Alison Gillmor
Winnipeg Free Press
Canada
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Past articles by Alison:
Manitoboggan and Crokicurl are exactly what Winter Cities Shake-up Conference hopes to encourage
This week, from Feb. 15-17, Winnipeg is hosting the 2023 Winter Cities Shake-up Conference, which features designers, planners, entrepreneurs, tourism operators, cultural workers, community organizers and happiness experts talking about how cities and their citizens can make the most of winter. → Read More
Sweet relief from a buttoned-down life
QUIET and delicate, this period drama from director Oliver Hermanus and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro is a close remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952), transposed from postwar Japan to 1950s England. While Living might not rise to the level of Kurosawa’s masterwork, it is, taken on its own, a simply lovely film — profound, poignant and graced with a note-perfect performance by Bill Nighy (which… → Read More
Sarah Polley’s adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel a harrowing, humane look at systems that perpetuate violence
When women in an isolated traditional Mennonite colony find themselves waking up groggy and in pain, sometimes covered in bruises and blood, they are told by the community’s male elders that this could be the work of Satan or a punishment from God. Or perhaps these are just figments of “female imagination.” → Read More
Phoenix of the Prairies
The St. Boniface Cathedral, designed by Étienne Gaboury from 1969 to 1972, is partly sheltered within the remains of the 1906 cathedral, much of which was lost to a catastrophic fire in 1968. Within the narthex of Gaboury’s church is a wooden maquette depicting that earlier structure. → Read More
Luxe locale, searing sexual satire
As income inequality rises to grotesque heights, we in the non-one-per-cent console ourselves with eat-the-rich movies like the recent Triangle of Sadness and The Menu. And now, back with its comforting conclusion that the ultra-wealthy are materially pampered but emotionally wretched, we have the second season of The White Lotus (currently on Crave, with new episodes dropping Sundays). → Read More
Kildonan Park’s lush landscape and ample recreation options provide respite whatever the season
Kildonan Park often gets relegated to second place. Even a 1972 report by the City of Winnipeg Parks and Recreation Department concedes that “Kildonan Park, Winnipeg’s second suburban park, has remained very much the ‘second-best,’” suggesting the historic venue at 2015 Main St. has “played a subservient role to Assiniboine Park. → Read More
Latest entry in Thor franchise doesn’t know when to pull its punchlines
As DC and Marvel battle for the love — and the money — of moviegoers, DC seems to have doubled down on heaviness, with the most recent Batman flick going very broody, dour and dark. Meanwhile the MCU gets lighter, with the latest Thor movie skewing hard toward comedy, with screaming goats and winking cameos and a semi-ironic Guns N’ Roses soundtrack. → Read More
Ageless wonder, aging wonderment
Here are two scenes from recent movies, both circling around the question of age. First there’s Tom Cruise, shirtless and seemingly ageless at 59, playing dogfight football in Top Gun: Maverick (now in theatres). → Read More
Downton sequel adds sunny setting to familiar, fan-pleasing, frock-filled formula
Comfortingly predictable, this second Downton Abbey movie does what it ought to do, with writer Julian Fellowes providing some cosy fan service and director Simon Curtis keeping everything light and luscious looking. Like the last movie, Downton Abbey: A New Era feels more like a glorified Christmas special than a fully developed feature film. → Read More
Environmentally-friendly building a functional, comfortable, healthy space for its employees
This Earth Month, a lot of us are thinking about the buildings where we live and work and how they can be made more sustainable and energy efficient. As our province’s electrical power and natural gas provider, Manitoba Hydro thinks about these things a lot, so when it came time to construct its new downtown headquarters on Portage Ave., the provincial Crown corporation looked to innovative… → Read More
Rock’s hack crack no excuse for Smith’s shocking slap
There was a concerted push to make the Oscar broadcast less boring this year. Still, Will Smith slapping Chris Rock live on network TV was probably not the way the Academy meant to go. “The Slap,” which occurred after Rock made a joke directed at Smith’s wife, immediately launched a social media storm and about a thousand hot takes. → Read More
Volodymyr Zelenskyy a true servant of the people
In these last terrible days in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has captured the attention of the world. Most of us now know that before Zelenskyy became the president of Ukraine, he played the president of Ukraine on a TV comedy, which sounds like a postmodern joke but has now become a deathly serious punchline. → Read More
The journey is the destination in movie’s long, slow drive
Moving, melancholy, mysterious, this Japanese art-house film has been quietly building momentum on the festival circuit and just this week became an Oscar front-runner, with nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best International Feature.That makes for perfect timing for Drive My Car to open on the big screen at Cinematheque. → Read More
Wild about Wildwood Park
In popular culture, planned suburban subdivisions are often used as a kind of visual shorthand for conformity and rigidity, for the slow death of the soul. Suburbia, at least according to the movies and TV, is bland, beige and uniform. → Read More
Aaron, you have some ‘splainin’ to do!
In this behind-the-scenes biopic, writer-director Aaron Sorkin follows a fraught week on the set of the iconic 1950s TV show I Love Lucy.Like many of Sorkin’s projects, Being the Ricardos is a clever — and frequently interesting — exercise. → Read More
Eaton’s department store was a one-stop shop, a social hub and an architectural gem
This month’s Landmarks looks at a ghost of Christmas past. The Eaton’s department store on Portage Avenue no longer exists as a bricks-and-mortar building, but it lives on in many Winnipeggers’ hearts and minds, especially at this time of year. → Read More
Circular condo building looks spacey, but shape is grounded in practicality
I’m always interested in buildings that get nicknames. Usually these monikers indicate affection, occasionally the opposite, but they always mean people are paying attention. → Read More
Jason Reitman’s addition to the Ghostbusters franchise has its moments, but never feels necessary
In the original Ghostbusters, Bill Murray talks up the bright future of the ghostbusting business: “The franchise rights alone will make us rich beyond our wildest dreams.” That’s also the modern Hollywood creed, but back in 1984, the Ivan Reitman-directed flick came off as refreshingly anti-franchise. → Read More
Précieux-Sang church fuses together modernist design and religious renewal
On my way to visit l’ Eglise du Précieux-Sang in St. Boniface, I got lost. There was road construction, and I somehow missed my turn. → Read More
Luxuries, amenities put to many uses during life of Academy Road building
The Uptown Lofts, once the Academy Uptown Lanes and before that the Uptown Theatre, remind us that buildings can have long, varied and sometimes unexpected lives. The recent mixed-use renovation, which combines commercial spaces and residential apartments, is sleek, clean and contemporary, but it rests on layers of local memory and architectural fantasy. → Read More