End of August Events
Yes, Edmonton, summer is winding down. But, don’t worry, there’s still plenty of great stuff going on to lift your spirits. (And pretty good weather recently too.)
On the festival circuit this weekend, there’s DEDfest, In/stall/ed, East Meets West, and Open Sky.
DEDfest is Edmonton’s annual horror film fest. In/stall/ed is is a unique performance and visual art display, happening in the McCauley neighbourhoods in parking spaces. Yeah, public art baby! Latitude 53 is running this, and there will be 17 performances and installations on Saturday. East Meets West continues up in Little Italy and the McCauley neighbourhood, and there’s Mercury Opera performing Madame Butterfly in Giovanni Caboto Park. The Open Sky Music Festival is packing Hawrelak Park with bands and bands and musicians and more musicians.
If you’re into walking, the Highlands neighbourhood is kicking off their walking map this weekend. These maps are great ways to get to know an Edmonton neighbourhood.
I haven’t heard a whole lot about MEAET but it sounds like a cool idea. A bunch of people get together, have some food, enjoy themselves, then vote on who to give some money to for a project.
You can also Show What You Grow, at Fort Edmonton Park.
In music, there’s the earlier mentioned Open Sky Music Festival, with plenty of bands and artists down in Hawrelak Park…Wunderbar’s got Fire Next Time tonight and The Joe and Doug Hoyer triumphantly returning to Edmonton (after a national tour) on Saturday night. Also on Saturday, Hale Hale, Southroot, and Zero Something play the Starlite Room. Back to Friday night, Warped Tourers Inner City Elegance are at Expressionz Cafe. Now back to Saturday (surely I should have done this in chronological order) there’s live music at Ricky’s in Mill Woods (with Consilience and Tyson Skakun).
Oh, and if you walk by CKUA on Jasper Avenue tonight and it seems like something cool is going on it’s because they’re celebrating their amazing record library and have a live performance from 100 Mile House.
Down in the river valley, the Edmonton Capitals host the Calgary Vipers through the weekend.
And over at Clarke Stadium (beside Commonwealth) the Edmonton Huskies are home to Saskatoon Hilltops in Prairie Football.
The Summer Party Begins
We are one week away from actual, proper summer, but the fun is in full swing this weekend. There is so much fun that I am going to break it down into sections.
Festivals
Edmonton’s Pride Festival kicks off with the Pride Awards, and parties tonight, and the parade through downtown Edmonton tomorrow. The Pride Parade ends up at Churchill Square for the rest of the afternoon.
Festivals for the old – Creative Age – and young – NextFest – continue this weekend. NextFest’s got, among so many things, a great show at the Avenue Theatre tonight.
Opera Nuova’s Vocal Arts Festival continues until Jun 26. Talking ’bout singin’.
Saturday and Sunday, there are 4 plays in the Sprouts 2011 New Play Festival for Kids, from Concrete Theatre, at the Stanley A. Milner Library.
Bike Month continues, uh, all month, with a bike repair-a-thon this weekend.
Saturday on 104 Street is more than the farmers’ market, with the Al Fresco block party. Take that, cars!
Music
Tonight…Sharks, Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, The Fight, and Owls By Nature are all at the Pawn Shop.
Saturday night, Gurf Morlix plays the Haven Social Club in a tribute to Blaze Foley.
Did I mention NextFest’s great lineup?
Arts
It’s a Handmade Mafia weekend!
DEDfest’s got a screening of Dead Alive at Metro Cinema this evening.
Sports
The Edmonton Energy are playing basketball, the Edmonton Capitals are out on Telus Field, and FC Edmonton is kicking around Foote Field.
Miscellaneous
Movies are always a good time. We are in for a sci-fi summer.
Saturday is river valley day! This is the 14th year celebrating the Edmonton region’s glorious river valley and its parks. Edmonton’s event is at Rundle Park. There are pancakes.
