Tuesday, September 29, 2009


If it weren't for the fact that it's on so regularly, there'd be something temporally sadistic in the most current revival of John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (Oct. 1, 25, Nov. 3 on Turner Classic Movies). This is the one that's almost bent over by the weight of prestige: the 1940 dustbowl epic whose elements of sentimental fraud are all but overridden by aspects so true that they're virtually documentary. Even the synthetic nature of the sets, as when John Carradine, the preacher, comes stumbling into the windblown foreground, are somehow truer than reality, in the way that an opera set selects a certain aspect of what is real.
Try to overlook the "pore white folk" talk, the probable exaggerations of labor camp venality, the grossness of Ma Joad's bravely hearty uplift (though the scene where Jane Darwell dangles her youthful earrings in the mirror and registers a sudden shock at her ugliness is too eloquent to question).
And the scenes of Granpa (Charlie Grapewin) and Granma (Zeffie Tilbury) — both of them by now as nutty as fruitcakes — are practically unwatchable for their pathos. "Shore wud lahk to git me a mesha shpareribsh," says Granpa, who has to be force-fed alcoholic cough syrup before he can be made to ascend the beaten-up old jalopy.
Even at this time of their lives, there is far from any rest for them.
— Lloyd Dykk

Monday, September 28, 2009


UNTITLED — MAY 2005
ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
BY BRITTA BACCHUS
(Britta's blog can be seen here)

Saturday, September 26, 2009


PATH (WALL STREET) — SEPTEMBER 2009
BY LEE BACCHUS

Thursday, September 24, 2009


EMERY BARNES PARK (YALETOWN) — 2008
BY BERNIE LYON
(click to enlarge)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009


BED — 2001
BY LEE BACCHUS

Sunday, September 20, 2009


LANE — SEPTEMBER 2009
BY BERNIE LYON

Friday, September 18, 2009


SPY STORE (BURRARD & BROADWAY) — SEPTEMBER 2009
BY LEE BACCHUS

Wednesday, September 16, 2009


SHANE MACGOWAN
BY BRITTA BACCHUS
Britta's blog can be seen here

Sunday, September 13, 2009


CUSTOM COZY — SEPTEMBER 2009
BY BERNIE LYON

Wednesday, September 9, 2009


STRATHCONA SCHOOL — 2006
BY LEE BACCHUS & BRIAN GRAHAM

Sunday, September 6, 2009


THE LOVED ONE — SEPTEMBER 2009
BY BERNIE LYON

Thursday, September 3, 2009


VANCOUVER ART GALLERY — SEPTEMBER 2009
BY LEE BACCHUS

Tuesday, September 1, 2009


CAR SERIES NO. 9 — AUGUST 2009
BY BERNIE LYON