Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 27, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE C3 W HEN the locally filmed TVwestern series The Pinkertons has its Canadian premi�re this week, only certain Winnipeg viewers will be able to see it. Which raises a question: who fares better in the exchange - subscribers to MTS- TV and Shaw Direct ( satellite), who can watch The Pinkertons , or local customers of Shaw Cable, who cannot? The direct- to- syndication series' Canadian home is the Hamilton- based independent channel CHCH, which is carried on MTS- TV and Shaw Direct, but is not currently part of Shaw Cable's roster. And while there's sure to be a lot of local interest in the series because it's being shot in and around Winnipeg, as contemporary TV westerns go, The Pinkertons is an uninspired effort. Produced under an unconventional business model, in which the series was offered directly to U. S. stations as a first- run syndicated show - meaning it's purchased and aired by individual local stations rather than being part of a network's program roster - The Pinkertons began airing across the U. S. in October and has its Canadian debut tonight at 7 on CHCH. The hour- long drama, as its title suggests, follows the crime- solving exploits of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which was founded in Chicago in 1850 and used innovative techniques and massive manpower to solve crimes in the pioneering years of the American West. The series focuses specifically on the detective work of William Pinkerton ( Jacob Blair), son of company founder Allan Pinkerton ( played, in a recurring role, by Scottish actor Angus Macfadyen); the younger Pinkerton is stationed in Kansas City, seemingly more concerned with drinking and carousing than gathering clues and cracking cases. Allan Pinkerton arrives in Kansas City with a new investigator in tow - Kate Warne ( Martha MacIsaac), a headstrong young widow with a knack for solving mysteries and an appetite for danger. William, of course, is upset by the pair's intrusion, and furious at the thought he might be forced to take orders from a woman. Within the Pinkerton agency, however, Allan's word is law, so William and Kate are forced to form an uneasy alliance, and it turns out they actually work pretty well together. The series premi�re focuses on a race- against- time effort to track down a band of bushwhackers - former Confederate soldiers who have moved into the train- robbing business - before they can carry out a plan which, by 21st- century standards, would be considered a terrorist plot. The second instalment has a more straightforward murder- investigation storyline, involving saloon- keepers, bootleggers and feuding business partners, but what it shares with the series opener is a lack of narrative complexity and a completely antiseptic depiction of Old West life. In an era that has offered TV viewers western yarns with the grit and intensity of Deadwood and Hell on Wheels , it's hard to imagine anyone feeling fully drawn into The Pinkertons , whose storylines, general atmosphere and level of period- detail authenticity might place it somewhere between a Nancy Drew mystery movie and an episode of Murdoch Mysteries . If your interest in The Pinkertons lies in seeing how familiar local places and faces factor into its episodes, watching this might prove rewarding, but beyond that, reasons for investing your preciously limited viewing time in this series over the long haul are so hard to find not even the Pinkertons themselves could detect them. brad. oswald@ freepress. mb. ca Twitter: @ BradOswald winnipegfreepress. com ENTERTAINMENT WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2015 C 3 CITY BEAUTIFUL HOW ARCHITECTURE SHAPED WINNIPEG'S DNA The Winnipeg Free Press series City Beautiful - an exploration of Winnipeg's rich history of brick, stone, pride and progress - IS NOW A BOOK A WARD- WINNING writer Randy Turner interviewed architects, historians and authors to tell the story of Winnipeg through its buildings - some still standing, some not - over the last century; from the wild expectations of the early 1900s, through the search for identity of the 1960s, to today, where many believe the city is going through an architectural renaissance. $ 29.95 plus GST and shipping where applicable C I T Y B E A U T I F U L .. C H A P T E R 3 