pieces Untitled (Boxer), Hollywood Africans, Horn Players and many more have forever changed art and strongly influenced hip hop and the work of some of hip hop’s finest videographers and artists, Dexter Navy and Lonewolf. 

The 1990s

The 1990s saw a new era begin as The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 and the American Cold War with Russia officially ended in 1991. Bill Clinton, the first baby boomer to run the White House, was the president for most of the decade before the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and he was impeached. 

The 90s was one of the most influential decades in music due to notorious groups such as Nirvana, N.W.A, Public Enemy, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day, who broke barriers in the industry. 

Though, while the 90s changed music forever, tragedy was also very much interwoven with the decade, as Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994, and rap’s biggest stars, Biggie Smalls, Tupac, and Big L were all shot between 1996 and 1999. 

Cartoons and late-night talk shows in the 90s became incredibly popular, and boosted multiculturalism in the digital with the launch of the World Wide Web, cable TV and cell phones. 

Photo: scheier/Unsplash

Photo: scheier/Unsplash

Art in the 90s responded to the new dawn of the digital age, with concepts of identity and personal, lived experiences being tied all together. Some of the most popular categories of art in the 90s consisted of identity politics, new media and relational aesthetics. 

In 1993, the Whitney Museum of American Art received harsh criticism by majority caucasian conservatives, for what they believed to be condescending and political. Daniel Joseph Martinez, a Los Angeles-based artist designed badges for the museum in 1993 that read, “I Can’t Ever Imagine Wanting to Be White.” 

Another artist featured at the Whitney Biennial exhibition in 1993 was Glenn Ligon, who expressed oppression with black text on a white backdrop on, Untitled (I Feel Most Colored When I Am Thrown Against a Sharp White Background).

Relational Aesthetics was a term created by Nicolas Bourriaud, a French curator that defined the term as “essential to art from this moment.” Vanessa Beecroft’s nude and scantily clad performance art, particularly her 1999 VB35 showcased the clash of bodies and politics in museums. 

Pierre Huyghe, a French artist, became notorious for his 1999 piece (although it debuted in April 2000), The Third Memory, in which he re-created the set from the 1975 fictional movie about a failed 1972 Brooklyn bank robbery, Dog Day Afternoon. Huyghe created a hybrid between documentation and history with footage from the film, shots from news broadcasts and a real interview with John Wojtowicz, the bank robber that inspired the movie. 

As technology continued to advance in the 90s, new media gave artists more freedom than ever. Los Angeles artist Doug Aitken became one of the most creative pioneers of immersive video installations. His multi-panel video work, Diamond Sea, was showcased in 1997 at the Whitney Biennial, and his 1999 multiple-room Electric Earth which won the Internal Prize at the Venice Biennale.

The 21st century

Art in the 21st century is seemingly impossible to characterize. Though several movements such as computer art, visual culture and neo-dadaism — a term for the satiric multimedia take on day-to-day-life — and absurdist art have seemed to dominate the past two decades so far.

Graphic artists in the 21st century continue to push the boundaries of art for TV, movies, commercial work, album art packages and more. Mihailo Andic, a graphic artist based in Oakville, ON., has worked with Lil Yachty, Drake, 88 Glam, PARTYNEXTDOOR, 6LACK, and more. 

While Andic has been Lil Yachty’s creative director since his first mixtape Lil Boat, one of his most impressive pieces to date is the cover of Quality Control’s second album, Control the Streets Vol. 2. From Andic’s meticulous text design to his use of symmetry and hyperrealism for this overhead view of an airport, his attention to detail shines through and through.

Photo: Mihailo Andic (mihailoandic) on Instagram

The visual culture movement has evolved primarily out of new media, performance art, installations and relational aesthetics. Although it remains limitless, scholars of visual culture tend to analyze pieces and look for religious, political, feminist, scientific and ideological symbolism as this work is expressed through an endless stream of mediums. 

