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Calgary Herald
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Changemaker: Acting coach, screen villain and ACTRA Alberta vice-president Chad Rook is creating a community of thespians who are landing work
Article content 'We have an endless amount of actors who are working full time. They are always booking,' he says. Article content 'It's almost every week that one of our students is booking something locally. We have grown our community. We have different social media with all of our students and we're always helping each other out. We have well over 100 actors in the community right now.' Article content Rook has spent time on film and TV sets in Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York and Europe, but is Calgary-based at the moment. He left for Vancouver after graduating from Picture Butte High School, initially to pursue a career as a model. He soon began landing TV roles in Vancouver. Article content Recent roles have included playing Billy the Kid antagonist James Dolan in the Alberta-shot series, which earned him a Leo Award in 2023. He played CFL player Jackie Parker, who played with the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1950s, in a Heritage Minute segment about Norman Kwong. He played a deputy in two seasons of Joe Pickett, as well. Article content Article content Rook credits his time in Vancouver studying under Canadian actor Ty Olsson, known for his roles in Supernatural and Flight 93, as changing both his views on the industry and the trajectory of his career. Article content 'He was very direct and told me what works and what doesn't work — to stop the bullsh-t and (do) what is needed,' Rook says. 'When I had a coach who did that, my career changed immediately because I knew what to do and what not to do. That's when I was like, 'people need to know about this.' Article content 'Unfortunately, there is — and I don't mind saying this, I'm a pretty direct guy — so many bad coaches and classes out there because you are out there learning from people who are not even successful at what they are trying to teach you to do. They are not even working actors. They quit the industry 20 years ago because it was too hard, and now they are teaching you what didn't even work for them.' Article content Article content Rook, on the other hand, continues to be a busy actor, with the Internet Movie Database listing 10 upcoming titles scheduled for 2025. Article content Perhaps inadvertently, he has carved out a niche for himself playing villains. He got his first major break playing supervillain Clyde Mardon, a.k.a. the Weather Wizard, in 2014 episodes of The Flash. In the NBC sci-fi series Timeless, he played a ruthless henchman to the main villain played by Goran Visnjic. In the 2017 blockbuster War for the Planet of the Apes, he played the aggressive military man, Boyle, who serves under the chief antagonist played by Woody Harrelson. Article content One of the more high-profile future projects is a role in HBO's IT: Welcome to Derry, a prequel to Stephen King's novel and the two films based on it that were released in 2017 and 2019. It was filmed in Hamilton, Ont.
CBC
01-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Calgary film industry optimistic for recovery after North America-wide slowdown
Southern Alberta residents can expect to see plenty of cameras and production crews over the coming months and years, according to some Calgary film industry insiders. After the 2023 Hollywood strikes cooled off local production, Calgary Economic Development (CED) received more scouting package requests in the first quarter of 2025 than any other Q1 in the last decade. It's a good indication that Alberta's Rocky Mountain views are in high demand, said CED president and CEO Brad Parry, with some of the biggest companies in the industry ramping up production again. "Netflix has a number of projects they're shopping around," Parry said. "We know Paramount, we know Apple, there's a lot of people that have a lot of pent-up projects now, that are going to start to, I think, hit the ground soon." The Directors Guild of Canada tracks ongoing productions by pay rates. Three projects currently in production in Alberta fall in their 'Tier A' category — which generally means they're higher budget productions, said Michelle Wong, a film industry consultant based in Calgary. One is a film adaptation of Reminders of Him, a romance novel by New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover. The third season of Billy the Kid, a western series produced by MGM+, is also filming around Calgary. "At first we thought maybe there would be a bit of a downer year," said Wong. "We're seeing actually something of maintaining what was last year, and maybe a slight tick up actually." Wong credits a shaky Canadian dollar and more resources available