Staying In

What Do You Want to Watch on Your MTV?

Shelley Youngblut | Aug.01.2011 | comments 0

MTV turns 30 today, and I’m just old enough to remember when Viacom’s moon man first landed, creating a pop-culture vacuum that has since been filled by YouTube. It was the equivalent of televised oxycontin, and I immediately found myself snorting it in six-hour blocks while on vacation in Hawaii (you know something is addictive when you’re in paradise but won’t leave your hotel room).

Like your first kiss, first martini, first sciatica attack, you’ll never forget the first video that got you hooked on MTV. In my case, it was “Centerfold,” an utterly forgettable piece of pop by the J. Geils Band that continues to have a hold on me. While you might think it’s a stretch, I maintain this is where “Smells Like Teen Spirit” director Samuel Bayer got the idea for the zombie cheerleaders and that the height of video special effects wasn’t Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” but rather when drummer  Stephen Jo Bladd hits his snare and white milk splashes up in slow motion. And finally, because video sleaze before Snoop Dogg’s “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Have None)” seems downright quaint in comparison, did saddle shoes and baby-doll nighties ever look so good?

Note: To grasp how far MTV has fallen since it blasted off in 1981, check out Kate Aurthur’s “When Reality-TV Fame Runs Dry” on The Daily Beast.

Share your pick for the most memorable MTV video below. Read More more

Staying In

Game Seven: Get a Grip

Bruce Weir | Jun.14.2011 | comments 0

From the beginning of Wednesday night’s Game 7, time will be running out. As it runs like sand through the hourglass of time, the contest will become the game of our lives for one team and a bitter pill for the other.

As the Bruins or Canucks are scrambling to put on their 2011 Stanley Cup Champions ball caps (a recent tradition about which the less said the better), the dejected players of the losing team will be consoling their goalie and lining up to shake hands.

Now, the handshake is a tradition that I can get behind. It helps players and fans cope with loss even as it reminds the winners they should be magnanimous in victory. And even if some of the encounters seem strained (win or lose, Raffi Torres is unlikely to receive a lot of love from his opponents), it is a grace note after a bruising series. Read More more

Staying In

The Costanza Defense

May.19.2011 | comments 0

As the sad saga of Arnold’s follies continues to unfold, we couldn’t help but reminded of another man who stuck his hand in the cookie jar and got caught. Here’s George Costanza’s classic excuse for why he dallied with the office cleaning woman from the 1991 episode, The Red Dot, written, need we say, by Larry David.  Jason Alexander has tweeted that this scene is his favourite “George” moment.

Cover Stories

My Thorny Relationship

Karen Hines | Photo courtesy City TV | Mar.31.2011 | comments 3

An entranced Canadian woman’s e-mail exchange with Brad Womack,
a.k.a. The Bachelor.

[ On 2011-01-17 at 11:22 P.M. Karen Hines did (not) write: ]

Dear Brad,

I am a Canadian woman. It is winter here in our land, and it is cold. As is our custom when the days are short, I have been watching many hours of TV on demand. It’s all pretty much a blur of cathode rays, butter tarts and Baileys.

Except for you. Read More more

Staying In

Bionic Builders

Shelley Youngblut | Mar.03.2011 | comments 0

Do you really need to guffaw your way through another episode of Winter Wipeout? Instead, at 9 p.m. tonight, you’ll find yourself genuinely in awe of what human beings are capable of physically thanks to Bionic Builders. On the one-hour special on Discovery Science Canada (Ch. 94), amputees are outfitted with one-of-a-kind extreme limbs that make them, in the words of star Casey Pieretti, “better than new.” Pieretti, who at 19 lost the lower portion of his right leg after being hit by a drunk driver, is a Hollywood stunt man and the perfect guinea pig for inventor Bill Spracher and his radical prosthetic devices. Canadian Baxter Humby, the World Super Welterweight Kickboxing Champion, is outfitted with a pneumatic punching arm, while a former Navy diver becomes a human torpedo. Read More more

Rebekah Pearse: Bad-Ass Chef

Shelley Youngblut | Mar.03.2011 | comments 0

Are you as hungry as we are for the April 11th premiere of Top Chef Canada on the Food Network? To whet our appetites, the show has released the audition tapes of the 16 competitors, including Calgary’s Rebekah Pearce and Connie DeSouza. Both 29, our homegrown kitchen amazons represent that unique Calgary combination of creativity and entrepreneurialism—our artists are business people and our business people are artists.