Indigenous storytelling in virtual reality has achieved popularity in Canada thanks to Nyla Innuksuk, an Inuit director, producer, writer and VR-content creator. Innuksuk’s film, Breaths, an intimate documentary on Susan Aglukark, an Inuk singer-songwriter, explores Agulkark’s powerful account of post-colonialism and the events that shaped her sound. 

Innuksuk’s very personal, face-to-face approach to studio shooting in a black room makes the viewer feel more connected to Aglukark, before being thrust into the open snowy tundra of the North. 

Ryan McGinley is a 42-year-old photographer from New Jersey that rose to fame quickly because of his ability to capture intimate moments that seem to be completely free of all the daily stresses of reality. His 2007 shot, Ann (Slingshot), is one of the defining photos of McGinley’s career along with countless other breathtaking images shown at his events in Soho, Denver, Tokyo, London and more. 

Dadaism, also known as anti-art, was started after WWI by artists that were desperate to make light against the evils of the world and today that fight still goes on with millennials in multiple mediums. 

Absurdist humour has evolved into the age of social media through the spread of memes, vines, self-deprecating websites, bizarre videos and satiric Twitter communities. 

Bill Wurtz, a famous neo-dadaist Internet personality’s Still a Piece of Garbage viral YouTube video, created in 2015, still resonates with users that enjoy self-deprecating humour. Wurtz’s combination of fast-moving colourful and semi-distorted graphics to look intentionally amateur with a catchy melody for the five second video has strongly influenced Tik Tok culture’s recipe for a viral video. 

Video: bill wurtz on YouTube

While many art critics reject neo-dadaism as nonsense, the Internet has allowed anyone to create their own satiric work online across a variety of platforms to share, and there is beauty in absurdist humour’s ability to bring some joy to a chaotic world. 

As technology continues to advance and change, art will inevitably reflect the changes through installations, new media, neo-dadaism and the blend of all its predecessors in the coming decades. 

In the oversaturated Instagram era, artists have more competition than ever before to get noticed, but perhaps that challenge is a blessing for the boundaries of multimedia to be pushed further than ever before.

Social distancing got you down? Here's 3 Canadian movies on Netflix to keep you company

By Alya Stationwala

With a worldwide pandemic on our hands, the Canadian government has urged people to avoid large gatherings and stay close to home. Streets empty and events cancelled, COVID-19 has very abruptly changed our lives into entering a health crisis quarantine. So, while you are stuck in your room getting through another canned food meal and surrounded by your emergency supply of toilet paper, here’s a few Canadian movies streaming on Netflix to keep you busy.

Bruno and Boots (2016 - 2017)

Photo: Aircraft Pictures

Photo: Aircraft Pictures

Universities, high schools and elementary schools are closed nationwide and have moved to online learning, at least for the next few weeks. If you’re missing the school ground drama you can always follow the academic shenanigans of Bruno and Boots.

An Aircraft Pictures production for the YTV channel, Bruno and Boots is a television film series based on Gordon Korman’s Macdonald Hall series of young adult novels. Originally aired in 2016, the story follows two high school troublemakers at a prestigious school for boys making their mark through high jinks, whether they go well or not. The best part is, if you like the first one, there’s two more in the series available on Netflix during your staycation.

Goon (2011)

Photo: Magnolia Pictures

Photo: Magnolia Pictures

The NHL, MLB, and NBA have officially closed doors due to COVID-19 fears until further notice. If you’re looking to get your sports fix, look no further than the hockey classic Goon.

Sharing the world of fighting on ice, Goon tells the story of a tough new player on the Halifax Highlander team who has to punch his way to the top. Led in a truly Canadian fashion, the film is produced and written by Ottawa resident Jay Baruchel, who you might know as the voice of Hiccup in the How to Train Your Dragon series. To boot, there’s a sequel if you’re looking for more drama on the rink: Goon: Last of the Enforcers.