for Indigenous productions for the strong start to 2025. Bill C-11, which passed in April 2023, specifies Canadian broadcasters must provide opportunities to Indigenous people to produce programming, and has helped increase the amount of content produced by Indigenous filmmakers, said Wong. Uncertainty created by U.S. trade policy is also having an impact, Parry said, but Calgary's film industry is also becoming less reliant on American productions by welcoming projects from other markets. "Especially at the end of last year, we had a lot of projects coming from Korea," he said. "Now you're starting to see a few more of the European countries also start to look for ways to get some different vistas to shoot." Hundreds of union members out of work The head of the film industry union's Calgary branch says the provincial government could take steps to help stabilize the local industry. Damien Petti, president of IATSE Local 212, notes that of the more than 1,500 members available to work in film and television production, only about 65 per cent are currently employed. "Many people have a plan B and a supportive spouse," he said on The Calgary Eyeopener on Monday. "There's always been peaks and valleys, but there are a number of other factors that have changed rapidly," he added, referring to an increase in the number of tax incentives offered in other countries, meaning Canada now faces greater competition to attract big projects. He wants to see the province increase its base 22 per cent tax credit on production costs to 25 per cent. In a statement, Ministry of Finance press secretary Justin Brattinga said that Alberta's Film and Television Tax Credit Act was amended last year to widen its application window, expand the number of eligible production genres and offer additional access to the higher tax credit level for productions filming in rural and remote parts of the province. "Going forward, Alberta's government is monitoring developments in other jurisdictions and will continue to take steps to ensure the FTTC program remains competitive," Brattinga said in a statement. The long-running western drama Heartland has been renewed for a 19th season, Petti said, also teasing that other big projects are on the way that he can't yet reveal.
Telegraph
14-04-2025
- Telegraph
Discover the retro charm of a Route 66 road trip through New Mexico
Covering more than 2,400 miles from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California, Route 66 is a true icon of Americana. The Mother Road was established in 1926, quickly becoming the United States' most convenient cross-country highway. And it didn't just change the course of traffic – it changed the course of history. Its completion coincided with a boom in car ownership, and the route quickly became punctuated with neon-clad motels, gas stations and diners catering to a nation on the road – including in New Mexico, which is home to more miles of Route 66 than any other state. The route contributed to America's rise as a world superpower: soon, the nation was driving westward and once rural communities received a vital commerce boost. Fast forward to today and New Mexico – which hosted some 535 miles of the original road – is the ideal place to soak up Route 66's history. As its 2026 centennial draws closer, there's no better time to plan a road trip that takes you back in time in the Land of Enchantment. Top towns In New Mexico's east, the colourful little city of Tucumcari is one of the state's quirkiest stops. Make a beeline for the Tucumcari Historical Museum, which offers a deep dive into the route's history, alongside displays of dinosaur fossils and historic covered wagons. There's also the New Mexico Route 66 Museum, whose huge store of vintage Mother Road photographs will whisk you back in time. Spend the rest of your time in diners such as Del's Restaurant, which shares a birth year with the route and is known for its distinctive neon, bull-topped sign. Be sure to snap a photograph of the slick chrome-and-rock-clad sculpture that welcomes you into town too. An hour's drive west of Tucumcari and you reach Santa Rosa, where you'll see plenty of old signage and buildings from the days when bright neon lights welcomed weary travellers at the end of the day, looking for great food and comfortable lodgings – there are still motels aplenty to choose from. You can cool off by diving into the 80ft-deep waters of the Blue Hole, or take a trip out of town and back to the Wild West, along the Pecos River to the tiny Spanish colonial farming village of Puerto De Luna (pop: 141), where Billy the Kid once hid out from his pursuers. City pursuits Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city, offers a great dose of Route 66 culture too. Taking in 18 miles of the Mother Road, it is home to the largest continuous section of the road of any city in the country. You'll