Sandbox World

I don’t think too many kids will be rushing to the toy aisle for LEGO’s newest offering, and that’s perfectly okay. The new 1,478-piece LEGO Ideas The X-Files set is aimed squarely at adults who spent the 1990s wondering whether the truth really was out there. To help launch the set, Gillian Anderson stepped back into the role of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully for a fun promotional video. She…

Jashon, Sat and Jesse We fully enjoyed our very first experience at Lyla Toronto, an upscale Mediterranean-inspired restaurant located at 60 Sudbury Street in the city’s  Queen West neighborhood, near Liberty Village and BMO Field. The restaurant opened in 2024 and focuses on Italian, French and contemporary Mediterranean cuisine, combining coastal flavors with modern techniques and some subtle…

Do you remember the days when Torontonians would come to Montreal and leave here with bags of bagels because they simply could not get the same quality down Highway 401? Well, in 1999, Sat Chouhan and Jessie Sahdra set out to change all of that and brought Toronto The Bagel House. The two friends learned the business working for places like REAL Bagel, Fairmount and St. Viateur. “We saw the…

With The Black Shield of Falworth now available in 4K, I found myself wondering why the film gets so much criticism today. Most complaints focus on Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh playing medieval English characters while speaking with unmistakable American accents. To modern audiences, that can be distracting, but I don’t think that’s the movie’s biggest problem. The truth is we’re judging a 1954…

Long before the internet, William Blake built his own creative world without waiting for anyone’s permission. I first discovered William Blake through Jim Morrison because that’s how The Doors got their name. Morrison borrowed it from Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, which itself took its title from one of Blake’s most famous lines in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “If the doors of…

DC’s latest gamble could prove that comic book movies don’t all have to be superhero blockbusters. I’ll admit it. When DC Studios announced a Clayface movie, I didn’t get it. Why build a film around one of Batman’s oldest B-list villains when the company has Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and dozens of bigger names? Then I watched the trailer, and suddenly everything clicked. DC isn’t trying…

Alex, one of the managers, showcases a number orders Last summer  I was contacted by a group promoting Thai Select certified restaurants across Canada. While in Toronto, I dropped by one of the winners and truly enjoyed the tasting. So when the opportunity came to do so again, here in Montreal at ChuChai on St. Denis Street, I jumped at it. The Thai SELECT is a mark of certification awarded by…

Moishes Steakhouse has enjoyed a special place in my palate ever since I can remember. Come back with me to the days when this iconic restaurant was located on St. Laurent Blvd.  It was situated at the second level of an industrial building noted for its large parking lot, where the attendant remembered the owner of each vehicle and spotted them coming a block ahead. The coat check fellow was…

What began as a meeting between a young Montreal journalist and one of America’s most celebrated writers became an unforgettable encounter that revealed the complicated relationship between genius, identity and the myths we build around our heroes. On Friday, August 14, 1987, Nick Auf der Maur looked back on a night that had begun with poetry, laughter and spirited conversation before ending in…

My wife always laughs because she knows exactly where she’ll find me when the television is on. Nine times out of ten, it’s Turner Classic Movies. Every week, I record at least five films, convinced I’ve already worked my way through most of the classics worth watching. Somehow, the good folks at TCM always prove me wrong, introducing me to another forgotten gem that slipped past me over the…

When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon on July 20, 1969, history celebrated one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Nearly 650 million people watched as he took those first careful steps across the lunar surface, proving that what generations had only imagined had finally become reality. Apollo 11 has become the defining image of the Space Age, yet the older I get, the more I wonder if…

Peter Sellers spent his entire career pretending to be someone else. The strange part is that he wasn’t entirely sure who he was when the cameras stopped rolling. That contradiction produced some of the funniest performances ever put on film, but it also created one of cinema’s most fascinating actors. Few performers have ever hidden themselves so completely behind their characters, and even…

Here’s a theory I’ve had for a long time. Most people know The Catcher in the Rye. Far fewer actually know The Catcher in the Rye. That probably sounds ridiculous until you stop and think about it. Millions of people know the novel was controversial. They know Holden Caulfield hates “phonies.” They know J.D. Salinger became one of the most famous reclusive authors in literary history. They know…

Part One: How the Automobile Became Our Second Home Have you ever pulled into your driveway, turned off the engine, and then just… stayed there for a while? Maybe it was only a minute. Maybe it was ten. The radio was off, your phone could wait, and nobody was expecting anything from you. You just sat there, looking through the windshield, thinking about absolutely nothing or perhaps everything…

Long before she joined Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins, Melissa Auf der Maur was shaped by Montreal’s clubs, classrooms and creative spirit. Her new book, My ’90s Rock Photographs, reminds us why the city’s musical legacy and its last great analog decade still matter today. When people talk about the alternative rock explosion of the 1990s, cities like Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles usually…

Most parody exists to make us laugh. Robert “R.” Sikoryak certainly does that, but the laughter is only the beginning. Beneath every visual joke is another purpose entirely. His parody invites readers to engage with literature, history, and ideas they might never have explored otherwise, and that’s what makes his work so remarkable. His latest release, Declaration / Emancipation Illustrated from…

The best cartoons don’t just make us laugh. They accidentally preserve history. Animated characters weren’t created in a vacuum. They reflected the fashions, music, slang, and attitudes of the people who first watched them. Long before television became the dominant form of entertainment, cartoon characters were capturing the spirit of the times. Betty Boop wasn’t simply invented as a funny…