Category Archives: Arts Friday

Arts Friday | Can Hollywood and Cineplexes Survive Coronavirus?

November 13, 2020Arts Friday, CinemaRaymond Tomlin

Movie theatres have endured world wars, depressions and recessions, and the advent of everything from television to streaming. But COVID-19 and the public health crisis it has generated this year around the globe represents an existential threat to the cinema business like no other.
The novel coronavirus pandemic is upending the movie business.
Once upon a time, a handful of big studios spent billions of dollars making movies, and marketing and distributing those movies to theatres across the globe. But over the past two decades, with a surge in content and streaming delivery services, the old way of doing things has been shifting.

Then, in early March of this year, COVID-19 started spreading across the globe in a big way. The first thing that happened was a bunch of blockbusters got moved: Black Widow Disney’s latest Marvel superhero adventure, was bumped from its May 1, 2020 release date to May 7 2021. That followed news Disney had delayed Mulan, originally slated for March 27, the film moved to Disney Plus — at $29 a pop for young families.

Ditto Warner Brothers’ Wonder Woman 1984, which was moved from this year to who knows when, and No Time to Die, the 25th 007 movie, about which there’s speculation that it, too, will soon become a VOD title.

Paramount’s A Quiet Place Part II (April 23 2021), and Universal’s F9, the latest in the Fast & Furious franchise were also moved (May 28, 2021).
Together, it was estimated that those movies would have brought in somewhere north of $1 billion at the box office in 2020.
“There’s never been a situation like this,” says IndieWire film critic, Eric Kohn. “Fear of the unknown is never a good thing. We’ll return to normalcy at some point, but as we ride this out, there’s going to be near-term pain.”
As Hollywood traverses uncharted territory, studio executives are pleading for patience. “We will get to the other side,” Jim Orr, president of domestic distribution for Universal Pictures, recently told respected industry trade publication Variety. “How long is all of this lasting? Nobody knows.”

Theatre owners believe that after two years of declining box office sales, business will return to normal, and they will see record high box office in 2021, as Hollywood releases a truckload of franchise sequels. The haul includes four films from the Marvel universe — Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (July 9, 2021); Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (tbd); Spider-Man 3 (tbd) and Thor: Love and Thunder (February 18, 2022) — as well as Jurassic World: Dominion (June 10, 2022)The Batman (March 4, 2022), Mission: Impossible 7 (tbd), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (August 6, 2021) and Avatar 2 (December 16, 2021).
“When the 2021 box office eventually is reported, we believe it will be the pessimists and the naysayers who will turn out to have been wrong,” AMC chief Adam Aron told industry analysts in a zoom call earlier this month..
“This year’s box office is going to look like the biggest asterisk you’ve ever seen,” says Kohn. “You’ll never be able to compare 2020 to any other year and have it mean anything. It’s simply going to be a lost year.”

As Barry Hertz wrote in the Globe and Mail earlier this year, “All audiences can do now is hold out hope for a Hollywood ending.”

Arts Friday | 75 German People of Influence in Western Canada

November 6, 2020Arts Friday, NewsRaymond Tomlin

Author Elke Porter holding up her new book. C’mon along to the book launch on Saturday!

During the course of the 2018 Vancouver municipal election, one of highlights of the “contest” to become a Vancouver City Councillor occurred at The Imperial on Main, at the Last Candidate Standing event (won by current Councillor, Christine Boyle), was the emergence of a relatively unknown independent candidate for Vancouver City Council, the incredibly witty and socially conscious, author and publisher, longtime Kitsilano resident, Elke Porter — who wowed the crowd, taking all into her heart.

“In 2018, I went into the election thinking that I had something of value to contribute,” Elke Porter told VanRamblings in an interview Thursday. “As a parent to two young women, I have long played a role in the parent action committees at their schools, had volunteered with a great many non-profit and charitable organizations, and had, for years, contributed as an activist and organizer within the German community.”

