Results tagged “normanmclaren”

MUSIC: Following a slough of successful shows at SXSW last week, New Zealand rockers Cut Off Your Hands will be playing at the Horseshoe Tavern tonight. Both Rolling Stone and Pitchfork have given these guys the seal of approval, so this is definitely one worth checking out (just so you can say you "saw them back when" and stuff). Joining them are Toronto's Boys Who Say No. Horseshoe Tavern (370 Queen Street West), 9 p.m., $12.

Could it be that Junior Boys and their atmospheric chill are trying to find a home in this city's summer-craving heart? Loved harder in further reaches of the globe-via-blog than in their own stomping grounds (which, if we must admit, are technically in Hamilton), the Polaris- and Grammy-nominated duo return today with Begone Dull Care, out on Domino Records.

Torontoist was very saddened to learn of yesterday's passing of Canadian animation legend Ryan Larkin.

Between the groundbreaking (and Oscar-nominated) Walking in 1969 and his equally revolutionary follow-up, Street Musique, three years later, Ryan Larkin cemented his status as among the most daring and brilliant animators of his time, taking hand-drawn animation to a previously-unseen level of surreal impressionism. He was the rising star of the NFB, the protégé of, and successor to, Norman McLaren, but the pressure to top his earlier triumphs exacerbated his already-present problems with drug- and alcohol-dependency. He left the NFB in 1978, and after a "hazy" decade during which he managed to get himself off of cocaine, Larkin took up panhandling outside (the greatest restaurant in the world) Schwartz's deli in Montréal. This tragic fall from grace was chronicled in Chris Landreth's excellent 2004 Academy Award-winner for Best Animated Short, Ryan, which renewed attention on Larkin, who nevertheless chose to continue his long stint on The Main.

Our boy reporter called him "arguably the greatest Canadian animator ever" after viewing the Best of Norman McLaren during the Toronto International Film Festival, so you might be interested to see that starting tonight the NFB are celebrating 65 years of animation production with nightly, free of charge events.

Probably the best thing you can say to any artist is that their work remains relevant and surprising regardless of age. For the most part this is the case with the work of Canadian animator Norman McLaren. Born in Scotland but working for most of his life with the NFB, McLaren was arguably the greatest Canadian animator ever and a natural choice for an NFB retrospective celebrating not only his work but the 65th anniversary of the film board's animation unit.