be able to get your kicks at historic spots such as the KiMo Theatre, a striking Pueblo Deco-style cinema that's only one year younger than the Mother Road itself. Albuquerque's share of the route is drenched in classic neon, so have your camera ready for some of the best-preserved signs in the now trendy Nob Hill district. After that, fuel up at the 66 Diner, whose winking neon, jukebox and soda fountain will catapult you back to the 1950s. Top museums Lovers of classic cars can get their fix at the Route 66 Auto Museum in Santa Rosa. New Mexico's dry climes are such that vintage automobiles stay in prime condition, and this museum has an impressive collection of retro wheels. Take a tour to pore over everything from Corvettes to Mustangs to Chevys from the 1920s to the mid-century then pick up some souvenirs while you're at it. To help celebrate the road's centennial, the Route 66 Visitor Center is due to open in Albuquerque this spring, which will provide plenty of historical context on the route and also host events ringing in the 100-year anniversary. Where to stay There's no shortage of places to stay along Route 66, many of which are steeped in Mother Road history. A rightful favourite is the El Rancho Hotel in charming Gallup, in the state's far west. Dating to the 1930s, this property was once a stomping ground for the rich and famous, hosting everyone from Katharine Hepburn to Gregory Peck. Now it's an enduring, neon-clad landmark, still proudly emblazoned with its 'Charm of Yesterday; Convenience of Tomorrow' slogan. Tucumcari's Historic Route 66 Motel also deserves to be on your hit list. This budget-friendly bolthole epitomises mid-century design with its sleek International Style architecture. The nearby Blue Swallow Motel is another old-school gem, one that harks right back to 1939. This family-run spot is a feast for the eyes with its striking neon sign and gloriously kitsch vintage-inspired rooms. If you want to be in the big city, check out Hotel Zazz. This 1960s stay in Albuquerque has been given an expressive makeover with local art, a colourful pool deck and a speakeasy bar.
The Guardian
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid just needed Trump
I first saw the Danish Dogme 95 film Festen in 1998 when I was 30. You had to go to the cinema to see films in those days, when small boys ran barefoot on a conveyor belt to turn the reels, and it's possible I watched its depiction of a family torn apart by violence, resentment, alcoholism and sexual abuse in horror while crunching popcorn, eating hotdogs and drinking a big bucket of Fanta ™ ®. No wonder I was sick on the old Danish woman next to me. Luckily, in Denmark, being vomited on by a stranger is considered good luck, and we began a torrid affair. But I watched Festen again in my 50s and found it hilarious, laughing out loud at its grim affirmation of bleak inevitability. But the film hadn't changed. So what had the world done to me in the intervening years to make my sense of humour so black? Or had all that bacon and pastry I ate in the 00s somehow made me more sensitive to the Danish sensibility? Similarly, once I drank only Yorkshire Tea for a week and briefly became both resentful and ingenious. On Monday night, I made my once-a-decade attempt to enjoy Sam Peckinpah's flawed 1973 revisionist western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, in which all the women are semi-naked prostitutes or ex-prostitutes in clothes, and yet it's the morals of all the respectable and fully clothed men that are really up for sale. Get it? Screenwriter Rudolph Wurlitzer is asking, who are the real prostitutes? Meanwhile, Bob Dylan wanders about as a character called Alias, who doesn't seem to know where he is, who he is, or what he ought to do. The teenage me found this frustrating, but to this 57-year-old man Alias's blank-faced acceptance of fate seems like a rational response to 2025. Is it possible to get post-traumatic stress disorder by looking at a succession of internet memes of penguins complaining about tariffs? Indeed, this time around Peckinpah's mangled masterpiece made the most sense to date. Billy the Kid represents American freedoms under attack from big business, namely the cattle barons to whom people's rights and lands are dispensable. And the lawman Pat Garrett has to decide whether to do the right thing, or bend the knee to tyranny to survive, like Keir Starmer, and to get rich, like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Snoop Doggy Dogg. (Now there are no ideals or ethics in American politics, if there ever were, and everything is nakedly transactional, where once geopolitical powerplays were disguised as altruism. Here. Have these Jackson Pollock paintings. They will invalidate socialist realism. Here. Have these blankets. They contain smallpox spores and it's cold on the reservation. Sleep