“With my girls now almost fully grown, running for Council seemed like the next logical step for me — not to mention, getting to know Vancouver in a whole new way proved, for me, to be the experience of a lifetime. As well, I got to know all of the candidates who were eventually elected to Vancouver City Council, which emerged as a humanizing experience for me. Quite honestly, I would recommend the experience to anyone.”

In 2020, Elke Porter has written — and, as of today, published — a new book, 75 German-Speaking Influential People in Western Canada, on the prominent difference makers of German descent from across western Canada who have contributed to making our nation what it is today.

Elke Porter's book launch, 75 German-Speaking Influential People in Western Canada

Click on the graphic above to purchase your copy of Elke Porter’s important new book

A necessary and invaluable compendium, a who’s who of the past and present regaling the stories of 75 Canadian citizens of German descent.

Thousands of Austrians, German and Swiss, were success stories in a variety of industries over the past 100 years. Some of them sold food and drink. Some founded real estate empires. There were artists, entrepreneurs, musicians, pastors, philanthropists, property developers, singers, writers and volunteers.

“David Oppenheimer, who opened the first wholesale grocery business in 1887 and became the second mayor of Vancouver is one of them,” says Porter. “Alvo von Alvensleben who bought a house and 20 acres in Kerrisdale in 1909 that took 13 servants to run, had his house taken by the Custodian of Enemy Property Act at the outbreak of World War I, which was then sold to the publisher of the Vancouver Sun, Robert James Cromie, and whose widow sold it to the Crofton Private School in 1942, for the sum of $15,000. Fritz Ziegler, started with a 1912 farmhouse in Fort Langley, added turrets, stucco and brick to it and ended up owning Canada’s only ‘castle’ that he named ‘Schloss Klipphaus.’ Ziegler, after throwing many ‘legendary’ parties, was eventually appointed the Consul General of Monaco.”

Schloss Klipphaus, the Fort Langley, replica castle built by Fritz Ziegler, featuring such age-of-chivalry elements as this knight’s hall.

“Some of the other prominent people you may know that are in my book are the Freybe family, who started what became a generational family business, dating back to 1844, pioneering a culinary experience around diverse products ranging from delectable salamis to traditionally crafted sausages. And the same thing with the Grimm’s family.”

So, now here we are mid-pandemic in 2020, and 75 German-Speaking Influential People in Western Canada has become a reality. VanRamblings asked Elke Porter, how and why did the book come together now?

“You know, it’s actually ‘thanks COVID’,” Ms. Porter says, laughing. “As a busy mom, I suddenly didn’t have to drive my kids to school. I couldn’t go out to restaurants, and found myself for the most part, housebound, except on those occasions when I went for a walk in the neighbourhood where, if you recall, I ran into you one day.”

“So, I just started writing when I had time. In addition, my mother proved to be an excellent editor, and my brother, Dr. Christian Klaue, the latter my maiden name — with his Phd in English — also emerged as an editor.”

“Given the work I’ve done with my West Coast German News periodical over the years, I found I’d interviewed a good number of the people who found their way into my book. Of course, there was a great deal of time spent at the library, in the archives. When I was writing the book, I was sent the Fred Herzog book, Photographs, and the Freybe family sent me their book. Much of the rest of the research for the book occurred through e-mail correspondence, which as a writer, as I’m sure you know, can be a most satisfying endeavour.

Now down to the nitty gritty: the book launch tomorrow afternoon at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. First up this book launch info graphic …

At this writing, there are a limited number of tickets available at $75 — 30 of 40 available tickets have been sold. Note should be made that strict COVID-19 protocols will be in place for the book launch. Donations made by clicking here will be designated as donations to the B.C. Cancer Agency.

As above, Elke Porter’s book launch — and fundraiser for the B.C. Cancer Agency — will be a COVID-safe event.

Elke Porter thanks you for your support of her, and her new book!