Into the Forest (2015)

Photo: Rhombus Media

Photo: Rhombus Media

While we may not be in the middle of an apocalypse, the dystopian vibes of the country-wide lockdown cannot be ignored. Surviving when there’s no one else around is something this Canadian movie can give you tips about, so take notes while you watch. 

Without gas, water, electricity, or cellphones, Into the Forest is a story of an apocalypse forcing two sisters into the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. Starring Ellen Page and directed by Patricia Rozema, this 2015 Canadian flick will leave you prepared for anything that may come your way. 

To help flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic, staying home is the best way to minimize the spread of the virus so we can get to a place where everything starts to level off. 

So, while you are stuck at home for the next few weeks, Canada has something for you which you can watch in the comfort of your own home after wrestling for a box of granola bars at your local grocery store. 

Best of Female Directors at Carlton Cinema

As part of one of the many film festivals sponsored by WILDsound, the Female Directors Short Film Festival at Carlton Cinema in Toronto included films from Canada, Australia and the U.S.

By Ivonne Flores Kauffman

WILDsound Festival accomplished to bring together Toronto’s cinephiles for a night of great short films, directed by and starring women, that awakened a mix of emotions in the audience during the Female Directors Short Film Festival.

But of course, some films were better than others. Here is a short review of some of them.

Old Habits

Directed by Mary Musolino, this Australian film manages to take the viewer on a reminiscing trip in only seven minutes. The film starts with two old women talking about their past in a beach-side changing room. They talk about their first love, their late friend and life itself.

It’s not until one of them confesses to her sister that she doesn’t love the man in her life anymore that the film starts making sense. At that moment, two young girls enter the change room and discuss their recent crushes. This scene shows some sort of remorse from the sisters regarding their past decisions and how they have influenced their lives to the point where one of the sisters asks the other to leave her lover and run away with her, to which the other sister declines.

This film, despite being short, accomplishes to create a great narrative and provides an unexpected ending. Perhaps the most interesting aspect about it is that the viewer can identify themselves with this story. We all have taken decisions that have altered our lives forever and lead to asking ourselves “What if?”

Bet the Demons Win

IMG_0463.jpg

Directed by another Australian filmmaker, Denise Hurley, Bet the Demons Win tells the story of a teenager who is tormented by her past demons — in other words, her gambling-addicted father and a sister who betrayed her. The eight-minute short film is filled with emotions such as desperation and anger. Karlisha Hurley, who plays the lead role, gives an excellent performance. However, the film still lacks content and is ultimately confusing. The story starts abruptly with Hurley’s character fighting with her sister and ends in the same way. The beginning and the end of the plot are missing in this film, which makes it impossible to take anything out of it except that Hurley’s character is full of rage and pain.

My Name Was January

IMG_0464+%281%29.jpg

Directed by Canadians Elina Gress and Lenée Son, this documentary tells the story of January Marie Lapuz, a Filipino trans woman, who was brutally murdered in her home in New Westminster, B.C. in September 2012.

January, a sex worker, was stabbed 18 times in her home before dying. Despite being an awful crime that shook a community, My Name Was January is a tribute to January’s life and legacy rather than a film about her death. The film has some honest and raw scenes, like those where January’s mom is interviewed. It also includes interviews with January’s closest friends and members of the trans community. My Name Was January is a beautiful piece regarding the life of a strong woman who was killed in a horrible way. 

Even though the film is beautifully made, it ultimately failed to achieve its full potential. There are some moving scenes, however, the pieces didn’t completely fit together. The film had great scenes that were unrelated to each other, perhaps the reason for it being that it was directed and produced by January’s closest friends whose main focus was to remember January.

'Wall of Chefs' showcases diversity in the Canadian culinary scene

Food Network Canada’s newest competition show puts home cooks to the test

Photo: Wall of Chefs host Noah Cappe (noahcappe) via Instagram

 By Severina Chu

Every home cook dreams of getting to cook in front of their culinary idol, but what about cooking in front of 12 of them? Food Network Canada’s Wall of Chefs gives contestants the opportunity to cook for some of Canada’s most prominent culinary personalities.

