Everything

Tequila Review: Casa Sauza, April 24, Reposado

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Mark in Everything | Leave a comment

 

Last Tuesday, Casa Sauza hosted an event at Toronto’s premiere tequila joint, Reposado on Ossington. The Panic Manual was there, and we had the opportunity to eat some tasty treats, try out some tasty tequila-based cocktails, listen to some tasty mariachi, and get a tasting of the Sauza line-up. Unlike many tequila-based nights, it was refined, in control, and a whole lot of fun.

For many, the word ‘tequila’ conjures hazy memories of drinking to excess. Crazy benders followed by horrible hangovers. The sad part about this is that tequila has received a horrible reputation for being a harsh drink you choke down by the shot and then chase with sour lemons to quell the burn. The reality is that there are many enjoyable sipping tequila’s to be had, and many that can be artfully blended into complex cocktails.

Reposado is most certainly the place to explore this world. They have an impressive collection of tequila’s that start from by-the-shot to delicate sipping ones and everything in between. In addition, cocktails like their signature blood orange margarita make for some great mixed drinks. We also had a most inventive tequila shot: Sauza Gold followed up with a fresh orange wedge dipped in cinnamon. Now that’s a refined and fresh take on  the normal wince inducing salt-lemon thing.

Our tasting flight consisted of Sauza Silver, Gold, Hornitos Reposado, and finally the Tres Generaciones Plata. The Blanco and Gold are part of the standard line-up and best consumed in a cocktail or shot if you must. While they do add artificial colouring to the Gold, it still smells and tastes considerably better than the Silver. As far as price-performance goes, the $40 Hornitos Reposado was the clear winner of the bunch. The oak aging mellows this spirit out so it can be sipped neat. Finally, the triple-distilled Tres Generaciones Plata comes in a gorgeous bottle. However, without any additional aging, the $70 price tag is pretty steep for what came across as a nice but straight-ahead tequila. I’d be curious to try the aged Anejo version. Tres Generaciones is not yet available at the LCBO, but will be soon.

Hot Docs Review: Downeast [David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, May 1, 2012]

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Gary in Everything, Hot Docs, Reviews | Leave a comment

Baltimore – We are all familiar with the disappearing agricultural facet of our society: the youth-drain in farming and fishing communities, the increasingly jarring difference between reality and our idea of food production/consumption, and the inevitable social movements that follow that uncomfortable thought. More and more, agriculture recedes into the background and becomes an autonomic part of our?consciousness. The arithmetic of a small population of agricultural workers and a tanking capitalist economy can’t be pretty. Downeast is the account of the drive of a Boston-based businessman to start a lobster packaging factory in the ashes of a shut-down sardine packing plant.

The film starts out very simply – Antonio Bussone, an Italian-immigrant, has been carefully amassing the funding to build and operate a lobster plant in Gouldsboro, Maine. He wants to take over the abandoned Stinson sardine plant, under this very laudable reasoning: the community has been devastated by the economic ice age, and he wants to help. There are few young workers left and the aging population knows little else, the federal government is willing to offer subsidy, and there is still room among fast-growing Canadian competitors in the lobster packaging market. It sounds like the perfect, win-win pitch. But alas, the town selectmen (councillors) does not agree with him. In fact, not a few of them are wholly against the idea. So, without the town council’s and the federal government’s blessing, Antonio tries his best to push through the tough waters, meeting financial woes and unfriendly locals head-on, to a not-surprising end of what could have been a great business as well as community-saving adventure.

What really struck me the wrong way was not the unnecessary bureaucracy during such a difficult time, or the conservative banking behaviors. Frankly, I expected the cheques to bounce, the payment to lag behind labor, the banks to freeze their business accounts, and the pitiless investors to withdraw at the first sign of weakness.?It was the prideful, xenophobic and short-sighted display from the town selectmen that really perplexed me. Antonio really never had a chance, because these men had vested interest and liked nothing better than nepotism and scorched-earth tactics. I found it totally bewildering that a councillor has the wherewithal, especially in a small town where the lives of each person is by definition so much more interwoven with another’s, to deny the spoken will of the people he claimed to represent. And to do so in directly in front of his constituency. Of course, it helped that the directors had contrasted this with Bussone. The “American by choice” spoke humbly about a will to make things better for everyone, banked with his own house on credit, and should practically be beatified when compared to the business stereotypes. It is an interesting explanation as to why some of these communities have folded easily while other thrive despite troubling-times. “Help me help you” is sometimes tougher than it sounds. I recommend watching this if you don’t care that I have basically dissected it tail, claw, and knuckle like a lobster.

