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Brownstein: Satirist Roy Wood Jr. will win hearts at Just for Laughs

Brownstein: Satirist Roy Wood Jr. will win hearts at Just for Laughs

Festivals
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Roy Wood Jr. should touch all the bases when he hits Just for Laughs — both literally and figuratively.
One of the sharpest satirists on the continent, the former Daily show correspondent and host of CNN's Have I Got News for You news-panel series is equally adept at discoursing on American political buffoonery as he is on baseball. Audiences may even catch him sporting his beloved Expos jacket when he takes to the stage hosting a Gala, July 25 at Théâtre Maisonneuve, or when he does his solo 'experimental talk-show,' Today, Tonight … Tomorrow, July 26 at Théâtre Ste-Catherine.
Though a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, Wood can feel our city's collective pain on the loss of the 'Spos. He makes his living taking shots at the powers-that-be, but baseball remains his holy ground, and little is more sacred to him than the power of a home run as exemplified in his new TV special, Going, Going, Gone: The Magic of the Home Run, now streaming on Roku.
Wood was in suburban Atlanta on Tuesday, both taking in the baseball All-Star Game in suburban Atlanta and commenting on the pure poetry of hitting dingers for the MLB Network. As always, Wood, who played some high-school and college ball, took his glove to the game — just in case.
'I love that old-school Expos logo and I'm also a big Andre Dawson fan,' says Wood in a Zoom interview, referring to the star outfielder known here as the Hawk, who spent most of his career with the Expos and Cubs.
Wood, like many an up-and-coming comic, got his start in the JFL New Faces series in 2006 and came back a decade later to perform in another show. But this is the first time he'll do the fest as a solo artist.
'I felt that an Expos jacket as a non-Canadian would be the safest thing to wear,' he cracks, noting he purchased the jacket in — yikes — Toronto on a JFL tour — that didn't come to Montreal — two years ago.
As a non-Canadian, he is also up to speed on the angst his president is imposing on Canadians with his ever-volatile trade tariffs.
'It's definitely a time now when as an American you're paying the price for someone else's policy,' he says, before jumping in with this chestnut: 'I just almost want that our voting results be made public so I could just go through Customs in the I-Didn't-Vote-for-Him Lane.'
'Regardless of what's happening on the federal level, Americans still have to pay close attention to state and local politics — when you look at the flash flooding that's happening in Texas that's taken over 100 lives. And when it's time to figure out who to blame, it's state and local … But I'm thankful to get up to Canada and argue with you guys about your politics,' he quips.
Anything to get his mind off the current state of affairs back home.
'It's almost surreal what's happening now. You've got one group of Americans who are basically still celebrating the (Trump) win, but still can't really tell you what they won. There's another group of Americans still fighting it. And then there is a third group who are in their own Dystopian let-me-know-when-this-is-over type situation. It's like a roller-coaster … you've got people up front with their heads down and their eyes closed, and you've got people in the back hanging on for dear life.
'People who love Trump still love him, but we will still need more time on blowback of some of his policies. It will be interesting to see what happens with his cuts on Medicaid in the next couple of years, with his spending-bill cuts. I'm not calling it 'a Big Beautiful Bill.' That's part of the problem: Americans want to give everything a title to make everything more glorious than what it is. … Stop it.
'It used to be kick-ass to be an American … now you just have to tuck your head down and go whoops and say 'sorry about that.''
The good news is American political parodists have an abundance of fodder, and Wood's career has been going gangbusters of late.
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that with his carving skills, Wood headlined the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2023 — under Biden as president — to its highest ratings since 2017. He also served as a Daily Show correspondent for eight years and later guest-hosted it for a period.
Apart from his baseball special, he appears in the coming film comedy Outcome, alongside Keanu Reeves and Jonah Hill. And his book memoir, The Man of Many Fathers, will be released in October.
'That book is about all the dads who helped raise me after my father passed when I was 16,' elaborates Wood, the father of a 9-year-old son. 'We all encounter various people from whom we get our values. I don't feel our parents are exclusive instructors of a child's moral core. This is a collection of stories of random people, some of whom I can't even remember their names, and others like high-school coaches and Trevor Noah, all of whom helped me in one capacity or another. I'm just thankful to all these people who saw enough in me to take me under their wing.
'And I just want my son to learn and appreciate failure, because that is the key to success.'
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Hulk Hogan descended upon American culture at exactly the time it was ready for him: the 1980s
Hulk Hogan descended upon American culture at exactly the time it was ready for him: the 1980s