There’s a Pre-TEDx party tonight at Suede Lounge, with the (sold out) event happening tomorrow. (You can watch a live webcast of the event tomorrow at the TEDx Edmonton site.
Mount Pleasant Cemetery is throwing its gates wide open to everyone on Saturday. This is as much about Edmonton’s history and land use (with 2 new cemetery plans in the works) as it is morbid curiousity.
You can take your car to an Edmonton CARSTAR location Saturday and have it washed for a good cause, as part of the national “Soaps It Up” fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis.
At Last, An Outlet for our Collective Rage
Not to make everything about winter, but for the love of God, why won’t this end.
Anyway, you know what’s nice when it’s this horrible outside? Getting your snuggie, your hot cocoa, and all your friends together to make a short, occult-themed film featuring a crucifix and massive eye trauma. You know, a classic winter activity.
For realsies, though, if you’re an aspiring auteur, this contest looks pretty rad. Details, from the bureau of our pal Derek Clayton over at Dedfest:
We’re holding our first ever short film contest: DEDfest 6:66! We’re looking for sick but talented filmmakers to submit a short based on the themes of demonic possession, the occult, and satan worship! Be as gory and as funny as you want, as long as the film is no longer than 6 minutes and 66 seconds in length!
Here are the details:
ENTRY FEE • A mere $10 per team/film (cash only)
RULES • You must shoot and edit your entire film in the period from Friday, January 14, 2011 to Sunday, January 23, 2011. You MUST include the following prop and gore effect: a crucifix and eye trauma.
DEADLINE • Completed films are to be dropped off at the Lobby DVD Shop on Whyte (10815 Whyte Avenue) on SUNDAY, JANUARY 23 by 6:00 PM
FORMATS • Films must be submitted on a playable, non-looped DVD
SCREENING • Our panel of judges (me and Kevin) will pick our favourite two films and screen them before our presentation of DEMONS on January 27th. We will then let the audience decide, via applause, which film is the best! The winner will receive a prize pack courtesy of DEDfest and our sponsors.For more info: Derek@dedfest.com
OTHER NOTES ABOUT THE CONTEST
* The contest is open to all interested parties over the age of 18.
* You do not have to live in Edmonton to participate but you must have the film submitted by the deadline.
* No equipment will be provided to filmmakers.
* The event will be rated R with no admission for those under 18. The films submitted will be unrated.DEMONS plus Cheerbleeders! – THURSDAY, JANUARY 27th @ 9PM – Metro Cinema, 9828-101A avenue
The clock be ticking, folks, so get out there and start gauging! And if you submit something, be sure to let us know. There’s nothing Samsonow likes better than a good cross in the eye.
The Fringiest Events
Of course it’s the Fringe!
The 29th annual Edmonton International Fringe Festival is all the arts pages will be talking about for the next week. There’s also lots of stuff happening around Old Strathcona that doesn’t take place in a theatre or on a stage. This is the big one, Edmonton.
Morgan had a good point, don’t just try to see the 5-star shows. Ask people what’s good, what’s interesting, what they think you might like. You can always poke around Twitter, and try #yegfringe, for just such questions and inquiries.
Hawrelak Park is busy again this weekend, with the Celtic Festival. BluesFest is next weekend (in Hawrelak Park)…so get warmed up at Rusty Reed’s with Dave Babcock and the Night Keepers
EastwoodFest is Saturday, in the Eastwood neighbourhood. (118 Avenue, 85-87 Streets.)
Churchill Square, which the City has been trying to fill with more events and happenings, in between festivals, has the Latin Festival this weekend. Cha-cha-cha.
There’s Tomoto Fare too. That’s about tomatoes.
West of the city, it’s the Stony Plain Cowboy Gathering Society get-together. You can expect cowboy art, culture, poetry, and music.
Lots of new movies are out this weekend, like Eat, Pray, Love and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Gregg’s got your lowdown.
In music…N.N. plays an EP release show at the Starlite Room tonight, with Van Gohost and I.E.D. Sunday night at the Starlite Room it’s Fran Healy from Travis.