Downeast will be screened again on May 5th, 11AM @ the ROM.

Concert Review: Spectrals, April 25, Phoenix Concert Theatre

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Paul in Concerts, Everything | Leave a comment

While Spectrals may owe a sonic debt to garage rock and early rock n’ roll ballads, frontman Louis Oliver Jones may be one of the least overtly rock n’ roll seeming guys out there.  An unassuming, low key demeanor was on display from the beginning of the band’s set opening for Cults.  After announcing “We’re very excited to be here, ” he added, “That didn’t sound very sincere,” recognizing the fact that he wasn’t quite at “Hello Cleveland!” or “Scream for me, Long Beach!” levels of enthusiasm.  He was, however, definitely genuine and sincere, although there’s very little pretense involved with his presentation.  He simply comes across as a regular guy, which is kind of refreshing.  Dressed onstage in a decidedly casual ensemble of plaid shirt, beige pants and a white baseball cap, he looked more like he just threw something on to grab some milk from the store rather than someone in a band.  And in a way, it totally worked.  The focus was more on the songs than on the presentation, and the songs are good enough to stand on their own – solid, melodic, catchy tunes reminiscent of the tunes of the ’60s as well as more current indie sounds.  So while Jones may not look terribly “rock” onstage, he certainly does know how to rock. 

And besides, if you really wanted some rock spectacle during their set, you only needed to turn your attention to the bassist, who really seems to be the showman of the group.  Kicking, dipping, swaying, wielding his bass like a machine gun at the crowd, he behaved as if he was acting out all of his cock rock fantasies onstage, even when it didn’t really suit the song they were playing, or even fit in rhythmically.  Unsurprisingly, the internets have already captured his moves for posterity.  Clearly, in his mind, he’s Gene Simmons.  More power to him.

Gary’s Hotdocs 2012 primer

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Gary in Everything, Hot Docs | Leave a comment

Baltimore – Honestly. If I were in Toronto, you lot would be reading reviews to kingdom-come in the coming week. Alas I am not. Still, driven by an insatiable thirst for movies/documentaries, I will tell you what caught my eyes in this year’s listing at Hotdocs while sitting miles (oops, I mean kilometers) away from Toronto. You probably knew what Hotdocs (Canadian International Documentary Festival) is – but did you know that Hotdocs.ca lags behind an automated document generating company in Utah when it comes to Google search? I have noticed this for a few years now… perhaps we should start a movement to improve that status. And we can film a meta-documentary. And then promote it during Hotdocs 2013. And then I won’t have any other complaints and your urge of instant gratification will be satisfied 3 sentences sooner. Follow the link on each film’s title to find out about screening time.


Indie game the movie
There are certainly worse obsessions, but games can etch your life away in a very real way, and unfortunately it’s a spreading phenomenon as gaming replaces sports for many people. In this era where EA dictates your gaming tastes as completely as Apple rules your gadget designs, is making an independent game just an express route to internet fame and financial independence? Or is it another orthodox expression of brilliant introverts that only differs, by the size of your bank accounts, from being employed by Google? The trailer seems to hint at the fermentation of several Vincent van Gogh’s… who struggle to find themselves, to challenge as well as explain themselves artistically, to retrive the hundreds of hours spent on one’s own dream and inevitably stop being financially-challenged. If I sound un-impressed, don’t forget that I can’t control the flow and tone of these words as if I was designing a game. I think this will be something cool. Plus, if you have ever played Braid, or Super Meat Boy, or Limbo, or Machinarium, or any number of these deceptively beautiful indie games, you know that most of them are also full of pain and sorrow, and sad stories alway make good films.

