The Buzz

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This article was published 18/06/2015 (4050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRAD OSWALD / TV

ABC has sky-high hopes for retro rocket series

AMC enjoyed huge success with its examination of ’60s culture, Mad Men, but not every network that has dabbled in recent-history storytelling has fared so well. ABC’s high-flying drama Pan Am was grounded after just half a season in 2011-12, and NBC’s not-so-swinging The Playboy Club came unstapled after just three episodes that same year. ABC is giving retro-drama another try, in the less-competitive summer season, with The Astronaut Wives Club, a stylish and lightweight-but-likable new soap that premières Thursday, June 18, at 7 p.m. Joanna Garcia Swisher, Yvonne Strahowski and Dominique McElligott lead a strong cast portraying the spouses of the pioneering astronauts in America’s Mercury space program.

 

JILL WILSON / MUSIC

Great Danes

Iceage’s rise to the top of critics’ lists has been anything but glacial. The four young lads from Denmark shot out of the gate with their widely acclaimed debut full-length, New Brigade, winning accolades from Pitchfork, Vice and other taste-making sites. The band’s latest, Plowing Into the Fields of Love, is a step away from the raggedy punk of their early albums, but even though it’s slightly more melodic and refined, it seethes with energy. The quartet plays the Good Will Social Club on Tuesday, June 23. Ticket are $15 at Ticketfly.com.

 

RANDALL KING / MOVIES

Life under President Trump

Now that Donald Trump has officially declared himself a candidate for president, voters may be curious about what the Donald represents to the average working Joe. For answers, check out Anthony Baxter’s 2012 documentary You’ve Been Trumped, depicting Trump’s war on the citizens of Aberdeenshire on the coast of Scotland. Intent on building an environmental disaster of a golf course, Trump essentially declares war on the people who refuse to sell their land to him, cutting off their power, overshadowing one guy’s house with a tower of dirt and, on top of all that, dissing them to the media. Such is Trump’s political power that the film’s director finds himself getting arrested for conducting an interview. So it’s basically a Trump policy paper on land rights, the environment and freedom of the press.

 

BEN MacPHEE-SIGURDSON / BOOKS

Ex-Winnipegger’s book launched posthumously

When she wasn’t playing bass in lauded ’90s indie group Banned From Atlantis, Lisa Smirl was working on a degree in politics and economics at the U of M. Her work paid off: she was awarded a Rhodes scholarship and did grad school studies at Oxford and the London School of Economics, eventually obtaining her PhD from Cambridge and lecturing at the University of Sussex. In February 2013, at age 37, Smirl’s life was cut short by lung cancer, which went long undiagnosed and which she chronicled in a blog leading up to her death. On Sunday, June 21, Smirl’s book Spaces of Aid: How Cars, Compounds and Hotels Shape Humanitarianism will be launched in Winnipeg at the Good Will Social Club at 6 p.m.