Four home cooks compete for a $10,000 prize in each episode, taking part in three elimination rounds while under the judgement of a rotating panel of 12 Canadian chefs.

In the first round, the contestants must prepare their “crowd pleaser” dish – a dish that’s popular with their family and friends back at home. Next, one chef from the panel will reveal three of their refrigerator staples that the contestants need to combine into one cohesive dish. They’re thrown unusual combinations such as miso, whipped cheese and celery, but the contestants always manage to present something creative. Finally, if they manage to make it to the final round, the contestants are tasked to create a dish inspired by one of the chef’s signature dishes. Whether it be a rice dish or a dessert, whoever can execute their idea the best walks away with the prize.  

Photo: Toronto-based Wall of Chefs contestant Alison Anderson (kitchenstardust) via Instagram

The premise of Wall of Chefs is essentially the same as any other competition show, but what makes it stand out is the presence of so many Canadian culinary icons. The panel of judges — or the ‘Wall’ as the show refers to them — offer a wide variety of opinions. Established names like Mark McEwan, Lynn Crawford and Susur Lee head the panel, while the younger generation of Canadian chefs like Jinhee Lee, Christie Peters, and Danny Smiles give a fresh perspective. There is a good mix of seasoned and up-and-coming chefs, giving the viewer trusted insight and a glimpse into what’s in store for Canada’s culinary scene.

Canada is often referred to as a “melting pot” of cultures, and the Wall is no different. The chosen chefs represent a multitude of backgrounds that cover many parts of the world. You have chefs who were born in Canada, such as Newfoundlander Todd Perrin and Peguis First Nation member Christa Bruneau-Geunther, and chefs who were raised abroad, such as Turkish-born Fisun Ercan and Italian-born Massimo Capra. With such a wide range of experiences, each chef has time to let their unique expertise shine.

At one point in episode two, one chef exclaims that “This is Canada” as he watches the contestants prepare dishes from various cultures. The show has contestants from all sorts of backgrounds and walks of life and their stories are reflected in their food. From Jamaican jerk chicken to Chinese dumplings, the diversity of the Wall of Chefs kitchen can be considered an accurate representation of Canada’s culinary scene.

Canada at the 2020 Academy Awards

Photo: theacademy via Instagram

By Alya Stationwala

The biggest night in Hollywood is coming up on Feb. 9 and within the mass of recognition, a few Canadians have slipped into the Academy Awards nomination lists including Best Documentary Short, Best Live Action Short and more.

Sami Khan, from Sarnia, Ont., earned a nomination for his co-directing on St. Louis Superman, a story about a battle rapper and activist who was elected in the heavily white, Republican Missouri House of Representatives. Up against a wide range of short documentary stories from around the world including South Korea, Afghanistan, and Sweden, Khan is one of many people bringing in diversity in an otherwise whitewashed run of the Oscars this year.

In a phone interview with Canadian Press writer Victoria Ahearn, Khan talked about the moment he heard the news of his nomination saying him and his family had a mini dance party in their Toronto home before realizing, “We had to drop our daughter off at daycare.”

Meryam Joobeur, a Tunisian-Canadian director and writer, is also nominated for her live-action short film Brotherhood. The story follows a Tunisan father dealing with the return of his oldest son with a mysterious new Syrian wife, causing him to question if his son has been working for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). She has won 22 awards and earned eight other nominations at film festivals around the world for this production since it was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2018.

Other Canadians who have earned themselves the chance to compete for a golden statue are Dennis Gassner and Dean DeBlois for their roles in the major productions 1917 and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World respectively.

Gassner, born in Vancouver, worked on the production design for Sam Mendes’ WWI epic 1917. This is his seventh Oscar nomination, one of which he won in 1992 for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration on the historical drama about a gangster moving to Hollywood, Bugsy.

