Guelph Politicast

End Credits #245 - April 27, 2022 (The Bubble)

This week on End Credits, we would really like to know what exactly a cliff beast is? If you're already laughing, then you know that we're reviewing the new Netflix comedy The Bubble on this week's show. And since The Bubble is (in-part) a movie about Hollywood franchises, we will also look ahead to all the franchise movies coming out this summer.
This Wednesday, April 27, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Box Office Mucho. For the first time in two years, we're going to get a real summer box office season. The theatres are open and ready to receive all the hits from superhero tales about wizards and gods, to fighter jocks and spacemen, dinosaurs, and little yellow pill-shaped creatures with googly eyes. This week, we will look at the players, and predict which ones will be the winners of the Summer of 2022!
REVIEW: The Bubble (2022). The sixth chapter of a big Hollywood franchise is put in danger as its egocentric cast of Hollywood all-stars must face their greatest challenge: Surviving COVID-19 quarantine. Legendary comedy director Judd Apatow assembles and all-star cast, (and a first-rate list of cameos) to send up the pandemic, Hollywood franchise filmmaking, social media celebrity, and the slings and arrows of fame and fortune, but is The Bubble too absorbed in its own world to be inviting to the casual viewer?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #321 – The Eviction Notice is Just the Beginning of Your Troubles

If there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that people shouldn’t be forced out of their home after a minor dispute with their landlord. Yes, that happens, and it happens often, but it’s been happening a lot more since the Landlord and Tenant Board went virtual, and that made access to the internet another barrier to housing. This seems like something worth talking about.
Just last week, there was an item from Global News noting that the five-month freeze in evictions from March to July 2020 is still having an impact on the caseload of the LTB. While there was a significant drop in the number of new cases last year, half of the 48,000 applications sent to the board were eviction requests based on non-payment of rent, and that doesn’t necessarily mean several months of back-rent either. Often, someone misses one payment and they find themselves faced with eviction.
The other part of this is logistical. In the pandemic, meetings of the LTB have been held virtually and that’s come with a variety of problems, some of which were laid out in an Ottawa Citizen article last summer. Yes, there are people who don’t have physical access to technology, but as we’re all aware, connections on virtual presence apps are not infallible. and it’s making the job of advocates like Britney Rodgers even more difficult.
This week on the podcast, we're joined by Rodgers, who is a paralegal at the Legal Clinic of Guelph & Wellington County, will tell us about what life was like at the Landlord and Tenant Board in the days before COVID-19, and how the pandemic has changed the course of normal business. She will also talk about the technological barriers doing virtual board hearings, the barriers to proper legal representation, and whether most tenants are even aware of their rights as renters.
Let's talk about the challenges at the Landlord and Tenant Board on this week's Guelph Politicast!
To get in touch with the Legal Clinic of Guelph & Wellington County you can visit their website, or you can send them an email at gwlegalclinic [at] lao.on.ca. There’s a list of resources for tenants on the Legal Clinic’s housing webpage, so if you think you might be having an issue with your landlord that you might need legal services to resolve, don’t hesitate to reach out.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, TuneIn and Spotify .
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

Open Sources Guelph #374 - April 21, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we've got rights! In the second half of the show we will celebrate 40 years of having rights thanks to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we'll talk about that guy picture above who thinks he's the Free Speech man with a plan. For the first half though, we've still got a war in Ukraine to talk about, and there are still questions about a massacre closer to home.
This Thursday, April 21, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Eastern Promises. After the Ukrainians apparently sunk the Russian flag ship in the Black Sea last week, the Russians started turning up the pressure on the Donbas, the eastern most area of the country that's been in dispute for nine years now. Meanwhile, Austria's PM reports that Vladimir Putin is convinced he's winning, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to say that survival is his only goal. We'll discuss the latest.
Commission: Impossible. Almost exactly two years after the mass casualty event in the area of Portapique, Nova Scotia, the commission investigating the incident is facing repeated critiques about its administration, the reliance on reports and the limited witness participation in the hearings. On top that, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the RCMP response that night, so might we still get those answers?
From Musk Till Dawn. Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk is making a play to buy Twitter. Why? Musk says he's a "free speech absolutist" looking to create an open platform free of the scourge of "cancel culture." Twitter, of course, is anxious to avoid letting the firebrand Musk from taking over the platform, especially since free speech warrior Musk has a long history of silencing people he doesn't like. We'll tweet about it.
This is 40. This week, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms hits midlife. The document is now 40 years old, so what better time to look back and re-examine the intent and the effectiveness of the Charter, especially when you have people like the organizers of the Freedom Convoy saying that the Charter gives them the right to shut down the capital. So on this occasion, do we really know and appreciate the Charter like we should?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #244 - April 20, 2022 (Flee)

