Artists must battle inner, outer critics

Dazed and confused stoner comedy hard to get right

Stoner comedy has always been kind of a dude thing. Think of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Cheech & Chong, Ice Cube’s Friday franchise, Harold & Kumar, basically any movie with the young Seth Rogen.

Screenwriter Dylan Meyer (Moxie) provides a much-needed gender swap in her directorial debut, giving us Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat as ride-or-die roommates Frankie and Molly. Dipping in and out of the gig economy and perpetually broke, they share their Los Angeles bungalow with two cats, a life-size cardboard cutout of Celine Dion and an enormously complicated “bong-a-tron” that takes up most of the living room.

Finally, finally, it’s women who get to be messy, aimless and really high.

Unfortunately, stoner movies — no matter the gender — are surprisingly hard to get right. The Wrong Girls is sweet and shaggy and intermittently funny, but Meyer ends up struggling with the genre’s common buzzkills.

‘No CUSMA, no booze-ma’: Kinew

With the next round of tariffs set to hit Canadian goods next week, and a new report suggesting Manitobans could be severely impacted if the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement on trade breaks down, Premier Wab Kinew pledged Wednesday to keep working with the U.S. ambassador — and keep American booze off Manitoba shelves, for now.

Making the right move on rail lines

It’s a familiar sound in Winnipeg.

(No, not sirens, which are now almost a constant.)

It’s the 3 a.m. distant and lonesome train horn, the sound of a train crew working through the night hours, the horn giving its warning at level crossings. Some Winnipeggers hear far more: when the night is still enough, they can hear the rhythmic “tap-tap, tap-tap” of rail wheels on the tracks as long trains thread through the city.

Sounds romantic, in its own way. Unless, of course, the romance is close enough to your bedroom window to wake you up.

PCs say Hutterite colonies singled out by Bill 21

SOURIS — Members of Hutterite colonies in the province took aim at the NDP government’s proposed changes to drinking water legislation during a public meeting Thursday in Souris.

The meeting was hosted by Progressive Conservative MLA Colleen Robbins (Spruce Woods) to hear from rural residents about their concerns over Bill 21, which the government says will improve oversight on wells and other water systems in the province.

“There’s not enough clarity, but I feel that the overreach that this bill will bring is not clearly defined, and it could have a lot of negative consequences,” attendee Gilbert Hofer, a member of Green Acres colony near Wawanesa, said after the meeting, which drew about 20 people.

The legislation would allow public health officers to designate the type of water source based on its intended use, water quality and use duration rather than solely the number of connections it has.

Artists must battle inner, outer critics

You have probably noticed the new giant banner hanging on the outside of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. It depicts a painting, a portrait of a man in a brilliant blue hood, by the artist Karel Funk. The gallery is mounting an exhibition of Funk’s realistic paintings — and to me, the banner seems celebratory. Spring is here, and paintings by a world-class artist, who happens to be from Winnipeg, will soon be on display.

This Friday, Funk will join artist Elvira Finnigan at the Winnipeg Free Press News Café. Both artists will speak about their work, but more than that, they will discuss the various pressures — both internal and external — that shape their professional lives.

Doubt and uncertainty, for example, are never far off — even when a giant banner with your name on it is flapping in the breeze. The spectre of failure haunts every new effort. And the art world, for all its efforts to help artists succeed, can be a real source of anxiety. Really, it is something of a miracle most art even gets made.

Finnigan works with salt, purposely employing the mineral’s metaphors. She stages elaborate meals, and drowns the leftovers in a warm salt brine to preserve and memorialize the occasion. As days and weeks pass, the brine’s water evaporates. Lacy white patterns form on the tablecloth. Serving dishes and goblets transform into strangely beautiful crystalline sculptures. The table settings become otherworldly, seeming to pause time.

Strike mandate for Dynacare workers

Nearly 350 laboratory technicians and technologists at Dynacare’s 22 laboratory and health services centres in Manitoba have voted in favour of a strike.

The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents the employees, said in a news release that 99 per cent of members who voted supported going on strike. A strike notice has not been served to the employer. If and when that occurs, the union is required to give two weeks’ notice.

The collective agreement between the union and Dynacare ended March 31. Negotiations between the parties began in February and they have been in mediation since July 15. They’ve been unable to reach a tentative agreement through mediation, and there are no further bargaining or mediation dates scheduled, the union said in a news release.

Dynacare became Manitoba’s only private outpatient provider for laboratory services in 2017, after purchasing competitor Unicity Labs. The union said Manitoba government records show Dynacare members completed more than 15 million laboratory tests in the 2024-25 fiscal year.