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January-February 2010

Yes, “awards season” is stupid, but it beats the alternative

Jason AndersonWebsite

If you ever want to get your hands on an Oscar, you’ll probably have to earn it the hard way. Security is tight on those things, and the resale market starts at $50,000 and heads into the seven-figure bracket if the winner was anyone you’ve heard of. (Michael Jackson once paid over $1.5 million for […] More »
January-February 2010

Booming trade in “slum tourism” dispels some myths, creates others

Mariellen WardWebsite

It can be an eye-opening experience that helps everyone involved move towards greater understanding…. It’s been happening in Rio’s famous favelas for some time. Now slum tourism—which turns a real-life ghetto into a “hot” tourist destination—has spread to Johannesburg, Manila, Cairo, and, in the wake of the blistering success of Slumdog Millionaire, Mumbai. But it’s […] More »
September-October 2009

Canadian independent video-game designers score big internationally

Andrew WebsterWebsite

On May 5, 2006, 35 Toronto area video-game developers converged in one spot with a particular goal in mind: to create an entire game, start to finish, in just three days. It was a daunting task, but in the end 10 completed games were assembled, while seven others came just short of the deadline. The […] More »
September-October 2009

How film festivals like TIFF can end up hurting indie movies

Jason AndersonWebsite

It’s a familiar ritual in movie palaces and multiplexes all over the country. You find yourself in a lineup for a film that you know nothing about, aside from its reputation as a remarkable new work by a hot young director from the Carpathians, or maybe Polynesia. For sustenance, you have foregone popcorn in favour […] More »
September-October 2009

High and low culture collide in a glorious mess on Tumblr.com

Navneet AlangWebsite

[Editor’s note: If you’re curious, This Magazine has its own Tumblr blog. Visit quote.this.org] I have never left a cinema with as big a grin on my face as when I watched the spectacularly awful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Every complaint I had heard was spot-on—that the acting was abysmal, the plot incomprehensible, the […] More »
March-April 2009

The Message is the Medium

Dorothy Woodend

Are emerging cut-and-paste art forms ruining narrative storytelling? Before my son Louis could walk, he could surf. He took to the internet like an aquatic creature, swimming easily and confidently. It was cute to see him perched at the computer, his big baby head topped off by a pair of giant headphones. But his avidity […] More »
March-April 2009

Found in translation

Navneet AlangWebsite

The web allows immigrants to straddle two worlds like never before As in so many immigrant families, weekend mornings in my house always meant one thing: “our shows” on TV. We are of Indian descent, and the sounds of the latest Bollywood hits were a staple of our Saturdays and Sundays, as much a part […] More »