This movie will be playing Saturday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cineplex Odeon Carlton in Toronto as part of the Reel World Film Festival.

What!? Free Movie!? I can’t believe it.

But it’s true. For tomorrow night’s screening of A Winter Tale at the Revue the admission is free. This looks like an amazing film and a profound tool to start meaningful discussions about youth violence:

SCREENINGS FOR FEBRUARY & MARCH 2008
February 13th to 28th @ The Revue Cinema (400 Roncesvalles (Toronto)
February 29th to March 6th @ Rainbow Cinemas (Woodbine Mall)

A Winter Tale tells the story of a black men’s support group that forms at a Caribbean Takeaway restaurant in Parkdale, after a ten-year-old boy is killed by a stray bullet. The film is followed by a one-hour discussion with members of the cast to engage youth and young adults on violence, the impact it has in their schools and communities, as well as the media’s handling of such events.

Visit: AWinterTale.ca to view the film’s trailer.

Last night I go to see The Business of Being Born (which was incredible) and end up crying like, well, a baby. This morning I watch the trailer for this movie and have another mini cry-fest. I was going to blame all this crying on hormones but why blame? I’m just going to enjoy…

Okay, so maybe I’ve got babies on the brain lately, but this movie looks fantastic. Touted as the “Inconvenient Truth of Childbirth,” it has some relevence, given out recent conversation about “expectant mother shaming.”

Also, who doesn’t love a little Ricki Lake?

Fat Girls is a new indie film described as “an off-beat coming of age story,” written and directed by Ash Christian (who happens to be a mere 22 years old.) It’s playing the festival circuit right now so I haven’t had a chance to catch it, but it’s worth noting because it has been grabbing up a variety of awards and getting some great reviews. I’m always on the lookout for accurate and positive depictions of young people, and the trailer and synopsis seem promising.

“Armed with biting humor and quirky sensibility, Rodney and his Rubenesque friend Sabrina are valiantly suffering through the indignity known as high school. Both are outcasts; he’s gay and she’s overweight. Trapped in a small Texas town and having come to accept his ‘fat girl’ within, Rodney is an aspiring Broadway star who musters up the energy to confront his fears and take life – and the hot new student from England – by the horns. With Rodney’s awkward experiences, off-beat attitude and strange evangelical family, Fat Girls is a hilarious rollercoaster ride that careens to an outrageous climax. This auspicious debut announces the arrival of filmmaker and star Ash Christian as a major new talent.”

Katherine Heigl, star of the much discussed Apatow flick Knocked Up, thought it was “a little sexist:”

“It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys,” she says. “It was hard for me to love the movie.” (Vanity Fair)

Recently I saw a very powerful ad in support of the Writers Guild of America Strike. A simple yet stunning black and white spot, the ad (which recruited a diverse group of recognizable A-list actors) focused on the idea that they were “speechless” without the writers to support their craft. As a writer I was moved by the imagery and the sentiment:

But then I saw this, also in the series, which (as Racialicious so accurately puts it) “relies on tired, old stereotypes:”

Now I know that Canadians have been urged by PWAC not to take any freelance jobs that would violate picket lines, but this “outsourcing to India” joke (?) really has little to do with the issue and needed awareness at hand. As Carmen Van Kerckhove so wisely says “I’m left scratching my head, wondering what the heck this issue has to do with outsourcing to India? And why exactly does the writers guild need to mock one profession to make a case for fair compensation of their own work?”

Well put.

I’m a little late on this celebrity gossip:

Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar has changed her famous three-part moniker as a fifth wedding anniversary present to actor Freddie Prinze Jr. The couple was wed September 1, 2002.

A source close to the 30-year-old star tells Us Weekly,”She officially changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze” in honor of the occasion.

“On their anniversary, she showed [Freddie] her new driver’s license,” the source tells Us. “It was so sweet.”

I thought it was interesting that Gellar/Prinze made the decision to change her name so late after the fact. I wonder if it has something to do with the state of feminism in this here post-9/11 context - you know, the return to domesticity and traditional gender roles, yadda yadda…

I have noticed (and this could just be me) that more and more women I know are taking their (male) spouses’ names. My co-workers at the feminist organisation I work for, who are life-partnered and a few years older than me, tell me that ten years ago, no one was changing their name.

The whole question of name-changing is pretty much old hat - in the end, I support a women’s right to do whatever the heck she wants with her name. I should admit though, that I was a little demoralised to see the poll published just below the Gellar-to-Prinze news flash:

Do you think women should change their names for their husbands?
Yes 72% (4285 votes)
No 28% (1677 votes)

For those readers who grew up in the early days of Sesame Street, you’ll be happy to know that the golden era of Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and The Count are now available on DVD. There’s one thing you should know, however: according to the New York Times, these DVDs have been branded strictly for adults only:

According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

That’s right, children of the seventies and early eighties. According to modern standards, the pre-Elmo Sesame Street you grew up with is actually unsuitable to grow up with. The various reasons behind this warning may seem absurd, but they speak to an interesting trend, an overall cultural shift in terms of how we raise and subsequently shield our children from reality, and how modern children’s programming is deceptive (and often problematically gendered) “candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks.”

Contemporary television shows for children are a far cry from Oscar the Grouch’s depressive tendencies and Big Bird’s constant hallucinations of Snuffeluppagus (in fact, post 1985 everyone else on the street could suddenly see Snuffy too, simply because Big Bird’s imaginary friend got “creepy.”) This from Jezebel.com:

The producers cite an array of reasons (for the warning) including but not nearly limited to Cookie Monster, who was not only a pathological binge eater but also the Muppet who played the character Alistair Cookie, who, explains the New York Times Magazine “used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, ‘That modeled the wrong behavior’ — smoking, eating pipes — ‘so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.’”

In fact, the golden age of Sesame Street speaks to an era before our culture was paralyzed by a fear of our “neighbours:”

Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but … well, he could have wanted anything.

Please excuse me if I say “those were the good ol’ days,” but as our culture becomes increasingly sanitized and conservative, I worry that our children will miss out on gems like this, Sesame Street’s take on the Women’s Liberation movement:

(After the jump, I’ve included Stevie Wonder singing Superstition on Sesame Street, just for some nostalgic “when I was a kid” fun.)(more inside…)