When Pearse was still helming Nectar (which closed its doors in 2010… perhaps because its owner has a promising new career as a top TV chef???), she was running evening baking classes. I signed up for her Red Velvet cake seminar and learned a ton, not the least of which was that I was better off paying her to make my desserts. While I was a poor student, she was a terrific teacher—smart, to the point, precise, funny and encouraging. You’ll see all of this and much more (including some professional-kitchen-strength language) in her Top Chef audition tape.

Staying In

jean

What to Watch Tonight

Jean Vanier at 80

Jan.24.2011 | comments 3

Are you pining after Swerve’s Staying In section in the magazine (which we had to discontinue after our TV guru Ruth Myles was promoted to become the Calgary Herald’s entertainment editor)? We’d like to take the sting out of our mutual loss by running daily suggestions for what to watch (or PVR), courtesy of the mother ship.

Ditch lightweight fare in favour of this series on aging, wisdom and spirituality featuring true Canadian hero, L’Arche founder Jean Vanier. Why God is in Disrepute and Why Religion will Survive air Tuesday, Jan. 25 at 9 p.m. on Vision, Ch. 109. On Wednesday, again at 9 p.m., the series continues with episodes on introspection and how to gain from loss.

Staying In

Who Mourns for the Original Star Trek?

Shelley Youngblut | Dec.16.2010 | comments 7

Just experienced a fascinating collision of old and new media. I’m working from home today with a sick kid (the virulent version of the Norovirus that’s going around) and we came upon my favourite episode of the original Star Trek series, Who Mourns for Adonais? What can I say, I’m a girl—I loved Greek mythology as a kid, and squee’d when  Apollo did the pink Grecian makeover of Lt. Carolyn Palamas (“She looks like Barbie,” said my daughter, who is way cooler than I ever was). I even teared up when, at the end, Kirk says, “Would it have hurt to have gathered a few laurel leaves?”

In with the new: I posted a truncated version of this on Twitter, and it sparked a conversation about which original Star Trek episode is #yyc’s favourite. Let’s boldly continue it here. I’ll update the videos accordingly throughout the day and night.

Staying In

The "F" Word

Ruth Myles | Nov.12.2010 | comments 0

The “F” word is getting a lot of play in pop culture these days. From Sookie’s heritage on True Blood to Elizabeth Banks being cast in the title role of Tink, fairies are coming into their own. It couldn’t be better timing for Lost Girl, Read More more

Staying In

Four Strong Words

Shelley Youngblut | Nov.11.2010 | comments 0

Because it wasn’t just the abs, the dimples or the nicknames that made Josh Holloway’s Sawyer irresistible. We miss Lost (circa Season 3).

What about you? And which season of Lost was your favourite?

Staying In

Five Signs You're a Princess

Ruth Myles | Nov.05.2010 | comments 0

Let’s be clear: Gail Vaz-Oxlade is not anti-princess. In fact, the straight-talking financial guru considers herself one, if you mean a woman who deserves to be treated well. “That sense of being special can keep you going through tough stuff,” says the host/taskmaster of Princess, a Canadian series in its first season on Slice. Read More more

Staying In

Bloody Fun Kids' Fare

Ruth Myles | Oct.08.2010 | comments 0

Although director Bruce McDonald always tries to slip in a Ramones reference or two into his projects, don’t expect to hear the punk rockers’ “Babysitter” in his latest film, despite its title. “Yeah, we auditioned it at one point,” McDonald says with a laugh over the phone from Toronto, “but its lyrics aren’t exactly fitting.” Makes sense, considering My Babysitter’s a Vampire is targeted at kids aged six to 13–not exactly the crowd who will be coming out for McDonald’s Hard Core Logo 2, reportedly in post-production. Read More more

Staying In

Gunslingers Who Really Hit the Spot

Ruth Myles | Aug.13.2010 | comments 0

With the release of Gunless, Paul Gross’s doused in maple syup take on the classic western, Staying In decided to count down our top 5 gunslingers… with a bullet. Read More more

Staying In

Locked and Loaded

Ruth Myles | May.07.2010 | comments 0

Although his character Raylan Givens wears a U.S. marshal’s badge on the weekly series Justified, actor Timothy Olyphant says upholding the letter of the law isn’t necessarily job No. 1. Read More more

Staying In

Stringer Bell's School of Management

Ruth Myles | Mar.13.2009 | comments 0

He might be street, but Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) is all about moving upward and onward in the seminal crime drama The Wire.

Read More more

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