Winnipeg Free Press

timean hour ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Hulk Hogan descended upon American culture at exactly the time it was ready for him: the 1980s

The opening chords of Rick Derringer's hard-rock guitar would play over the arena sound system. Instantly, 20,000 Hulkamaniacs — and many more as wrestling's popularity and stadium size exploded — rose to their feet in a frenzy to catch a glimpse of Hulk Hogan storming toward the ring. His T-shirt half-ripped, his bandanna gripped in his teeth, Hogan faced 'em all in the 1980s — the bad guys from Russia and Iran and any other wrestler from a country that seemed to pose a threat to both his WWF championship and, of course, could bring harm to the red, white and blue. His 24-inch pythons slicked in oil, glistening under the house lights, Hogan would point to his next foe — say 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper or Jake 'The Snake' Roberts (rule of thumb: In the 80s, the more quote marks in a name, the meaner the wrestler) — all to the strain of Derringer's patriotic 'Real American.' In Ronald Reagan's 1980s slice of wishful-thinking Americana, no one embodied the vision of a 'real American' like Hulk Hogan. 'We had Gorgeous George and we had Buddy Rogers and we had Bruno Sammartino,' WWE Hall of Famer Sgt. Slaughter said Friday. 'But nobody compared at that time compared to Hulk Hogan. His whole desire was to be a star and be somebody that nobody every forgot. He pretty much did that.' He saw himself as an all-American hero Hogan, who died Thursday in Florida at age 71, portrayed himself as an all-American hero, a term that itself implies a stereotype. He was Sylvester Stallone meets John Wayne in tights — only fans could actually touch him and smell the sweat if the WWF came to town. Hogan presented as virtuous. He waved the American flag, never cheated to win, made sure 'good' always triumphed over 'evil.' He implored kids around the world: 'Train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins.' Hogan did it all, hosting 'Saturday Night Live,' making movies, granting Make-A-Wish visits, even as he often strayed far from the advice that made him a 6-foot-8, 300-plus pound cash cow and one of the world's most recognizable entertainers. His muscles looked like basketballs, his promos electrified audiences — why was he yelling!?! — and he fabricated and embellished stories from his personal life all as he morphed into the personification of the 80s and 80s culture and excess. In the not-so-real world of professional wrestling, Hulk Hogan banked on fans believing in his authenticity. That belief made him the biggest star the genre has ever known. Outside the ring, the man born Terry Gene Bollea wrestled with his own good guy/bad guy dynamic, a messy life that eventually bled beyond the curtain, spilled into tabloid fodder and polluted the final years of his life. Hogan — who teamed with actor Mr. T in the first WrestleMania — was branded a racist. He was embroiled in a