DeBlois faces his third nomination for the How to Train your Dragon trilogy alone, earning nominations for the animated films in 2011 and 2015 as well. Up against Xilam’s I Lost My Body, Netflix’s Klaus, Laika Studios’ Missing Link, and Pixar’s Toy Story 4, this is the last chance for the production to win Best Animated Film for its final installment.

In an interview with Ahearn, Deblois said, “When it comes to the Oscars and awards in general, I try not to think about it, otherwise I kind of carry this guilt of representing 400-plus people who worked on the movie.”

Minority Inclusion at the Academy Awards

Despite being one of the most celebrated nights for the film industry, The Academy has had a bad history with representation in their nominations throughout the past, including the famous #OscarsSoWhite controversy of 2015. 

Under fire for another year, the Oscars have been criticized for their 2020 white and male dominated nominations for major categories yet again.

Greta Gerwig was snubbed from a Best Director nomination for her film Little Women despite being nominated in multiple acting categories and even Best Picture, leaving the directing category with only male nominees. 

Cynthia Erivo, the only person of colour nominated for an acting role this year, is nominated for playing a slave in Harriet, whereas Scarlett Johansson earned herself two acting nominations playing a woman going through a divorce in Marriage Story, and an anti-nazi mother during WWII in Jojo Rabbit. 

Besides Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite recognition this year, people of colour and women are often ignored at the major awards in Hollywood. Smaller categories such as Best Live Action Short and Best Documentary Short are examples of places where the underrepresented are earning praise with seven of ten films in those two categories alone telling stories of people of colour and/or created by people of colour.

While most of these movies remain under the radar, Canadians like Sami Khan and Meryam Joobeur are artists that are pushing stories of marginalized people in film on the industry’s biggest platforms.

The Academy Awards will be held this weekend where Hollywood will be celebrating themselves in a glamorous televised party, and where minority artists in film, including some of the Canadian nominees this year, will hopefully be earning themselves a few statuettes.

Review: The Breadwinner

By Adriana Fiorante

The Breadwinner (2017) is an animated co-production between Canada, Ireland and Luxembourg about a young girl, Parvana (Saara Chaudry), surviving the Taliban’s seizing of her hometown, Kabul. In the plot, Taliban soldiers Idrees (Noorin Gulamgaus) and Razaq (Kawa Ada) take Parvana’s father (Ali Badshah) to prison for committing the crime of keeping forbidden books in his home and teaching women to read. The main focus of this film is the lack of rights Afghani women have under the Taliban rule. To combat the restrictions imposed on women and girls, Parvana cuts all her hair off to make herself look like a boy so she can buy food, get water, and work so her family can survive. She meets Shauzia (Soma Chhaya), another girl who is acting under the same disguise.

Feature image courtesy thebreadwinnermovie via Instagram

Hearing the plotline, you might think The Breadwinner is similar to other animated coming-of-age films based in a war-torn Islamic country, such as Osama, Persepolis, Waltz with Bashir, or The Kite Runner. But while these films show vibrancy, detail, developed characters, and rich plotlines, The Breadwinner falls short on most of these aspects.

Overall, despite its high praise - three Canadian Screen Awards, a European Film Award, and an Oscar nod - I was disappointed. From the beginning, any threat of danger seems more like a plot device than something that instigates or motivates the characters’ arcs, as Parvana’s entire family is almost unbothered by the Taliban men wielding machine guns that surround them. At one point, Parvana’s father speaks back to a Taliban member who is armed with a gun, her mother later argues with one of them, and Shauzia and Parvana both run around the streets of their town, treating it more as a playground than a war zone. The film almost trivializes the Taliban rule to create a family-friendly film.