This week on End Credits, we're running. Our movie of the week almost literally has "run" in the title as it tells the story of man who spent almost the entirety of his youth trying to escape. For the review this week, we're watching the three-time Academy Award-nominated movie Flee, and before that we're going to run through some other movies about escape.
This Wednesday, April 20, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Escape Fan. This week's movie is about one man's struggle to escape, which made us think about other movies where someone or some people are trying to escape, whether that's a physical escape or a mental one. So to kick off the show, we're going to talk about some of the best escape movies, including flights from prison, captivity in a small enclosed space, and getting off the post-apocalyptic penal colony that's the island of Los Angeles.
REVIEW: Flee (2021). Never before has there been one movie nominated as the Best Documentary Feature, Best Animated Feature, and Best International Film, but Flee did it. The hat trick was received for a film that tells the story of a man named Amin Nawabi, who, as a kid, escapes the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and then has to escape Russia in the last, corruption-filled days of Communism. Can you tell the deeply personal true story of escape and solitude using animation? It turns out you can, but is Flee as good as its three big Oscar noms?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #320 - The Queen of Craft

Historically, women played a pretty big role in the brewing of beer. Starting in ancient times, brewing was fairly female-dominated, but that changed in western culture around the same time the brewing process became industrialized 150 years ago. In 2022, women are trying to reclaim their place atop the brewing world thanks to the proliferation of craft breweries, and one local woman is helping to lead the way.
If you’ve ever seen a beer commercial, they make it pretty obvious that women are not the intended audience for the product. It’s silly because obviously women like beer, and it doesn’t make much sense to cut off half the prospective audience for your product. Of course, making room for women in brewing is one thing, making them feel comfortable in a predominately male atmosphere is another.
Nine years ago, Karyn Boscariol launched the first ever Queen of Craft, and its purpose was twofold: To acquaint beer-curious women with the art and craft of making and tasting beer, and to raise money for charity, specifically Guelph Wellington Women in Crisis who've received over $50,000 from the event. So, on the brink of the returning to a face-to-face Queen of Craft, we’re going to ask the Queen herself to tell us all about the secret to her success.
On this week's podcast, Boscariol will tell us about the origins of Queen of Craft, and how she got interested in beer. She will also talk about how the Queen of Craft events change every year (at least with one exception), and how it’s changed forever now that Queen of Craft is going back to in-person events. And finally, she discuss the importance of the fundraising Queen of Craft does, and whether or not there’s such a thing as too much craft beer.
So let's talk about creating more Queens of the Craft on this week's Guelph Politicast!
The first Queen of Craft event for 2022 is this coming Saturday at 10C Shared Space, and it will continue for the next four Saturdays. You can see the schedule and find links to tickets at the Wellington Brewery website. You can also follow Queen of Craft on Facebook.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, TuneIn and Spotify .
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.
Image courtesy of Queen of Craft.

Open Sources Guelph #373 - April 14, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, the Easter Bunny's bringing a basket full of issues. Before taking a nice, leisurely long weekend off, we're diving again into the Ukrainian War (now in it's eighth great week), and the latest in terms of Ontario's sixth wave (non) response. In the back half of the show, we're talking to our local Federal representative about that big to-do pictured above, last week's Federal budget.
This Thursday, April 14, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Back to Donbas. This week in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has installed the man called "the Butcher of Syria" to lead his war effort, which now seems concentrated on seizing the Donbas and securing a land bridge from Crimea. Meanwhile, the call for war crimes charges is growing louder with more and more reporting about Russian soldiers using sexual violence against civilians. We'll cover the latest developments.
The Moore You Know. Since everyone's now calling it a sixth wave, Dr. Kieran Moore finally emerged from his office a personal trip to address a province full of people concerned about the rising number of COVID-19 cases. Mask mandates? Nope, not going to do that. The provincial policy of white knuckling through the sixth wave is firmly in place, so what is left for the people still worried about the pandemic to do?
Mo' Money Talk. Last week around this time, the Federal government delivered the budget for the next fiscal year, and there was a lot of new spending. From defense, to home-buying, to expanded dental care, to the fight against climate change, there was a lot of money on the table, and to help us sort that out is Guelph MP Lloyd Longfield. Longfield will talk about that and other recent developments on Parliament Hill.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #243 - April 13, 2022 (Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood)

This week on End Credits, we look to the sky! Ever notice how the Moon's just hanging up their daring us to visit? Well, there was a time humans went to the moon, and this week's featured movie is a loving remembrance of that particular era. We're reviewing the latest Netflix hit, Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood and we're talking about other trips to the Moon.
This Wednesday, April 13, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
To the Moon! Taking a jaunty trip to the Moon is literally the plot of one of the oldest surviving movies, which also makes it one of the most influential in the history of cinema. Before getting into this week's movie, which has its own trip to the Moon, we will talk about some of our favourite previous trips out in space, from spy adventures, to documentaries, to found footage movies about lost Moon missions, it's a moon-a-palooza!
REVIEW: Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022). In July 1969, men from the Earth first set foot upon the Moon, but before that NASA sent a kid because they built the cabin of the lunar lander too small. This is the idea behind Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood, the new film from Richard Linklater that's part nostalgia trip, part sci-fi fantasy, and part coming-of-age story. Watch as a young man named Stan watches the Moon landing on TV, and experiences it for himself, but what about the experience of watching this film?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #319 - A Movie’s Case for Kindness