Arts Friday | Animation as An Expression of Human Experience

October 30, 2020A & E, Arts Friday, Pop CultureRaymond Tomlin

All animation, whether it depicts a whistling mouse, a walking dinosaur, or a leaping superhero, is a kind of magic trick. It’s right there in the name of one of the earliest devices used to project slides: the magic lantern.
If you take an image of an open hand and an image of a fist and project the two in sequence, you’ll convey the illusion of a clench.

“What happens between each frame is more important than what happens on each frame,” Scottish-Canadian experimental animator, the late Norman McLaren — a director and producer with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and a respected pioneer of hand-drawn animation and drawn-on-film animation — once explained, stating that ‘Animation is the art of manipulating the invisible interstices between frames.”

Arising from VanRamblings’ coverage this week of the meaning behind the majority BC NDP win in the recent provincial election, we failed to make mention of International Animation Day — which occurred this past Wednesday, October 28th — celebrated by the National Film Board of Canada through the streaming of 12 films, all of which are permanently available now – for free viewing – on the National Film Board website.
As Mercedes Milligan wrote this past Tuesday in Animation Magazine …

Now in its 14th year, this annual NFB event gives Canadian audiences the opportunity to explore a host of new works by Canadian and European filmmakers working in the National Film Board’s cutting-edge, internationally renowned studios. The rich 2020 selection puts women in the spotlight — both female directors and strong female characters — and features a wealth of different animation techniques.

</ br>Vancouver-based animator Ann Marie Fleming’s new animated short, Old Dog

Made by world-renowned animators, the outstanding animated films in this year’s International Animation Day programme have won prestigious awards and screened throughout the global festival circuit.

Long one of VanRamblings’ favourite arts and culture writers, Katja De Bock is now a publicist with the NFB (lucky, lucky them!). Here’s what she wrote to VanRamblings earlier in the week on one particular film she cherishes …

Old Dog, the latest film by Vancouver’s Ann Marie Fleming, started off as a way of talking about aging, inspired by Ms. Fleming’s namesake, Ann-Marie Fleming, whom she often gets mixed up with in Internet searches.

Ann-Marie has a company in 100 Mile House, B.C., that makes technologies for aging dogs, and also for their humans. Animator Ann Marie was struck by the compassion her namesake has for these vulnerable animals, as she helped them to navigate the latter stages of their lives, and by how much dogs have to teach human beings.

The COVID-19 pandemic made Ms. Fleming (the animator), whose elderly parents live overseas, reflect on how we take care of our elders and how our global values are being put to the test.

According to Ann Marie, animation is the perfect medium to tell this story. It makes the experience of the human and the dog more universal and helps us understand the unbearable lightness of being.

Now, as it happens Ms. De Bock informs us — and now, you — Old Dog is also featured at this year’s SPARK Animation Festival in Vancouver — which, by the way, began yesterday, and is set to run through Sunday, November 8th, and in addition to films will feature workshops, panels and talks by the world’s most talented artists, directors, and studio luminaries.

This year’s SPARK Animation Festival pass is only $25 — which will give you access to the dozens of films SPARK has on offer in 2020.
Guess what VanRamblings is going to be doing for the next nine days!
On Arts Friday, VanRamblings will leave you with this special treat …

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Ann Marie Fleming’s Old Dog, a presentation of the National Film Board of Canada

Arts Friday | The Impact of Cinema in Pre-Pandemic Times

October 23, 2020Arts Friday, Cinema, Pop CultureRaymond Tomlin

Nostalgia for a Time When Going to the Movies Was a Pleasure We All Enjoyed
Each and every one of us possess within us memories of our experiences visiting the cinema: as a child of attending at the movies with our parents; our first foreign or independent film with a group of friends; or simply visiting our local multiplex cinema to catch the latest superhero blockbuster, or making the pilgrimage to one local film festival or another.
Pre-pandemic, going to the movies was still a popular past-time, even in an age when media consumption and “film viewing” has radically changed (think of the Netflix revolution). In North America in 2019, there were 1.3 billion cinema admissions — a not-insignificant, nor surprising figure.