Some may argue that the character’s lack of fear is because the characters are all very brave, but in my opinion, it seems implausible that they would all be so unfazed by violence and willing to test their luck in front of trigger-happy extremists. For me, it felt more like there was no real threat of violence and that the soldiers were just there to show the audience that life in Afghanistan under Taliban rule is rough. Not only does nobody seem to actually worry about those keeping them from freedom, but no character suffers a fatal punishment; displaying the unrealistic idea that the Taliban members use their gun as a prop more than a tool for cruelty and oppression.

Deborah Ellis, the author of The Breadwinner novel stated in an interview with CBC news that Parvana “[is] a girl who is not at all interested in being heroic or strong or brave or anything ... But she rises to the circumstances that life throws at her.” To me, this seems like Ellis is defending herself from any criticisms of creating a one-dimensional character that has no real objectives or drive. Parvana is apparently uninterested by bravery and strength, and yet those are two fundamental themes throughout the novel and the film. What I believe Ellis and the rest of the creators of this film fail to notice is that for a woman or girl to survive in extremist areas of the globe; they cannot have a devil-may-care attitude. Women and girls of Afghanistan under Taliban-rule were forced to wear a burqa while in public at all times, were not allowed to work and were not allowed to pursue an education past the age of eight, or they face being lashed or hurt.

For the most part, the film lazily pushes through the motions of storytelling without any real passion or much attention to detail. For instance, Parvana mentions she has a brother who passed away, but his life and death is relayed in very limited detail, despite the evident fact that it affected Parvana and her family significantly. This could have been elaborated.

Additionally, the film is incomplete in its character building. Parvana’s father is one-dimensional and seemingly used as nothing but a plot device to give Parvana an objective throughout the movie. Parvana’s sister Soraya has virtually no characteristics besides fulfilling the stereotypical older sister trope - as she consistently nags Parvana and is concerned with nothing but her appearance - and being an object that her mother can arrange into a marriage.

The Breadwinner follows parallel plotlines; the second being the story of the Elephant King, a folk tale Parvana relays to her friends and family. The plotline of the Elephant King weaves together and mirrors the plotline of the primary story. It is about a young boy whose village is victim to theft by a gang of tigers who steal their crops and seeds produced in an otherwise successful farming season. The villagers will starve the following year if they do not have the seeds, and so the young boy journeys out to defeat the gang and their leader, the Elephant King, to claim their seeds back. Although the Elephant King story is a substantial part of the film that is meant to mirror the reality of Parvana’s life and act as a means of entertainment to distract those around her from their reality, it is abruptly brought up at random and inconvenient times that don’t really highlight how the plotlines are mirrored, though it sloppily attempts to do so.  

On top of all of this, the climax of the film occurs abruptly with no precursor or tension building apart from Taliban soldiers shouting in the streets that a war has started, just in time to save Parvana from certain death. The film does little to explain who is fighting against who and why they are doing so, relying on the audience to already know the details behind the Afghanistan War.

However, this lack of detail makes sense, as the majority of the film’s creators are not of South-Asian descent. Nora Twomey, a white, Irish woman directed the film. The screenwriter, Anita Doron, is a white, Hungarian Canadian woman. The producers are four white men, two of which, Andrew Rosen and Anthony Leo, are Canadians. The entire cast is South Asian Canadians, with three members being Afghan. While it is accurate and admirable to cast South Asians in a movie set in South Asia about South Asians, having virtually no inclusion of these voices behind the scenes seems to work against the film’s ability to accurately relay the complexities of Taliban-run Afghanistan.

The overwhelming aspect that reveals how inadequate and ill-equipped the filmmakers were at doing justice to this story is the terrible accents performed by most of the cast. Ada, a very practiced Afghan Canadian actor, doubled as the dialect coach for the film. Still, much of the cast sounded more like a non-native speaker’s idea of what an Arabic accent should be rather than a native Dari or Pashto speaker.  

