Many Fest 2017

Many Fest comes quickly after this long weekend but it a good chance to spend some time outdoors and attend one of the many events downtown along Broadway between September 8 and 10.

This year's outdoor movie on Sunday at 8 will be Sing, the animated musical that broke office records in 2016. It is sure to be a favourite of families. People should bring chairs and blankets.

Surrounding the movie will be the food trucks for Food Trucks Wars. There will be something tasty for everyone.

This year will have to two stages set for music running continuously from Friday till Sunday. Check programming to see when you favourite act is performing.

Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries will be setting up the Farmery Estate Brewery Wine & Beer Garden. Farmery will have their full selection available for outdoor festivities.

For the runners is the 10 and 10 run. It is kind if misnomer because there is also a 30 km race in addition to the 10 kms and 10 miller and the shorty of 5 kms.

In addition to the runners, expect lots of cyclists for Cyclovia who will be doing multiple rides downtown along Broadway and drives to and from the site. There are plenty of kidzone activities throughout the festival area

The Farmer's and Artisan market runs both Saturday and Sunday.

Many Fest encompasses a lot and is the perfect city event just as everyone is getting back to fall schedules but when warms days and pleasant evenings are still rule.

Whitey's Closes in Grand Forks

In 1925 Edwin "Whitey" Larsen started Whitey's started a bar. Problem was it was Prohibition and illegal. This did not stop him so under authorities noses in East Grand Forks, Minnesota and using smuggled in alcohol from Canada, he operated his art deco styled dining, drinking and gambling den. It is hard to say when they first Manitobans entered the bar. It is quite possibly the suppliers such as the Bronfman family from Brandon and later Winnipeg who plied whiskey south of the border.

Grand Fork was the good sister and East Grand Forks was the naughty sister across the river. In the 1930s, a stainless steel horseshoe bar was built and it remains in the bar today and will beyond the closure. It has gone through a fire, flood and a relocation farther up the street over the years on Demers.

The two Grand Forks are separated by a bridge that crosses the Red River. Even after Prohibition ended, North Dakota to the west was more proper with drinking age of 21 and Sunday closures and no lotteries. Minnesota was 19, open Sundays and had lotteries. Things have evened out. The drinking age everywhere is 21, both are open Sunday and lotteries are available everywhere.

In 2011, Whitey's had a near death experience when business dried up. Despite having Cabela's across the street, foot traffic had collapsed and the long recession hastened a sale. From that near closure, it became a steakhouse and seafood place. However, for Grand Forks people who lived increasingly in the suburbs, the destination was a bit far for fare they could find at Columbia Mall environs.

A week ago, the bar closed and patrons came to say goodbye. It will continue as a restaurant owned by a Fargo-based restaurant group. Sickies Garage Burgers and Brews intends to occupy the space. They presently have a stripped down version of the restaurant on South Columbia nearer to the University of North Dakota than to Columbia Mall. It seems uncertain whether the old Sickie's will continue or not. Its present location has seen an Arby's, Padron Chile and Sweet Burrito in short order.

The old horseshoe bar is said to be a centerpiece to Sickie's new location. The food served is 50 burger and 50 beers. That is presumably one at a time. Good old fashioned burgers have made a comeback.

Winnipeggers continue to shop in Grand Forks although most might be surprised to find this and other places closed. This past year Columbia Mall saw Macy's, Zales and Yankee Candle store close among others. Nearly 1/5 of the mall and 12 stores have shut down as of the beginning of June. The mall still draws 25% Canadians but 11 new strip malls have gone up in Grand Forks which also affects traffic patterns.

People still go out for dinner and drinks so it remains to be seen whether Whitey's transformed into Sickie's will work. As mentioned it survived Prohibition, burning down in the 1940s, flooding in 1997 and near death experiences till now. Will anyone from Canada even recognize Grand Fork this fall?

Hyatt House Hotel Coming to Seasons of Tuxedo

There hasn't been too much detail but this much has been confirmed, Hyatt House Hotel will be building sometime in the near future at Seasons of Tuxedo in front of Cabela's. This land once was brought before council and was listed on the website of the developer as the future home of Lowe's Improvement.

Lowe's is now being constructed further down Kenaston near Scurfield and should be open in a number of months. It is difficult to say why Lowe's chose one site over the other. They are now the owners of Rona so that might have been the reason they held off. However, the situation will now be that Rona is across the street from there new Lowe's location. Same owner.