HUTS, CUBES AND TOWERS OF HOPE 83 A NTOINE Predock kept craning his head skyward. " Look up," he implored. " Look up." Predock was perched on the white translucent alabaster ramps that criss- cross up the Hall of Hope, his signature artistic brush strokes of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. When lit, the ramps illuminate - a metaphor for the museum itself - and lead visitors up the spiral staircase to the observation deck overlooking the skyline in the historic heart of Winnipeg. It's a journey to the Tower of Hope that begins in an entranceway slightly beneath ground level; from earth to sky. Or, in the description of Predock, " a cloud wrapping a mountain." OUR RENAISSANCE ANTOINE PREDOCK The translucent alabaster ramps that criss- cross up the Hall of Hope are among the signature designs by CMHR architect Antoine Predock. COMING OF AGE FUNCTION, FACADES AND FADING FAIRY TALES 39 T HEY called it the Gingerbread City Hall. Actually, they called it a lot of things: ugly; amusing; majestic; a monstrosity; a " Victorian fantasy." Winnipeg's second city hall, a storybook structure erected in 1886, was the pride of a fledgling Prairie metropolis wannabe. Designed by brothers Charles A. and Earl W. Barber, the building design culminated with a central clock tower that rose above four surrounding turrets, with an outer coating of red brick with cream stone and terracotta trim. The eclectic nature of the building, according to descriptions, was Romanesque, slightly Islamic, with a flavour of Eastern European. " It was built at a time when artistic taste all over the world reached an unbelievable low." - British architectural historian Alec Clifton- Taylor Reviews were mixed - Winnipeg's Gingerbread City Hall was either a ' Victorian fantasy' or a monstrosity. By the 1950s, most agreed it was a tottering eyesore that needed to be demolished. GREAT EXPECTATIOONNSS W INNIPEG, April 1911: Michael Hrushka had $ 42 in his pocket when the train pulled into the Canadian Pacific Railroad Station on Higgins Avenue. He was 16 years old, with no waiting friends, no family and no concept of the English language. A 16,000- kilometre journey from his home in a Ukrainian village had left Hrushka at the dusty doorstep of a place called Winnipeg. Along with his teenage friend, Wasyl, they departed the station and stepped into a new world, near the corner of Higgins and Main Street, with full hearts and empty bellies. Confused. Scared. Wondering if he should have heeded his mother's pleas to postpone leaving home until he was older, Hrushka sat down on a street corner to get his bearings. Famished from a four- day train ride from northern Ontario, they shared their meagre fare: stale bread, kovbasa and the last hunk of " budz," a cheese made from sheep's milk. C I T Y B E A U T I F U L .. C H A P T E R 1 BRICK, STEEL, HEART AND SOUL AVAILABLE AT - MCNALLY ROBINSON BOOKSELLERS, CHAPTERS, COLES, INDIGO AND THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS To order your copy sent to you: winnipegfreepress. com/ order OR CALL LINDA AT 204- 697- 7510 MANITOBA ASSOCIATION OF ARCHITECTS Celebrating 100 years 144- page hard cover coffee table book J ANUARY used to be a dead zone for live music in Winnipeg. Only the bravest of bands would hit the Trans- Canada and only the most dedicated fans would show up to see them. The urge to hibernate is strong. But that didn't stop a crew of enterprising young Winnipeg music lovers from organizing a music festival during the worst month of the year. Now heading into its fourth year, Big Fun - which is named after the fake band in 1988' s cult- classic film Heathers - was inspired by successful urban music festivals such as Calgary's Sled Island and Pop Montreal. Stefan Braun, who is one of Big Fun's founding artistic directors, along with David Schellenberg, Lauren Swan and Aaron Johnston, volunteered at Pop Montreal for a couple years and thought a similar model could work in Winnipeg. And it has. Paid attendance in 2014 was 1,800 - a figure that may skew low as it doesn't include attendance at the festival's free shows or media, sponsors or artists attending as guests. Schellenberg anecdotally noticed a small dip in attendance last year, owing to 2014' s winter from hell. " Some shows we thought would be huge weren't as big as we thought they'd be," Schellenberg says, citing gig by