The animation, however, salvages some respectability for the film, as it is lively and expertly uses bright reds, greens and blues when Parvana is telling the story of the Elephant King, and dull yellows, browns and blacks when she is in Kabul, showing the stark contrast between her dream life and reality. The animation was done in part in Canada’s Guru Studio, The Breadwinner being the company’s first feature film.

While The Breadwinner is beautifully animated with creative aspects, it is hard to get past the uneven plot, rushed ending, and weak details. It is even harder to relate to a character’s struggle when they are given little to no attributes, as sympathetic as their plights are.

Video courtesy Movieclips Indie via YouTube

Top Six Canadian Albums to Look Out For in 2018

By: Manuela Vega

With albums like Arcade Fire’s eclectic Everything Now and Daniel Caesar’s gorgeous debut Freudian, there’s no doubt that Canadian musicians were standouts in 2017. While artists set the bar high last year, there’s plenty of reason to believe that 2018 will also introduce a multitude of memorable tracks. Be sure to look out for these six albums this year!

6) Ought: Room Inside the World

This Montreal band has released the singles ”These 3 Things” and “Disgraced in America” from their upcoming album, Room Inside the World. If their LP is anything like the singles, Feb. 16 is bound to bring a collection of reflective, existential anthems. Ought captures the essence of isolation and contemplation in their melancholy riffs, but they mix up their rhythms to the point that you can justify happily dancing to a sad song.

5) Born Ruffians: Uncle, Duke, & The Chief

Continuing their stream of passionate belting and upbeat rhythms, Born Ruffians introduces a sense of true candidness on what has been released from their fifth full-length album Uncle, Duke, & The Chief. Between touching on the inability to mask feelings of a longing heart in “Miss You,” accepting the inevitability of death in “Forget Me,” and regretting the vulnerability of an open heart in “Love Too Soon,” the Toronto band sets up an album of soft, jangly tunes to sing along to on Feb. 16.

4) Chromeo: TBA

Guitarist and lead-singer Dave 1 and multi-instrumentalist P-Thugg have been avidly sharing on Instagram and Twitter their dedication to perfecting the production of their electronic-funk album due in the spring. The first single “Juice” is an exuberant synthesized jam about a partner who gets shamelessly hit on in public because she’s “got the juice.” The light-energy, feel-good song continues to play on this double meaning. Dave 1 told Beats 1 that this will be their “most robust, conceptually tight album.”

3) Metric: TBA

Metric has a knack for creating lively hits that express liberation with every head-bob, sway, or strut. Combining synths, lush beats, and tight strums, paired with lead singer Emily Haines’ vibrant voice has worked especially well for the band on past highly regarded albums, such as Fantasies (2009) and Synthetica (2012). Although there’s still no new album title or release date, the quartet has been teasing fans on Instagram with pictures of studio visits since September. Since their last album Pagans in Vegas (2015), Haines has released a solo album in a style different from that of her band’s, with a distinct focus on vocals and reflection, raising the question of whether or not 2018 will be the year that Metric goes in a totally new direction.

2) Rhye: Blood

Former Canadian solo-artist Mike Milosh and Danish producer Robin Braun are the duo behind Rhye’s fusion sound. The 2018 pre-release of Blood showcases the steady electronic, folky jazz that backs delicate vocals on provocative works like “Taste” and soothing pieces like “Song for You.” Releasing the rest of their album on Feb. 2, Rhye will surely bring a diverse range of sounds to an increasingly contemporary form of R&B.

1) Charlotte Day Wilson: Stone Woman

The Toronto singer-songwriter and producer announced this month that her new EP Stone Woman will be released on Feb. 23. Since her melodious R&B EP CDW debuted in 2016, Wilson has been captivating listeners with her effortless elegance. Although tracks from CDW like “Work” and “Find You” are hypnotically mellow, the 2018 single “Nothing New” ripples with calculated power, rising and settling around the easy flow of Wilson’s formidable voice. It sets the stage for Stone Woman to be as enchanting as her previous release.

This piece was edited by Valerie Dittrich.