well.) And if, like Billy the Kid, you stand up to avaricious authoritarians, you end up dead on the porch in just some brown trousers while Rita Coolidge weeps, or detained at customs like a French intellectual. Peckinpah's once reviled film is now almost too on the nose for 2025! But The Handmaid's Tale seemed like science fiction back in the 80s, when you had to read it if you wanted to get a date with an attractive feminist. But given that Donald Trump's domestic and foreign policies seem based on the same narcissistic notions of manifest destiny that forged the old west, maybe it isn't surprising that Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid suddenly speaks volumes. There's a new sheriff in town and he's working for the modern-day cattle barons, who are farming engagement on vast digital plains with great globs of porn and racism, and pushing out the people who went west to post pictures of cats and sad things about Palestine. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid at least has the edge musically on the Trump administration because it gave us Dylan's three-chord classic Knockin' On Heaven's Door, as opposed to a degraded version of YMCA, sung by an inauthentic manifestation of the Village People, still dressed as gay-friendly archetypes of the American collective subconscious, but stomping on a human ear – for ever! The central conceit of my current tour show, Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf, is that the bullies are taking over politics and comedy and we're somehow seduced by their cruelty. World events currently approach the show head-on at such velocity that the jokes in it buffet around like ball-bearings in a pinball machine and bash into different news stories daily, while I flap the flippers like a blind idiot Brexiter. Some throwaway yuks in last week's column, and last week's live show, about Russell Brand, another of the comic flatulists currently flourishing in the court of King Donald, underwent hasty last-minute rewrites as allegations coalesced into criminal charges, inconveniencing me enormously. Playwrights write their plays only once and then walk away from the scenes of their crimes, even as their storylines are overtaken by world events. I, however, am required to retool my work nightly, while losers like William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett or Alan Ayckbourn benefit from the notion that their hastily tossed-off and then simply abandoned works are somehow 'timeless', when in fact they are just the products of lazy and careless minds. When I wrote the current standup show last autumn it seemed pessimistic. Now it seems prescient. By the time it closes next year I am worried it will seem nostalgic. Will the newly enslaved Indigenous people of Greenland look back fondly on the 2025 tariffs and the Signal scandal as they mine mobile phone parts from rapidly thawing permafrost, while YMCA booms endlessly out of a subterranean speaker system? We're doomed. Feels like I'm knocking on heaven's door. Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf until spring 2026 with a Royal Festival Hall run in July. Sign up here to be kept up with future developments for ever
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Plainclothes' Review: A Closeted Cop Is Tempted by the Gay Men He's Tailing in Steamy '90s-Set Psychodrama
These days, gay men can arrange sex by a smartphone app as easily as ordering a pizza. But back in the '90s, when 'Plainclothes' takes place, such trysts not only had to be coordinated in person, but could be punished by arrest. Audiences of a certain age and demographic almost certainly remember the risk and fear (not to mention the illicit excitement) back then, when undercover police monitored public 'tearooms' for lewd behavior. In writer-director Carmen Emmi's 'we've come a long way, baby' debut, the cops take it one step further, luring homosexuals into exposing themselves. But what if the officer in question was closeted and one of these strangers slipped him his phone number? That's the intriguing — if credulity-stretching — premise of 'Plainclothes,' which casts Tom Blyth (the outlaw star of Epix's 'Billy the Kid') as Lucas, a second-generation cop with all kinds of identity issues. He seems relatively comfortable with the assignment early on, hanging out at the shopping mall, where his job is to catch the eye of an interested stranger, follow him to the bathroom and then bust the 'pervert' once he does something illegal (which, in this case, is simply flashing his wares). More from Variety 'Rebuilding' Review: Josh O'Connor Is a Rancher Who's Lost Everything in a Drama That Mostly Just Sits There 'Atropia' Review: Alia Shawkat Trains Troops Assigned to a Fake Iraqi Town in a Self-Reflexive War Comedy That Peters Out 'The Legend of Ochi' Review: Practical Magic Breathes Life Into A24's Grounded