Falklands are at Wunderbar Friday night.
The Black Dog has some Hair of the Dog Saturday afternoon.
Over at Lyve on Whyte, Friday is Soul Train (with Crowded City Skyline and Hot Hand Phenomenon), Saturday it’s Rocky Mountain Rebel Music (with Brash Tax and The Party Martyrs).
Eddie Shorts has The Frolics Friday and Gaye Delorme Saturday.
Cirque du Soleil is in Edmonton, with Alegria.
In sports…The Prairie Football Conference (PFC) kicks off this weekend. 
Edmonton’s got two teams in that league. The Edmonton Wildcats are coming off a season in which they were western champs, and fell in the Canadian junior football championship. The Edmonton Huskies stunk it up last year, winning no games, and are looking for redemption in 2010. Those games are Saturday and Sunday, at Clarke Park.
From ShareEdmonton: FC Edmonton is hosting the Spokane Spiders (that means we could see Edmonton on all the Spokane affiliates! I hope Ana Cabrera talks about Edmonton.)
Whew!
DEDfest: Thrills, chills, laughter and booze make for a great night!
It is that time of year again. Halloween is right around the corner. Horror films are beginning to take over the cinema world for a few weeks and if you live in a city big enough, you probably have a horror film festival that you could attend. Some are world famous, others, not so much. Last Friday night I attended DEDfest (Day 2 of 4), Edmonton, Alberta’s horror film festival. To be fair, this is the first year of the festival, although it is run by some of the same group that ran last year’s Deadmonton festival.
The Friday showing consisted of two big showings: Neighbor and Return of the Living Dead. It is the first time since 1985 that Return of the Living Dead has been seen in Canada on 35MM. Like many horror fests, short films were spread throughout the two marquee films. Here is a quick review for each film I saw that night.
To get the crowd in the laughing mood, Clowning Around was unleashed on us. It was a terrible looking trailer that really just played off the title of the film, essentially it was just like the faux trailer Don’t, in front of the Grindhouse double feature. I am still not sure if this is an actual film or just a trailer made for laughs.
Next up was the short film, Thirsty, based on a Joe Knetter story. It was directed by Andrew Kasch and stars Wrong Turn 2 director Joe Lynch, Michael Bailey Smith (The Hills Have Eyes) and Tiffany Shepis (a scream queen herself of many horror films!). Lynch is on a cross-country drive when he starts to crave a frozen slushy. His destiny seems to not want him to get his slushy, as it keeps providing complications attempting to thwart his slushy efforts. This is full of laughs from the start and was one of the best shorts at the festival.
Next up was a few trailers of older films, Savage Streets, Punk Rock and another I cannot recall. These looked terrible but the Linda Blair exploitation/revenge flick Savage Streets is supposed to be quite good.
Every year Adam Green makes a Halloween short film. The Tiffany Problem, King in the Box and last years The Tivo are fantastic. This year’s film is Jack Chop. It is a real short short, running just over two and a half minutes, but it is so entertaining. Jack Chop is just a parody of the Slap Chop infomercial but I can say I was laughing (and so was most of the audience) for the entire two and a half minutes. Take a gander at it here!
Finally we reached our first feature film, the debut (at least to Edmonton) of Neighbor. This movie prides itself, with the tag on one of the posters, as the film that “caused its own editor to vomit.” (more…)
Edmonton weekend fun
When the big hand gets to 5 we all get 2 days off.
That clock is slowly ticking toward the weekend. We are so close now.
But wait, do you even know what you’re going to do this weekend?
We’ve mentioned talking about doing things differently at ChangeCamp, enjoying some non-pretentious and award-winning jazz, heading North of Nowhere, and spooking and grossing yourself out at DEDfest.
But there’s more.
First, there’s more on the dead side, with a zombie walk and then a zombie prom at New City.
And on the Hallowe’en side there’s the Scarecrow Festival at Northlands.