sex-tape scandal. He claimed he once contemplated suicide. All this came well after he admitted he burst into wrestling stardom not on a strict diet of workouts and vitamins, but of performance-enhancing drugs, notably steroids. The punches, the training, the grueling around-the-world travel were all real (the outcomes, of course, were not). So was the pain that followed Hogan as he was temporarily banished from WWE in his later years. He was the flawed hero of a flawed sport, and eventually not even wrestling fans, like a bad referee, could turn a blind eye to Hogan's discretions. His last appearance fizzled Hogan's final WWE appearance came this past January at the company's debut episode on Netflix. Hogan arrived months after he appeared at the Republican National Convention and gave a rousing speech — not unlike his best 1980s promos — in support of Donald Trump. Just a pair of the 1980s icons, who used tough talk and the perceived notion they could both 'tell it like it is,' to rise to the top. Only wrestling fans, especially one in the home of the Los Angeles event, had enough of Hogan. 'He was full-throated, it wasn't subtle, his support for Donald Trump,' said ESPN writer Marc Raimondi, who wrote the wrestling book 'Say Hello to the Bad Guys.' 'I think that absolutely hurt him.' He didn't appear for an exercise in nostalgia or a vow that if he could just lace up the boots one more time, he could take down today's heels. No, Hogan came to promote his beer. Beer loosely coded as right-wing beer. No song was going to save him this time. Fed up with his perceived MAGA ties and divisive views, his racist past and a string of bad decisions that made some of today's stars also publicly turn on him, Hogan was about booed out of the building. This wasn't the good kind of wrestling booing, like what he wanted to hear when he got a second act in the 1990s as 'Hollywood' Hulk Hogan when controversy equaled cash. This was go-away heat. 'I think the politics had a whole lot to do with it,' Hogan said on 'The Pat McAfee Show' in February. Hogan always envisioned himself as the Babe Ruth of wrestling. On the back of Vince McMahon, now entangled in his own sordid sex scandal, Hogan turned a staid one-hour Saturday morning show into the land of NFL arenas, cable TV, pay-per-view blockbusters, and eventually, billon-dollar streaming deals. Once raised to the loftiest perch in sports and entertainment by fans who ate up everything the Hulkster had to say, his final, dismal appearance showed that even Hulk Hogan could take a loss. 'The guy who had been the master at getting what he wanted from the crowd for decades, he lost his touch,' Raimondi said. 'Very likely because of the things he did in his personal and professional life.' But there was a time when Hogan had it all. The fame. The championships. Riches and endorsements. All of it not from being himself, but by being Hulk Hogan. 'There's people in this business that become legends,' Sgt. Slaughter said. 'But Hulk became legendary.'