The new Hyatt House will be the second hotel to be built between Portage Avenue, Pembina Highway and the Perimeter Highway in five decades. The first hotel is the Hilton across the street near the Outlet Collection mall. Even now, it is near ready to swing the doors open. Construction continues apace on other stores, restaurants, care dealerships in the overall Seasons of Tuxedo area.

Hyatt House is considered an extended stay hotel which is suitable for business people who might be in Winnipeg working on projects as so often happens. It is ideal for the movie industry where you might have crew or actors put up for weeks at a time. According to specs of Hyatt House, the hotel comes with a convenience store and bar restaurant although final designs have not been presented as of yet.

The entire stretch of Sterling Lyon Parkway has gone from industrial/warehousing to retail/residential and created an entirely new neighbourhood. The absence of any hotels for the southwest quadrant of the city for decades has been a real problem. It is unlikely we have seen the last of hotel announcements for the area since the one category missing is a hotel for families visiting with the intention of shopping and visiting for leisure.

Movie Review: Logan Lucky

Director Steven Soderbergh announced a few years ago that he was to retire from making feature films. His reasoning was simply burn-out. During his hiatus he did re-edits of famous movies and did some experimental work in television as well as some off-Broadway plays. His commercial success over the years with Erin Brockovich and Ocean's 11 was well established but he also won the Oscar for directing Traffic. So what drew the director back? Apparently, it was the script Logan Lucky from Rebecca Blunt who Hollywood Reporter says does not exist. It could be Soderbergh himself, his wife or neither.

Logan Lucky is at its heart a heist movie centered on NASCAR with Soderbergh acting as director, cinematographer and editor. It is an ensemble cast of Hollywood elite. Comparisons to Ocean's 11 are inevitable but the story is less glamorous and more redneck as it follows some West Virginia losers in their quest to rob a NASCAR race of millions. Channing Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, a man who has lost his job and custody of his child to ex-wife played by Katie Holmes. Consoling himself at a bar with his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), an Iraq War very with a prosthetic limb, they have a run in with British NASCAR driver played by an almost unrecognizable Seth MacFarlane.

From this encounter, they decide to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Memorial Weekend of the Coca Cola 600. Jimmy knows something of the track's internal workings because he was involved in building it. The two brothers along with their sister Mellie (Riley Keough) enlist the help of safecracker Joe Bang played by scene stealer Daniel Craig. There is little doubt that come Oscar time, Craig should be considered for best support actor. The performance is that...bang on.

The rest of the story is a rollicking, full of twists, good times movie and is funny, fast paced despite the two hour running time. There some cameos of some NASCAR drivers for sharp eyed fans. The daughter of Jimmy Logan is played by Farrah MacKenzie and she is one to watch in the future. Hillary Swank plays an FBI agent on the case of this down south robbery but she can't convince anyone of her theory. It is all very clever but not in the way more sophisticated or glamorous heist movies of the past. Only a few strands in the fabric at the very end keep the movie from flawless. However, the humour in the story, the ensemble cast and the direction make this movie and original summer hit.

Trans-Canada Brewing Opening Soon

The number of brew pubs in Winnipeg continues to rise and more and more different areas of the city. The Trans Canada Brewing Company is set to open soon on Kenaston next to Mercedes and across the street from Goodlife Fitness. The building is a former industrial building being converted into unique retail and seems to be well matched for a restaurant as well.

Beer will be brewed and food will be served through Timmy Tom's Pizzeria. A taproom store will also be onsite.

The population in the immediate area is bursting at the seams. The Seasons of Tuxedo site has an enormous residential component on either side of Sterling Lyon Parkway. Meanwhile, further down that same street are seniors resident and other multi-unit homes going up at a dizzying pace.

Beer consumption might not be going up exponentially but people are looking for specialized tastes and are prepared to pay for them. Add a social atmosphere and the crowds will roll in.

The length of Kenaston from Sterling Lyon to Scurfield is a continuous line of retail and commercial businesses. The large business park across the street and behind Trans-Canada Brewing lacks restaurant choices. This should help in that regard,

Look for Trans-Canada Brewing to open soon.

