Features | ShowbizMonkeys.com

The Crafty Monkey Awards: Our Best in Television for 2009/2010

Posted by Paul Little | Monday, August 30, 2010 @ 10:35am

Last night may have been Emmy night in Hollywood, but we all know the internet was clamouring for the real winners of the past season in television: The Crafty Monkey Television & TV Achievement Awards! As the last awards to make their official debut on ShowbizMonkeys.com (after the Melodic Monkeys and Golden Monkeys), the Crafty Monkeys are also running things a bit like the major awards shows. No, we don't have a "ceremony". Or "stars". Or "anybody noticing". But we do have nominees and winners in a whole host of television categories!

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Walkey Talk: Death of the Guilty Pleasure

Posted by Michael Walkey | Friday, August 27, 2010 @ 8:23pm

Summertime is traditionally not the greatest time of year for television. Every once in a while a surprise summer sensation sneaks under the radar and completely enthralls the public (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Survivor). This year was no exception, as the summer of 2010 will be remembered as the year that brought the return of that great piece of cinematic art: Wipeout. Okay, so Wipeout is not really art, nor is it even cinema. But it sure is a piece of something!

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2010 Winnipeg Folk Festival Wrap-Up and Photo Gallery

Posted by Paul Little | Thursday, July 22, 2010 @ 4:33am

Dozens of acts, tens of thousands of festivalgoers, and countless hours of great music helped make the 37th Annual Winnipeg Folk Festival a memorable five days. The weather held up for the most part, while the music certainly did.

I'm going to be honest here... when organizers first announced the complete Folk Fest line-up for 2010 and I perused the list, I wasn't overly excited. Sure, there were acts that I enjoyed listening to and would want to see live, but there weren't any names that personally jumped out at me as "must-sees", especially compared to previous years' line-ups. That's the thing about Folk Festivals, though: you may not know a lot of the acts going in, but you're certain to be surprised by quite a few of them.

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Interview: Leverage's Christian Kane shows off his musical side in tonight's episode of the TNT hit

Posted by Mark McLeod | Sunday, July 18, 2010 @ 2:38pm

After recurring roles on Angel and Close to Home, Christian Kane now finds himself as one of the stars of the TNT hit Leverage, playing Eliot Spencer, the highly-skilled muscle of the con team lead by Timothy Hutton's Nathan Ford. But throughout his time in Los Angeles, Kane has also developed his musical side, performing at places like famed club The Viper Room.

Now, shortly after releasing a self-titled EP (available on iTunes), he's being given a chance to showcase his musical side on his TV show, as tonight's episode of Leverage (9pm ET/PT on TNT) will feature his character going undercover as a country singer. Kane will be performing a new, never-before-released song, "Thinking of You", which will also be up on iTunes to download right after the episode air.

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Interview: DJ Qualls of TNT's Memphis Beat

Posted by Mark McLeod | Tuesday, July 13, 2010 @ 4:02am

DJ Qualls first caught our attention a decade ago, in the ridiculous Todd Phillips comedy, Road Trip, and has been a staple in film and television since then. He's starred in films as diverse as Hustle & Flow, The Core, and I'm Reed Fish, and make memorable guest appearance on TV series like Lost, Numb3rs, Breaking Bad, and My Name is Earl. Now, he's landed his first regular television gig, starring opposite former Earl star Jason Lee (sans-mustache), Sam Hennings, and Alfre Woodard in the TNT police drama, Memphis Beat.

ShowbizMonkeys.com got the chance to sit in on a conference call with Qualls, where he spoke about his Memphis Beat character, growing up around the show's titular city, and the difficulties adjusting to the strenuous schedule working on an hour-long television drama.

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The Cat Empire, Arrested Development, and Pieta Brown highlight a rainy Saturday at the Winnipeg Folk Festival

Posted by Paul Little | Saturday, July 10, 2010 @ 11:58pm

The rain finally came to the Winnipeg Folk Festival on Saturday -- but what would an outdoor festival be without a bit of the wet stuff falling? It didn't seem to damper the spirits of festival-goers, however, as plenty of people were out at all the workshop stages throughout the day -- some decked in ponchos and others just letting the rain cool them down. And by the time the Main Stage started, the clouds had mostly broken up, and the beautiful sunset accompanied some equally great music from Hot Tuna and Pieta Brown.

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Friday at the Winnipeg Folk Festival was all about sunburns, heatstroke, and -- oh, right -- great music

Posted by Paul Little | Saturday, July 10, 2010 @ 1:09am

On the first full day of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, the story was the sun and the heat. And of course the music, which is always the cornerstone of a festival like this, was in strong form, allowing the people in the sun to enjoy everything from blues to folk to roots to a conglomeration of pretty much every genre one could imagine. Between the Main Stage performers, and the more alt sounds of the Big Blue at Night stage (not to mention the countless daytime performances and workshops), there really was something for everyone on Friday in Bird's Hill Park.

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The 37th Winnipeg Folk Festival kicked off Wednesday for five days of folk and roots music (and a lot more)

Posted by Paul Little | Thursday, July 8, 2010 @ 9:16pm

The Winnipeg Folk Festival is in full swing, as the 37th annual folk music festival held just outside Winnipeg, Manitoba began with two evenings (Wednesday and Thursday) of music before the full day schedules kick in from Friday to Sunday. With names as iconic as Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Jimmy Cliff, John Hiatt, and Arrested Development joining more contemporary folk and roots acts such as Andrew Bird, The Weakerthans, The Cat Empire, The Swell Season, and Sarah Harmer, the 2010 festival is shaping up to be a remarkable 5 days of music and community.

As I mentioned last year, the Folk Festival -- which began in 1974 and last year saw attendance reach 53,000 people (many from across Canada and the United States) -- is more than just the music, even though the music is pretty great. The festival prides itself on being a sustainable, green, community event, with more than 2500 volunteers annually and workshop performances that allow the various artists to work together in front of a crowd.

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Following concerts by The Roots, The Slew, and others, the Winnipeg Jazz Festival ends with a weekend of free outdoor shows

Posted by Paul Little | Monday, July 5, 2010 @ 11:42pm

After an amazing opening weekend, the 2010 TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival continued on throughout the week and closing weekend with a series of concerts from great performers and, generally, just a lot of fun! And while I unfortunately had to miss a couple days of the festival while zipping off to Saskatoon to see a decidedly NON-jazz concert (Iron Maiden and Dream Theater), I still got to see a lot of great jazz, funk, hip-hop, and overall solid music descend on our little Canadian burgh.

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Walkey Talk: This Kid’s Personal Karate Journey

Posted by Michael Walkey | Monday, July 5, 2010 @ 7:07pm

The big screen releases of The A Team and The Karate Kid has everyone all giddy for 1980s nostalgia. Critics always get upset over studios' unapologetic insistence of remaking classic films, and with good reason. Nothing screams cash grab more than a remake. Aside from dating myself, remaking the 1984 film The Karate Kid has other personal effects on me. Is the film considered a classic? Perhaps not by highbrow types such as The Library of Congress or The American Film Institute.

But anyone who was the right age when the film initially came out would beg to differ. Why is this so? Because watching films are a personal experience like no other. If music is the soundtrack of our lives, as Dick Clark once said, then films are the blueprint that shapes them.

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