There’s a really interesting event happening Saturday night, called a Timeraiser. Basically, you bid on auction items but you’re also bidding with your own volunteer hours. Neat.
Over on Stony Plain Road they’re doing Store Front Cinema.
Also Saturday, Delhi 2 Dublin bring their electronica world beats to the Starlite Room.
You could also look for “A New Perspective” at this photography show.
The Edmonton Model Railroad Association is throwing its doors open to the public this weekend.
The Pilgrims Hospice is holding their annual “Voices for Hospice” benefit concert too.
Hey, Chad VanGaalen is playing the Myer Horowitz Sunday. You needed to know this.
Sunday also sees the Pop Culture Fair over at the Mayfield Inn Trade Centre.
And on Monday, author Hal Niedzviecki is over at the University of Alberta talking about our peep culture.
SO MUCH TO DO!
Clearing up the contusions… er… I mean confusion…
From the Dedmontonian
Over at www.deadmonton.net, formerly the home of the Deadmonton Horror Festival (of which I was a part), they’ve been fielding quite a few questions regarding the 2009 Deadmonton festival. Here’s their response:
“…the 2009 Film Festival has been put on a hiatus (A.K.A a very long break)…“
But don’t fear folks, because out of the ashes of Deadmonton has sprung two new festivals – dEdmonton: Canada’s Halloween Festival and DEDfest: Hellberta’s Horror Festival.
dEdmonton first came about last year when a civic minded fellow named Christian Nelson had the idea of taking back the “Deadmonton” slur by using it for – appropriately enough, a city-wide Halloween festival. We were already operating our film fest under the Deadmonton banner, so I contacted Christian and found him to be an all around great guy with a love for the city. By November 2008, myself, Christian, Darryl Plunkie of www.halloweenedmonton.com, and Kenn Bur of Connect2Edmonton joined forces under the banner of the “Council of E-ville” and begun stitching together the assorted parts of what would be dEdmonton.
What is dEdmonton? In short, we want to promote the everlasting shit out of Halloween in our city. There’s a menagerie of spooky, ooky and kooky events happening every October, and dEdmonton wants to help get the word out about them. By fall, our website www.dedmonton.com will be a repository of info on everything from family fun activities to hardcore horror events. And hopefully we can add a few of our own shindigs to the mix.
Guest Blogger: Derek Clayton, ‘the dedmontonian’
[We're thrilled to bits to welcome our very first guest blogger to the edmontonian! We hope to do this weekly, so if you're a blogger and want to write something for us, send an email. Since not all posts are for all people (read=Sally is scared senseless of horror movies), we're rating this post 18A for hilariously racy humour and references to very scary movies...which is undoubtedly just going to make you animals want to read it all the more.]
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Hello fellow freaks and sicko-fants.
The Dedmontonian here, guest-blogging on the edmontonian! Thanks to Sally and Jeff for the chance to spill my twisted seed on yet another online avenue foolish enough to give me a soapbox.
As you probably guessed by my lame attempt at Cryptkeeper-ish puns, I’m a horror fan. Back before George Lucas stole my attention (and my parents’ wallets) with the “star war”, I was a little ghoul delighting in the creepier side of life. I had my little Mego Frankenstein and Dracula on me at all times. I loved Hilarious House of Frightenstein and thought the Gruesomes were the best thing about the Flintstones. I didn’t want to be in the Scooby Gang; I wanted to be the crazy old guy in the glow-in-the-dark pirate costume chasing those meddling kids around the harbour.
And this is where I tell you a bit about my plans for world (or at least civic) domination. I’m promoter/programmer/organizer of DEDfest: Hellberta’s Horror Festival. Our goal, besides bringing the best new independent horror movies to Edmonton’s movie screens, is to champion our city as the “horror capital of Canada”. And if you dig around in Edmonton’s past, you’ll find we’ve been quite the little hub horror film and TV shows over the years. (more…)