Movie Review: Detroit

Detroit's decline as a city cannot solely blamed on the outcome of the 1967 Detroit Riots but a great of the damage done then ha never been repaired 50 years later. The city reached peak population in 1950 and has dropped ever since. However, following the riots, the white population hit the exit in a panic. It was that frantic.

Racial problems have marked Detroit since World War 2. In 1943, the race riot left 34 people dead and massive destruction in the poorest neighbourhood.  Whites and blacks attacked each other even as the city geared up war production in the city. Southern blacks, Appalachian whites, Europe migrants were brought together by industry but distrust, unfairness and outright racial hatred resulted in the riot and it never went away.

The end of the war and continued industrialization should have helped one of the largest cities in the U.S. but it did not. The Big Three auto makers ramped up production but it all went to the suburbs. Detroit as a city could not annex nor bring in these suburbs into the fold because of Michigan law. Black people were often now allowed to buy property in the suburbs or faced huge opposition.

By 1967, Detroit as city still simmering with racial tension. Only now, it was marked by how many young black men were being sent to Vietnam which was grinding on and ending with funerals on a fairly steady basis. Discrimination by a mainly white and rather brutal police force was the spark to what would become one of the longest and deadliest riots in U.S. history.

It is the 1967 Detroit Riot that forms the basis of a movie simply called Detroit. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty), the events surrounding the Algiers Hotel incident are examined.  Shot in cinema vérité style, documentary footage is woven into a script by Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker).  A police raid on an illegal black bar known as a "blind pig" and the brutality of their action leads to violence and Molotov cocktails on the street. Utter chaos ensues as the city burns and people die by the score in the mayhem. Will Poulter (We're the Millers) plays Phillip Kraus, a racist cop amidst the first days of the riot who shooter a looter in the back.

By the time the National Guard arrives, the city is a shambles and yet things grow even hotter as rioting continues. The Detroit Police continue their crackdown on African Americans. Away from the area of the riots, the city begins to go into hiding mode. It is where we find two friends Fred played Jacob Latimore (Maze Runner) and Larry played by newcomer actor Algee Smith from a singing group that seeks refuge after their concert at the Fox Theater was cancelled due to the curfew. They end up at the west side Algiers Hotel where they flirt with Karen (Kaitlyn Dever) and Julie (Hannah Murray), two white women from Ohio.

The group meets at hotel Annex and meet Vietnam veteran Greene played Anthony Mackie. Over the course of the evening talk turns to the riots and in an act of reckless teen tomfoolery a young man named Carl (Jason Mitchell) fires a starter pistol out the window which brings the full force of a unrestrained law enforcement down on everyone in the hotel annex

The dramatization of what happened is harrowing. Torture, brutality, sexual assault all occur as those in the Annex of the Algiers Hotel are lined up in a hallway and threatened with death. The last main character in the story is Melvin Dismukes played by John Boyega (Star Wars: Force Awakens) who plays an armed security guard who gets caught up in the series of events when he arrives at the hotel with the law. Already a body lies dead in the corridor as proof on the Detroit's Police to find the person who was shooting out the window. Detroit Police, Michigan State Police and National Guard are all present in the hotel at different times during the interrogation and several gunshots are fired by law enforcement. However, it is Kraus played by Will Poulter who leads the chain of events.

By the time the night is over, three men from the hotel lay dead and the rest of the movie follows the arrest, trial and eventual acquittal of the police suspects and the security guard. The performances by the actors makes the horror very real. Come Oscar time a real case can be made for Oscar nods for John Boyega, Algee Smith, Anthony Mackie and Will Poulter.

One danger in the dramatization of a real event is to substitute the movie for some of the facts that actually happened. Case in point is Detroit officer Kraus is an amalgam of possibly two officers. He doesn't exist. The movie admits they have dramatized the events as there are parts of it that only a few people will ever know what really happened. I questioned to myself why the people lined up never admitted to seeing the starter pistol that Carl had. They all seemed prepared to go the grave with that information. The real account was that those being held did tell police about the pistol. It didn't matter. More people died even when that information was conveyed.

The end of the movie mentioned what happened to some of people after the Algiers event. What was missing was what happened to Detroit. Forty-three killed, 1,200 injured, 7,000 arrested and 2,000 buildings burned to the ground. Fifty years later Detroit is still wounded and with it, a lot of America.