Fantasy Preaching Man's Coexistence With Nature The police officers can't speak during the process, lest the entire operation be considered entrapment. That suits Lucas fine … until he meets Andrew ('Looking' heartthrob Russell Tovey), who beckons Lucas to the last stall. Suddenly, Lucas is overwhelmed with feelings, which Emmi suggests by splicing VHS footage into the scene — a sophisticated if somewhat distracting technique for putting audiences in Lucas' fragmented headspace. Instead of arresting Andrew, Lucas lets him go, taking the stranger's number and calling him to arrange a more conventional date. It's around this time that Lucas starts to develop a conscience about arresting men for desires he shares — though he's desperate to hide that dimension of himself from his mother (Maria Dizzia). Emmi was but a boy in 1997, the year when 'Plainclothes' is set, which makes the degree to which he successfully re-creates the atmosphere — as well as the uncertainty and paranoia — of that time rather remarkable. Gay cruising depends largely on unspoken cues: a lingering glance, an interested look back, the conspicuous adjustment of one's 'basket.' Here, such behavior is not as sexy as Drew Lint's 'M/M' or as amusing as Tsai Ming-liang's art-house 'Goodbye Dragon Inn,' and yet, it's encouraging to see these codes re-created by a young filmmaker, who uses mirrors placed directly above a bank of urinals to let the characters' eyes do the talking. For Lucas, whose understanding ex-girlfriend (Amy Forsyth) is the only person he's told of his bi-curious inclinations, the conflicted young man finally seems ready to explore his attraction to men — and he wants Andrew to be his first. 'Plainclothes' presents this experimental impulse in a semi-romantic light, even though neither man can 'host.' Lucas, who gives Andrew a fake name, worries what the neighbors will think, while his crush claims to be a husband and father with a high-profile job as some kind of 'administrator.' That means finding somewhere public to rendez-vous and eventually hook up — which of course exposes Lucas to the same laws he's tasked with enforcing. Lucas' commanding officer (John Bedford Lloyd) explains that someone who'd had oral sex in such a spot went on to molest some little girls. Now concerned citizens are demanding a crackdown, which seems like a stretch. Police have needed less reason than that to target homosexual activity, and as a training film shows, they've gone so far as to hide cameras behind one-way mirrors in order to discourage such behavior. After striking out at a repertory movie palace, Andrew suggests a local park, which introduces another dimension of '90s-era cruising Emmi must have read up on (for context, George Michael was arrested by an undercover vice cop in a Los Angeles toilet, and later outed by a British tabloid after paparazzi caught him cruising London's Hampstead Heath). The 'Plainclothes' pair have better luck, getting it on in a public greenhouse before Andrew's beeper goes off. To the uninitiated, when it comes to trysts between closeted men, there are all kinds of rules, both unwritten and explicit. Andrew warns Lucas that he rarely sees anyone more than once, but Lucas ignores his boundaries. The hot-blooded cop is hooked, running Andrew's license plate through the police database and proceeding to stalk him at work — a bad idea on his part, but a satisfying one, dramatically speaking, since doing so inadvertently exposes the man Lucas had started to believe was his soulmate. You can't entirely blame Lucas for wanting a relationship, though toilets aren't typically the place to find one. Surely even small-town Mansfield, Mass., has a gay bar — or else, a short drive to Boston might do the trick — but Lucas' only exposure to gay culture is the bathroom he's been surveilling. (It may be hard for younger audiences to imagine, but before Ellen DeGeneres came out in 1997, the media was relatively skittish about anything queer, depriving Lucas and his peers of role models or basic information.) As impressive as Emmi's ultra-subjective multimedia approach can be at times, the mix of formats and different timelines occasionally feels like a strategy to mislead. The film has a few major plot holes, mostly concerning the present-tense family meal where Lucas seems to be having a nervous breakdown. He can hardly contain his secret any longer, but when his uncle's new girlfriend (Alessandra Ford Balazs) threatens to expose him, Lucas flips out, and Erik Vogt-Nilsen's editing gets downright tortured. 'Plainclothes' builds to an intense and ultimately cathartic climax, but there's something retrograde about the shame Lucas feels. Emmi wants us to experience his protagonist's sense of suffocation, when looking back from the presence, we just want to shout: 'It gets better!' Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