MOVIES: The summer's biggest film (probably) and a couple of small heartfelt gems
MOVIES: The summer's biggest film (probably) and a couple of small heartfelt gems

National Observer

time5 hours ago

  • National Observer

MOVIES: The summer's biggest film (probably) and a couple of small heartfelt gems

For weeks, it's been at the top of the list of films people are most anxious to see this summer. Now that The Fantastic Four: First Steps is here, its studio has a chance to do two things. Marvel can battle back against its rival, DC Studios and their big hit Superman. The other they'll deem more crucial: to dispel the charge that their movies have become repetitive and always the same. Even the fans are feeling Marvel fatigue according to many articles and much online chatter. My thoughts on the movie are below. Before that, notice two other new films: Samia and Oh, Hi. Both worth your attention. And also notice that three films that got high praise when they first came out have just started streaming on CRAVE. American Fiction is a satirical look at racial attitudes in the American literary scene. Hereditary is a spooky film starring Tony Collette and made by Ari Aster, whose new one, Eddington, is in theaters right now. And out of season there's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a very funny family film about a scramble to put on the show and fight prejudice. And new in theaters, we have … The Fantastic Four: First Steps: 3 stars Samia: 4 Oh, Hi: 3 ½ THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS: I didn't read the comic books, but I understand they were groundbreaking when they started back in 1961. The characters argued, didn't just push a truth, justice and the American way ethos and even wrestled with the problems of celebrity. They didn't conceal their identity and had avid fans both inside their stories and among the readers. This is the fourth try at making a movie about them, after three weak efforts, one of which wasn't even officially released. This, finally, is a good one and honours them by going back to a simpler time. There's no politics or social change intruding, although it seems to be set in the 1960s and one cryptic comment may be about climate change. The action never gets overblown and frantic and the film plays comfortably with a retro feel. A quick crowded montage at the start sets up the situation. The four were flown into outer space and came back with their DNA rearranged and bearing alter egos. Reed Richards (by the very busy actor Pedro Pascal) is now also Mister Fantastic. Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) is also Invisible Woman, alongside Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). They argue like a family but also save the world when needed, which has to happen again when Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives to announce that the earth is about to be 'swallowed' by the 'The Devourer', also known as Galactus. The team has to go back to space to look for him, even though Sue Storm is pregnant and gives birth along the way. Galactus demands the baby be given to him (something to do with one part of his plot). He's refused, and the child becomes a lure to get him to come down to earth for a final battle among New York skyscrapers, which he is as tall as. There's not much suspense to speak of, but easy-to-take action and a sunny mood from director Matt Shakman, who the fans will remember for Wanda Vision, the Marvel TV series he made. (In theaters everywhere) 3 out of 5 SAMIA: A repressive society. A woman determined to disobey the rules imposed on her. We've seen that story before, and will again, but here's a particularly good version of it. And it's all true, as far as we know, anyway. It comes from a true-life novel about a real person: Samia Yusuf Omar, who lived in the African nation of Somalia and dreamed of being a champion runner. 'I'll be the fastest runner in the world,' she says in the movie. We see her trying hard, running in the streets of Mogidishu as a small girl, then as a teen and then grown up and played by llham Mohamed Osman. Along with her story, we get a good history lesson about her country. She's warned it's dangerous out there and advised to stay home and 'stop being stupid.' She defies the rules, by running for one thing, by refusing to wear a veil for another. She is confronted by militia soldiers now and then with proclamations that wearing shorts and a tee-shirt is a sin. She kept at it though, secretly training at night, with a brother as coach and her father's encouragement. She got on to the national Olympics team, competed in Beijing and through most of the film is trying to get ready for the London Olympics. But there are setbacks and tragedies. She pays human traffickers to get her to Europe and that's a harrowing trip. She dies. How isn't exactly known, but based on the book by Giuseppe Catozzella we get a possible idea. (People in Vancouver might remember he came to the writer's festival there when he wrote the book). 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Whenever she's out of the room, he strains to reach the key lying just out of reach. She, meanwhile, has invited a couple of friends (Geraldine Viswanathan, John Reynolds) and plays good host all the while hiding from them what's going on. The story isn't that special, but it is workable. What makes it shine is the dialogue that Gordon has co-written with the director, Sophie Brooks. The couple dole out what they want from each other. They ask each other about their early lives (a little too much because you'd think they'd already explored that since they've been dating for four months). They relish the similarities they turn up and suffer with the misunderstandings. He gets fed up and angry. Says he's been kidnapped and will report it to the police when he gets free. That just makes her resent him more. She accuses him of pursuing her in the first place. 'You made me like you,' she says. What women need in a relationship comes up when she talks with her friend, as do more erudite matters like evolution. A detour into the subject of witchcraft is out of place, but the rest of the film is a smart contemplation of dating and male-female relations today. Both Gordon and Lerman are terrific as the characters they play. (In theaters) 3 ½ out of 5

Hulk Hogan's death resurfaces painful contradictions for Black wrestling fans
Hulk Hogan's death resurfaces painful contradictions for Black wrestling fans

Winnipeg Free Press

time5 hours ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Hulk Hogan's death resurfaces painful contradictions for Black wrestling fans