In good company after last week's episode with Marlene director Wendy Hill-Tout, and just in time for both Canadian Film Day on April 20 and this year's edition of the Hot Docs documentary film festival starting on April 28, this week, we're talking to a documentary filmmaker. You know about the COVID-19 pandemic, but another pandemic has been affected people a lot longer. This is one of those stories.
This week's episode of the podcast features actor and filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers. Her recent documentary, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy, is a homecoming of sorts as she visits the Kainai First Nation in Alberta, her people, who have been hit hard by the overdose crisis. It's also a personal story because one of the first responders in Kainai is Tailfeathers' own mother.
Kímmapiiyipitssini, which is a Blackfoot word meaning "giving kindness to others", is a story about our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation and the generational trauma of our First Nations people. It's also a story familiar to every community in Canada regardless of location or ethnicity. It's an exhaustive case study of the systemic, cultural and governmental barriers thrown up to fight drug addition and how community leaders have had to be savvy and think outside the box in order to make an impact.
This interview with Tailfeathers, which is a longer version of one that was played last fall on End Credits, covers the making of Kímmapiiyipitssini, how the director had to separate personal and professional commitments, and working with her mom as her film's main character. She also discusses the difficulties in rephrasing addiction as a health crisis, whether her film represents an inflection point with the crisis, and the recent mass cultural embrace of Indigenous stories, both real and imagined.
So let's talk about the meaning of empathy on this week's Guelph Politicast!
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is now streaming on the subscription version of the National Film Board's site, but if you're a student or teacher in either of the two local school boards in the region you already have free access. You can also see Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers work as an actor in Blood Quantum and Night Raiders, and you can stream both those movies on Crave.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, TuneIn and Spotify .
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

Open Sources Guelph #372 - April 7, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're covering a lot of ground. In part one somehow things have gotten even worse in Ukraine, and speaking of things getting worse, we've got to talk about COVID again. In the second half of the show, we go back to Europe to check-up with the far-right's favourite western democracy, and then we come back to Canda to keep the chat about far-right stuff going.
This Thursday, April 7, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Bucha Shadows. In terms of new developments around the war in Ukraine this week all eyes were on Bucha, a community outside the capital city Kiev. In Bucha, the retreating Russians left a house of horrors: People shot and left in the streets, bodies burned or buried behind apartment buildings, and it gets worse from there. Will this change the international reaction, and how can Vladimir Putin be held accountable?
The Sixth Wave Sense. In the last week, the number of health professional and doctors who have been throwing around the term "sixth wave" has increased. Almost three weeks after the lifting of mask mandates in Ontario, the number of total cases and the number of hospitalizations have gone up, but there seems to be no worry from the government. Why does "living with COVID" mean basically ignoring it?
Viktor Viktorious. Hungarian President Viktor Orbán won his fourth term this week, but you have to use the term "won" loosely because winning an election is easy when you run the media and change election laws in your favour. That's just the kind of level-headed autocracy that makes Orbán such a hit with far-right leaders around the world, so what does Orbán's electioneering teach us about creeping authoritarianism?
So Dark, the Convoy of Man. In terms of far-right sentiment closer to home, we haven't really talked about the Freedom Convoy since Ottawa Police broke up the weeks-long protest in downtown Ottawa back in February. Pat King is still in detention, and most everyone ended up going home, but none of that is to say the dangers of activism spurned by misinformation and white nationalism is over. What's next?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #242 - April 6, 2022 (Fresh)

This week on End Credits, we've got an appetite. Under the themes of food and desire, we will review a movie that checks both of those boxes in the new film Fresh, which is is now streaming on Disney+. Before that, we will pay tribute a Hollywood actor whose decided to take his final bow and retire even though is production output has never been higher.
This Wednesday, April 6, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Bruce Alrighty. Last week's announcement that Bruce Willis is retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia hit movie fans hard, and despite his recent slate of small roles in low-budget action pics, the news conjured a lot of fond remembrances of Willis' Hollywood career. We will share some of those memories this week. From ghost stories, to heist films, to several jaunts into the future, we will look back at Bruce Willis, the actor.
REVIEW: Fresh (2022). Dating in the 21st century is difficult enough; it's hard to know who to trust, but do every worry that the guy you met at the grocery store is grooming you... to be his next meal? Fresh is a horror film, but it's also a romantic-comedy. Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan, Fresh plays with assumptions and doesn't fit comfortably in any one genre. It does however fit comfortably somewhere between Get Out and Promising Young Woman, but it's got a kick that's all it's own. So how delicious is Fresh anyway?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.