February culture picks: Canada at the Oscars, cool picks from IDS and new music

Date January 12, 2011

The designed life

Toronto’s annual Interior Design Show (January 27 to 30, interiordesignshow.com) is a blow-up labyrinth of commercial and sponsor exhibits, indie design experiments and much spectacle in-between. On opening night, 20 one-off Vitra Panton chairs will be up for charity auction, all reimagined by big names like design legend Bruce Mau and fashion darlings Greta Constantine. In an exhibit titled Sibling Revelry, Sarah Richardson dreams up a space with her younger brother, Theo Richardson (who happens to be one-third of the hot N.Y.C. design trio Rich Brilliant Willing), while ladywear designer David Dixon worked with his brother Glenn Dixon, an interior designer. For discoveries, you can’t miss the Studio North exhibit, featuring bright young talent like Montreal graffiti art object–maker Trash Bonbon and Toronto eco-minded, sleight-handed furniture designer Evan Bare. —Sarah Nicole Prickett

Love sounds

Oh, Ron Sexsmith, that lovesick puppy. Always mooning over some girl, he’s like a post-pubescent Justin Bieber with added guitar skills. His new album, Long Player Late Bloomer (Warner Music Canada), promises to go down like freshly squeezed orange juice and champagne in bed. The first single, “Love Shines,” sounds very shiny and love-y indeed. In other perfectly loving news, orchestral pop group Devotchka (behind the Grammy-nominated Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack) will release their fifth record, 100 Lovers, the day after Valentine’s (Anti-Records). Then there’s a new album from Montreal’s Young Galaxy (Paper Bag Records), titled Shapeshifting. If spangly, chanted space jam “Peripheral Visionaries” is any sign, it’ll all sound like love. —Sarah Nicole Prickett

Film forward

It has already won best Canadian feature at the Toronto International Film Festival and best film at the Venice Film Festival. What’s next for the little Quebec film that could? The Oscars, of course. Canada’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards is Incendies, Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the Wajdi Mouawad play about a family drama against a backdrop of war. When their mother dies, a twin brother and sister head out on a quest to an unnamed war-torn Middle Eastern country, searching for a father they thought was dead and a brother they never knew they had. Along the way, they come up against ancestral traditions, complicated religious and political realities and painful memories of violence. —Shirine Saad