One of Kazeem Famuyide's earliest memories is sitting on his father's lap watching Hulk Hogan wrestle in the 1988 Survivor Series. His love of Hogan in the ring became inextricable from what would become a lifelong obsession with the sport — including a yearlong role touring the country and writing scripts for WWE's top talent. 'He was a superhero to a lot of people, including myself,' said Famuyide, who is Black and now co-hosts the WWE-themed podcast 'The Ringer Wrestling Show.' He remembers Hogan telling audiences to 'train, say your prayers and eat your vitamins,' often in front of giant American flags. But for the 38-year-old Famuyide and other Black wrestling fans and sports commentators, Hogan's death this week at 71 has resurfaced an irreconcilable contradiction in the iconic wrestler's legacy: Hogan's undeniable role in broadening wrestling's appeal to fans of all backgrounds versus his well-documented racism. 'You never really got the feeling that Hulk Hogan truly felt remorse,' Famuyide said. Reactions to Hogan's death reflect American divide on race 'The Right Time' podcast host Bomani Jones noted there were two sharply different reactions to Hogan's death. Remembrances have split between those who see no need to harp on past controversies and those who struggle with his behavior that got once got him banned from the WWE. 'This was never going to be one where people were going to mourn quietly,' Jones said. Hogan's death drew remembrances from politicians, celebrities and fans alike, celebrating his accolades. Many applauded how he was able to parlay his wrestling persona into movie appearances, brand deals, a reality television show and notable political influence. On Friday, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, whose fame arguably rivals Hogan's acclaim, paid tribute. Johnson, the son of pioneering wrestler Rocky Johnson, one of the WWE's first Black champions, said Hogan was a hero 'to millions of little kids.' 'You may have 'passed the torch' to me,' Johnson wrote under a 2002 video showing him and Hogan facing off at Wrestlemania. 'But you, my friend…you 'drew the house' meaning you sold out every arena and stadium across the country in your prime as Hulk Hogan, on your way of becoming the greatest of all time.' Other notable Black professional wrestlers, from Booker T and Mark Henry, to Jacqueline Moore and Carlene 'Jazz' Moore-Begnaud, have found success and fame in the WWE. But just as many people took Hogan's death as an opportunity to regale Hogan's more controversial behavior. In 2016, a Florida jury awarded Hogan over $115 million against Gawker Media, after Hogan sued them for posting a video of him having sex with his former best friend's wife. The litigation led to the discovery that Hogan had used racial slurs in 2007 to describe his daughter's Black ex-boyfriend. 'I am a racist, to a point,' Hogan said, before adding the slur against Black people, according to a transcript. Hogan apologized at the time and called the language 'unacceptable.' Around the same time, some outlets reported that Hogan used the same slur on a recorded phone call with his son. Hogan's enthusiastic endorsement of conservative political figures like longtime friend President Donald Trump made many people doubt the sincerity of that apology, Jones said. 'It's one thing to get caught on tape saying these things in private. It's another thing for you to decide publicly to align yourself with a cause that many Black people find antagonistic toward us,' Jones said. Professional wrestling has a history of reckoning on racist tropes For many Black wrestling enthusiasts, Hogan's death brings up familiar contradictions in how the sport deals with race. Lyric Swinton, 27, a freelance wrestling writer, first fell in love with the sport when she was 8. She describes wrestling as 'the most nuanced and colorful' form of storytelling. Although she feels representation has improved, Swinton remembers WWE use racist tropes in Black wrestlers' plot lines. Swinton recalls Shelton Benjamin having a 'mammy,' played by Thea Vidale, invoking a racist caricature. Swinton considers Benjamin one of the most talented wrestlers at the time, but feels he never got the recognition that his contemporaries did, in part because he was scripted to those roles. 'I kind of felt like I had to check my Blackness at the door,' she said. Hogan hasn't tarnished sport for all Black fans For WWE enthusiast and sports journalist Master Tesfatsion, the mixed reactions to Hogan's death mirror fault lines that exist throughout the country, and highlight how central wrestling has become in pop culture. Growing up, Tesfatsion, who is Black, remembers watching Vince McMahon, the company's co-founder and former chairman, use a racial slur in a match with John Cena in 2005; or the storyline in 2004 when wrestler John Layfield chased Mexicans across the border. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. 'In some strange way, the WWE always had a pulse on where America stood,' Tesfatsion said. 'You cannot tell the history of America without all these issues, just like you cannot tell the history of the WWE without these issues.' Tesfatsion was in the audience at Hogan's last appearance at a professional match in January. He was one of the many who booed Hogan. After decades of fandom, it was his first time seeing Hogan live. 'I never thought that I would see 'The Hulk' in person, and that I would resort to bullying him. But that's what his actions made me do.' Still, Tesfatsion said he will never stop being a super fan. 'I still love America, I still love the WWE. It's an emotional contradiction that I choose to deal with because I still find value in it,' he said.

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