WTF?! You don’t want to see a movie about an animal penis collection?? My point exactly.

There are hobbies, and then there are fetishes. The first category you share with others, and the latter you stow away in your deposit boxes, your basements, or your underwear hoping that it will one day become “cool”. A sex doll will probably become cool only when you stop… OK, let’s try another sentence with the subject in another position… dammit. I don’t know if I have just perfectly demonstrated the stereotypes that filmmaker Allison de Fren had when she began the project, but a few reviews of the film have surprisingly described the fresh perspectives that her film brings to the subject. Here at PM, we’re all about fresh point-of-views. I think this is worth your time.

This movie, probably not by coincidence, shares its name with a 1930s Broadway play and an erotic novel, neither of which I look forward to ever revisit during internet searches. Introspective and autobiographical documentaries typically invoke the inner narcissist, often losing their connection with the audience (me) in minutes – and that’s what YouTube is for. But with multiple voices and personalities, a ventriloquist’s autobiography is something that might overcome the barrier. British comedian Nina Conti utilizes the puppets bequeathed to her by late mentor and lover Ken Campbell to both mourn the loss, and reinvent her self-confidence. But by the end of the last sentence I’m already wondering if this is a mockumentary.

Two years ago, I went to see Enemy of the People. It was the kind of hard-hitting documentary that you must include in any complete visit of Hotdocs – how do you create contrast without the ugly things in life? Jai bhim Comrade, as I understand it, documents the suffering of the Dalits – the untouchables in the Indian caste system. The “lowest of the low” since the ancient times, these are people who were supposed to have been given an equalized opportunity to survive in the modern era. Of course, this film would scarcely be identified as a type of  magnum opus if it was a celebration of their triumph over high society and peaceful reintegration. Prepare for 198 minutes of class warfare, bigotry from all directions, blood/gore and not a few tears.

While we’re at it, let’s continue the dark streak. Here’s an assignment: go see both of these films and piece together which side has the more human story. These are both films about the West Bank occupation. One is the culmination of 6 years of work by a Palestinian farmer who lives by the separation wall, another is the collected interviews of the legal brain trust within the Occupied Territories in the Gaza strip. On one hand, you can experience the devastation within a West bank neighborhood first-hand, and in the other you can pass silent judgement on the lawmakers themselves and test your political mettle. Since it behooves neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis to back down in the dead-locked situation, it is your duty as a world citizen to hear both sides of the story. Both of these are award-winning documentaries at Sundance and other festivals.

You probably can’t tell by looking at an X-ray of me, but I was a skater kid. Our bunch disbanded after a friend smashed his skull on a slab of smooth concrete just before yours truly was to embark on the same tests of Newtonian physics. After that I took to skateluge and finally got nowhere. Unlike me, guys like Mike McGill and Tony Hawk did get somewhere with their skateboarding, and they are in this film as well as the skate team it showcases. If the rise of a pop culture lifestyle is not your cup of tea, you will at least be able to appreciate the athleticism involved. As I learned long ago, not every kid with 4 urethane wheels can skip over a manhole cover without eating dirt.

We all know the feeling that the modern world is somehow more sick than the one from which it arose. If there’s a disease, there must be a cure. If nothing, the modern world is at least much more medicated than the old one. Pharmaceutical companies can walk on two rails, 1) the next wonder drug for an existing disease, or 2) the next debilitating disease that can be controlled by orphaned chemicals from the massive effort in 1). If the second option sounds vaguely evil, just think about the plethora of DIY projects – you already have the pieces necessary, why not take advantage of it? It’s the same train-of-thought; the big difference is that while you mess up your interior fashion with failed DIY projects, pharmaceutical companies could mess people up. I mean, they do it in the traditional, drug-addict method instead of the underground, shadowy assassin route. This promises to be an interesting peek into the minds and lives of the heavily medicated.

There are bound to be other gems more interesting than these during the festival. As I recall, one year Ricky’s favorite film was about a parking lot, and mine involved a Danish guy in Brazil. So, go out there and heat up some seats!

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