television

Francesca Eastwood: woman up

By Emily Olesen When Francesca Eastwood, 19-year-old daughter of legendary filmmaker Clint Eastwood, recently desecrated a $100,000 Birkin Bag on the reality series “Mrs. Eastwood & Company,” she was only trying to please her boyfriend. Thirty-year old celeb photographer Tyler Shields, a favourite with young Hollywood actors such as Emma Roberts and the cast of […]

Will “Slings and Arrows” take aim again?

By Zoe Grams When NBC’s dreadful soap-musical “Smash” is the only representation of theatre artists in mainstream culture, you know there’s a problem (for theatre artists, at any rate). So it’s no wonder there has been an online flutter over the potential relaunch of the Canadian comedy “Slings and Arrows.” Creator Bob Martin tells the […]

Arcade Fire wear red square on SNL

A BoB short: Quebec’s striking students received some high-profile musical support last night when Montreal’s Arcade Fire appeared on “Saturday Night Live” wearing the symbol of the student movement, a red square. The Grammy-winners, along with Nick Fraiture of The Strokes, accompanied host Mick Jagger on a version of the Rolling Stones’ 1965 single, “The […]

Two words: Joss Whedon. Okay, four: Scarlett Johansson

By Mark Leiren-Young A few days before The Avengers debuted I was asked why I was so excited about seeing what’s looking like the most successful comic book movie of all time. This was my answer. I’m a lifelong comic book fan and the idea that it’s even possible to make The Avengers has my […]

CRTC reaches for volume control

A BoB short: The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission has announced that all broadcasters, cable and satellite providers, and video-on-demand services must silence erratically loud ads by Sept. 1, 2012. The federal regulator had previously told the TV industry that it had one year to turn down the volume. Rogers Communication, Quebecor, and Shaw Communications […]

Mike Wallace and The Homosexuals

By Montreal Simon I see that Mike Wallace is being given a grand send off and is being called a journalistic hero. The newspapers are full of glowing obituaries, and TV stations have been running clips of his most famous interviews and documentaries. But funnily enough nobody mentioned the famous documentary LGBT activist Wayne Besen has […]

Coren vs. Boteach: let’s go to the tape

By Frank Moher A passel of Michael Coren supporters have arrived at backofthebook to defend his “interview” with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on the SUN “News” Network. (I always keep a small pile of ironic quotation marks handy when I write about SUN TV.) You’ll find them milling in the comments section following Rabbi Boteach’s account […]

Rabbi Boteach schools Michael Coren

It would appear that the bush-leaguers at SUN TV are once again abusing their guests. In the wake of some forgettable broadcaster’s pummelling of Margie Gillis, Michael Coren has now taken the opportunity of an interview with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, ostensibly about his new book Kosher Jesus, to . . . well, read on. Rabbi […]

Joe Bodolai’s final hit

A BoB short: A last blog post by Joe Bodolai has gone viral today after the L.A. Police ruled the well-loved comedy writer’s death a suicide. Bodolai, who worked on both “Saturday Night Live” and the “Kids in the Hall” before helping to launch Canada’s Comedy Channel, apparently intended the post as a combination suicide […]

Designer Worms

by Eric Pettifor Remember all those episodes of the various Star Treks where characters were genetically altered, either willingly or unwillingly, by some means or other? It would happen within the course of a single episode and be neatly fixed at the end, with a hypo from the lovely Dr. Crusher. In reality, of course, […]

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