Toronto Filmmaker Tackles a Playboy
Few filmmakers know how to kick start a movie better than Toronto’s Brigitte Berman: the Oscar-winning writer/director dives into Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel with an uproarious remark by rocker Gene Simmons (a world-famous womanizer in his own right) that hooks the viewer with star power, humour and insight . . . not bad for the first 15 seconds.
Fortunately, Berman is able to live up to the promise of her opening with this fascinating, if longish portrait of the father of the sexual revolution. Some reviewers have taken Berman to task for going too easy on Hefner but the film balances praise from the Playboy founder’s supporters with recriminations from feminist Susan Brownmiller and Christian activists Jerry Fallwell and Pat Boone; Mike Wallace, Charles Keating and Dennis Prager aren’t Hef fans either.
“Hef says his life is like a Rorschach test,” notes Berman. “How people react to his story says more about them than it does about him. The film is the same way; some people say it’s even handed others say it’s totally unbalanced.”
Korngold A Summer Music Success
Toronto’s Art of Time Ensemble led by pianist Andrew Burashko (with, from left, Stephen Sitarski, Erika Raum and Winona Zelenka) delivered an impassioned performance of Korngold’s Suite for Piano, Two Violins and Cello at last night’s Source & Inspiration concert (part of the Toronto Summer Music Festival) at the MacMillan Theatre. After beautifully rendering the suite, the ensemble came back to accompany pop songwriters Danny Michel, John Southworth and Martin Tielli, each of whom had been invited to compose two songs using the Korngold as a catalyst. The resulting compositions surprised and charmed the audience with their inventive reinterpretations, giving tangible shape to the notion of inspiration.
Photo by Peter Alberti
Flying High With Yabu Pushelberg
Toronto’s interior design community has been buzzing about Avenue Road since its official opening last month. The spectacular Yabu Pushelberg-designed conversion of a century-old Consumer’s Gas generating station on Eastern Avenue personifies the finely-tuned aesthetic that has made local boys George Yabu, above left, and Glenn Pushelberg design superstars. Carrying about 30 high-end furnishing lines, Avenue Road is the design team’s second retail venture with partner Stephan Weishaupt (a smaller, less-ambitious iteration of Avenue Road preceded this incarnation).
“We call it de-luxing,” says Yabu, gesturing to the airy, light-filled atrium, left.
“We were touring stores in Shanghai last week,” elaborates Pushelberg, “and we were in one super high-end store where there were so many materials and finishes, it was so highly polished it was distracting; it made you question the intrinsic value of the product. We think that de-luxing is the way to go. If you look at this room, it’s de-luxed, it’s very simple, it’s artistic but the furnishings can breathe, you can really see the product and you’re free to move leisurely through it.”
Masquerade Master Louis Saldenah
Louis Saldenah is remarkably calm for a man with so much responsibility pressing down on him. A Caribana bandleader since 1977 with 15 Band of the Year titles under his belt (and 11 second place finishes), this Saturday he will bring the largest band in the festival’s 43-year history, more than 2,000 players dancing in 15 fantastically colourful sections.
Provided that Saldenah’s band places in the top eight — a panel of judges scores each group — he’ll be awarded $35,000 from the Festival Management Committee (FMC), the organization that owns and runs the event. Bands scoring in 9th – 14th place receive $21,000 each. If that sounds like a good chunk of change, consider that Saldenah’s 20,000 square foot mas camp (mas is short for masquerade) near St. Clair and O’Connor rents for nearly $7,000 per month. And that’s just the tip of the financial iceberg; there’s material and vehicle costs, a website and brochure to produce, the list goes on and on. Players in each band pay for their own costumes, anywhere from $140 – $175 in Saldenah’s case; the elaborate steel-frame King and Queen costumes are in the $6,000 neighbourhood with the hope that prize money — up to $4,500 — will offset the cost.
By the time I caught up with Saldenah a week and a half ago, things were already winding down at his camp; costumes needed to be ready for pick-up starting this week with different sections booked to collect their glittering gear each day.
Jazz Mann Riffs for the Home Team
One of the highlights of this weekend’s Masala! Mehndi! Masti! festival will be the MyBindi Comedy Night at Queen Elizabeth Theatre Sunday featuring a slate of South Asian comics. Toronto’s Jazz Mann will be representing the home team on a bill topped by New Yorker Vidur Kapur.
Live With Culture interviews are nearly always done face-to-face but scheduling challenges meant that my conversation with Mann had to be done over the phone. The actor/comedian is clearly at ease in the promotional ring because we were bantering like old chums inside of five minutes.
“A true comic has to have some marketing skill or promotional ability,” he says. “A lot of comics think it’s enough to be funny without making the effort to really understand the business. You can be the funniest comedian in the world but if you don’t know how to market yourself you’ll be the funniest comedian in the world in your parents’ basement.”
Born in Toronto but raised in B.C., Jazz moved back to TO in 1998 after completing a business degree. “That was the deal,” he says. “My parents said, ‘You can do what you want to do but you’re going to get an education.’ So now I know what I’m doing, apparently; now I’m giving other comedians a ride in my Audi (laughs).”