In 1930, more than 65% of the population went to the movies weekly. That means for every 5 people you knew, 3 of them went to the movies weekly.
Can you even imagine that?
Eighty-five years ago, cinema-going remained astoundingly popular across the continent, reaching a peak of 1.64 billion admissions in 1946 — even though the North American population was less than half of what it is today.
Why was cinema so popular in times past?
Some of the reasons are fairly straightforward: there was limited opportunity long ago for inexpensive recreational activities outside of the home, television had yet to assert its power, and film was an established medium which exposed millions to different worlds and alluring cultures (or, more often, to the vicissitudes of North American culture).
There was, however, a deeper and perhaps more fundamental reason for movie-going’s immense popularity in North America mid-20th century.
Recent research on movie-going habits in the twenty and 21st centuries has focused on the interplay between space and emotion, and how cinemas act as facilitators of emotional experiences in ambiguous spaces.
Over the years, movies have aided people in helping to reveal new insights into their lives, while allowing a better understanding of the lived experiences of people across the globe, and in their own neighbourhood. Cinema has not only traced our conception of life, but has also served to affect our outlook on life and the lives of others.
Watching a film in the presence of others is different from watching a film alone, or with our family: the collective constellation affects the way viewers experience a film, made all the more obvious once strong emotions and affective expressions come into play: laughter, sadness, shame, anger, screaming, and more often than not (if we’re lucky) being moved to tears.
Different times in history — and different spaces — have served to create new affective landscapes and altered existing ones, making cinema a useful category for historians to study changes in society and culture over time.
The history of cinema has been integrated alongside other sociological methodologies to help form a more refined and complex picture of the past, and in consequence has offered a valuable way of introducing new insights into the establishment of popular culture, and societal development.
The darkness of the cinema environment presents the opportunity to experience a strong shared emotional experience in a public setting, in the anonymous environment of the auditorium. No other public space has facilitated this to such a degree, and this uniqueness reveals how the life of our society developed in specific contexts and in precise locations.
The enclosed and defined space of the cinema auditorium, containing a distinct group in the form of an audience, is an obvious example of community. Patrons in the cinema are aware of both their own emotional response to what they are viewing onscreen, and the feelings of those around them, providing reassurance that our emotional responses to a film are being mirrored by our fellow patrons.
Respected film critic Leslie Halliwell recalled in his memoir on cinema-going that film took “people furthest out of themselves, into a wondrous and beautiful world which became their Shangri-La”.

This utopia was reflected in the very names of cinemas — the Orion, the Rialto, the Plaza, the Regal — and in the architecture of the buildings which encompassed a range of styles including the clean lines of Art Deco and the high theatrics and excess of the “atmospherics”.

The Grandview Theatre, Commercial Drive at East 1st Avenue in Vancouver, in the 1950s

Evidence suggests that many people viewed their local movie-house, whether a stand-alone, second-run neighbourhood movie house or a first-run super-cinema, as a reassuring and familiar space characterized by a hazy emotionality fluctuating between the individual and the group, in the process offering a sense of connection with those who surrounded us.
This ambiguity — the individual vs the collective experience — lies at the heart of what attending at the cinema signifies to people. In few other areas of life are the landscapes of our lives softened to such a degree, in turn making attendance at the cinema a welcoming experience.

Cinemas have long occupied a position on the boundary between the domestic and the public, allowing our emotional experience of a movie concurrently as both communal and private, the evolving emotional landscapes which were crafted by cinema patrons in the mid-20th-century serving to break down anomie while creating a sense of connection.
The fundamentals of our affective experience at the movies has changed little over the past 100 years.
The price of popcorn, however, most definitely has.