Toronto's Metz as an example. " But any time people show up to our events, we're still wide- eyed." ( The team behind the festival has expanded a little as well; Ken Prue is now among Big Fun's organizational ranks, as Johnston had to step back a bit.) Forty- four bands are performing at various venues throughout the heart of the city from Jan. 28 through Feb. 1, making this year's Big Fun the biggest yet. That's roughly double 2012' s inaugural lineup. " It's just natural growth," Schellenberg says. " More bands are interested in playing." Winnipeg noise rock trio KEN mode, Saskatchewan singer- songwriter Andy Shauf and Operators, the new analogue electropop project from Wolf Parade/ Divine Fits/ Handsome Furs' Dan Boeckner, are among the festival's headlining acts. The rest of the lineup is filled in some of the most buzzedabout fresh faces from the local music scene, such as neo- shoegaze duo Basic Nature and ambient electro act Baba Yaga. This year's Big Fun is also shining a spotlight on the city's burgeoning noise rock scene, with acts such as Conduct, the Party Dress, Lukewarm and Tunic all taking the stage at various points during the weekend. Although headliners are curated in advance, Big Fun is mostly submission- based. Schellenberg estimates the festival received 200 applications this year. " And we listen to every single band," he says. ( Spirited debates and discussions are not uncommon among the organizers.) There is some repetition to be found within the lineups from year to year, despite the organizers' best efforts to avoid it. Headliners are allowed to handpick their own opening acts, which can lead to overlap; Tunic, for example, is playing again this year at KEN mode's behest, while this will be the third Big Fun for Winnipeg indie folk outfit Yes We Mystic, which is playing the Manitoba Music showcase on Jan. 31 at the Good Will alongside loop- pedal experimentalist Rayannah and Slow Leaves, the recording project of singer- songwriter Grant Davison. " I hate repeating acts, but sometimes a certain band is the best option," Schellenberg says. Still, the submission- based model is useful. Acts don't fall off the organizers' radar just because they don't make it into the lineup. " They might be a good fit for programming we do during the year," says Schellenberg, who also books talent for the Good Will and is a co- artistic director for the Harvest Moon Festival. And although the submission process is labour- intensive, it's fun. " It's that sense of discovery," Schellenberg says. " You think you have a handle on the scene, but there's always new bands." . . . Running alongside the Big Fun Festival is Manitoba Music's January Music Meeting, a three- day conference that includes panels, workshops, discussion groups and one- on- one meetings with professionals from label, agency, management, festival, publishing, and publicity sides of the music industry. Invited panellists include Burnt Tree Entertainment's Jason Burns ( Hey Rosetta!, Rich Aucoin); Bumstead Productions' Tim Des Islets ( the Trews, Poor Young Things); Vapor Music's Heather Gardner; the Agency Group's Darcy Gregoire ( Bobby Bazini, Current Swell); Core Music Agency's Matt Safran ( Ben Mink, Jesse Zubot); RGK Entertainment Group/ Road Angel Entertainment's Jill Snell ( Corb Lund, Paul Brandt); BreakOut West's Robyn Stewart; Paquin Entertainment Group's Michelle Szeto ( Del Barber, Buffy Sainte- Marie); and MROC's Julia Train. Space is limited and those interested are encouraged to register at training@ manitobamusic. com or 204- 942- 8650. jen. zoratti@ freepress. mb. ca By Jen Zoratti Festival Preview Big Fun . Jan. 28- Feb. 1 . Various venues . Passes $ 60 at Ticketworkshop. com; individual tickets range in price from $ 10 to $ 15 Music fest blows away midwinter blahs CHRIS GRAHAM PHOTO Regina's Andy Shauf, purveryor of piano- clarinet pop, plays Big Fun on Wednesday at the Ballroom, 218 Roslyn Road. By Brad Oswald Locally shot TV series turns Wild West into mild west TV Review The Pinkertons . Starring Martha MacIsaac, Jacob Blair and Angus Macfadyen . Tonight at 7 p. m. . CHCH- TV ( on MTS- TV and Shaw Direct) �s �s out of five ROSETTA MEDIA/ BUFFALO GAL PICTURES From left, Angus Macfadyen, Martha MacIsaac and Jacob Blair. SCAN PAGE TO SEE VIDEO FOR COLD LIGHT BY OPERATORS C_ 03_ Jan- 27- 15_ FP_ 01. indd C3 1/ 26/ 15 5: 50: 26 PM ;