Joe Balass

CALORIE - Official Trailer (a film by Eisha Marjara - CompassProductions.ca) with @AnupamPKher Ellora Patnaik, Shanaya Dhillon-Birmhan, Ashley Ganger, Dolly Ahluwalia youtu.be/_OfRfLueijw?si… via @YouTube

This aired on April 13th 1969. Do you recognize these "Hip" Ladies? Those clothes! 😏

Eisha Marjara’s richly textured Calorie stands as a testament to the power of Canadian filmmaking. It will be screened @sundarprize film fest on Apr. 24. @sherpridecanada Learn more @PancouverMedia: pancouver.ca/eisha-marjaras…

Everything I know about fighting lizard men I owe to William Shatner.

CALORIE screening in Mississauga Apr 9th 7PM at Living Arts Centre. "Calorie follows three generations of women whose present and past collide during an emotionally packed summer in India." mississauga.ca/arts-and-cultu… @sauga_LIVE @TIFFFilmCircuit @JoeBalass

t.co/cYOPJ6wC9b Gaspar Noé on Uli Edel's 'Christiane F.' (1981): "We had some film references also in mind when we shot 'Climax' (2018). Like the most unexpected one, probably, is 'Christiane F.' (1981). I re-watched it for the eighth time lately, and it’s a big melodrama, very, very hardcore, with young kids doing drugs and coming to prost!tute themselves to save their love story, but what amazed me when I re-watched the movie was how colourful the movie was, and how well-dressed the characters were. It’s very joyful in terms of colour, in terms of music. The movie is totally dark, and it’s dirty. So I asked both my cinematographer, my production designer – who was repainting all the locations – and my stylist, to be as colourful as they could be, but with scenes that would always look dirty. (...) Really what I liked about 'Christiane F'. was that it was so respectful to every single one of its characters – the movie was, and the director was." (Gaspar Noé's interview with Ben Mortimer, Den of Geek, 2018) P.S: On this day, 45 years ago, "Christiane F" (1981) was released in the USA.

Cher’s outfits reveals on “the cher show”, 1975. It's been almost 50 years, and all of these dresses would still be stunners at a party! Timeless designs

Our society needs more dance offs

David Bowie & Marianne Faithfull performing Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" Live on the Midnight Special, in 1973.

This is "I Feel Love" (1977), the track that literally invented the future of dance music. 💃🌷 Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer wanted the closing track of their concept album to represent the "music of tomorrow," and they ended up creating the original blueprint for techno and house. 🫶🫶

In 1969, Jethro Tull delivered an electrifying rendition of “Bourée” on the French television show La Joconde. The performance reimagined Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Bourrée in E minor” as a swinging, flute-driven exploration that defied genre and era alike.

In Mexico City, Amir Fattal, an artist from Tel Aviv, posted a video of his international exhibition graffitied with Nazi symbols and antisemitic messages. Amir is an artist. He does not control the Israeli government's actions. Once again, this movement against Jews cannot keep its mask on.

Gloria Swanson recalling a silent film scene she did in a lion’s pit for Cecil B DeMille in 1919. Despite the danger, 20-year-old Swanson insisted on performing the scene herself. Male and Female 1919 Gloria Swanson, March 27, 1899 – April 4, 1983

"Carl Theodor Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928) is one of the greatest of all movies. (...) No other film has so subtly linked eroticism with religious persecution. Falconetti’s Joan may be the finest performance ever recorded on film." --- Pauline Kael

One of the oldest jewish communities in the world is in Iran, over 2500 years-old. © jewishtimemachine

Yes. I’m sappy. I grew up with a crush on Robert Redford wishing I could sing like Barbra Streisand. The Way We Were shaped me. It was my first love story. This had me in tears. And boy was she brave to sing. She did it for him. ❤️😢❤️😢❤️

Tonight, we cry tears of joy. 🥹 Congratulations to Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, and to everyone behind THE GIRL WHO CRIED PEARLS, for bringing home the #Oscar for Best Animated Short! 🏆🇨🇦✨ Stream it for free → bit.ly/CriedPearlsNFB @TheAcademy #StreamCanadian #Oscars2026

Mr @MarkJCarney @CitImmCanFR Please inform us: with what type of visa are these regime thugs able to come to Canada, while our beloved family members and friends cannot even obtain a tourist visa to visit us? We are now hearing that senior regime figures are fleeing — and Canada is their destination. This is deeply concerning. #IranRevolution2026‌

the president of Canada‘s leading LGBT advocacy group, Egale, has resigned. She says fellow activists, including Egale’s own board of directors apparently, condone antisemitic terror groups such as Hamas “that would clearly put them [i.e. LGBT] to death if given the opportunity”

From the Editorial Board of the @globeandmail: "The effort to make a peaceful life impossible for Jewish-Canadians is not limited to cowardly shooters in the dead of the night. What, for instance, were three self-described “peace groups” taking aim at when they sought to decertify Jewish children’s sleepover camps across Canada this summer, for the stated reason that the camps support Israel in various ways? At the idea that Jewish-Canadians have a right to enjoy the most ordinary of pleasures, without being compelled to denounce Israel’s right to exist. They didn’t shoot bullets, true. But they took aim at a Canada in which people, all people, can decide on their own identity, without fearing ostracism or disenfranchisement. Cloaked in human-rights language, their demands are a deprivation of basic human rights. Or what about the masked and chanting protesters who waded last fall onto the side streets of a Jewish neighbourhood in Toronto, what were they taking aim at? At the freedom of Jewish-Canadians to go unencumbered about their days – and at Canada as a haven from international conflict, where people live peaceably with one another." theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editor…

On July 3, 1976, Tina Turner waited until her husband, Ike, fell asleep in their Dallas hotel room. Her face was swollen and bruised from another beating. In her pocket were just 36 cents and a Mobil gas card. Nothing more. She slipped out of the Statler Hilton and ran. Not toward a car. Not toward help she could call. She ran straight across Interstate 30, weaving through traffic in the dark, nearly hit by a truck, driven by nothing but survival. On the other side stood the Ramada Inn. The manager recognized her instantly, even through the injuries. He gave her a room on the eleventh floor and placed a guard outside her door. For three days, Tina stayed hidden there, too injured to even eat properly, letting her body begin to heal. Three weeks later, she filed for divorce. When asked what she wanted from sixteen years of marriage, her answer stunned everyone. She wanted nothing except her name. No house. No money. No royalties. Just “Tina Turner.” A name created to control her, now the only thing she could use to rebuild her life. She walked away with debt, an IRS tax lien, and an industry that believed she was finished. Nearly forty years old, a Black woman in a business obsessed with youth, with no ownership of her past music. The odds were stacked brutally against her. But Tina refused to accept defeat. She turned to Nichiren Buddhism, chanting daily for strength. She took every job she could find. Game shows. Hotel lounges. County fairs. Corporate events. She even cleaned houses between performances. While the world called her a has-been, she was quietly reconstructing herself piece by piece. Then came 1984. At forty-four, she released Private Dancer. It changed everything. The album sold more than twenty million copies. “What’s Love Got to Do with It” reached number one, her first solo chart-topper. She won three Grammy Awards in 1985, performed at Live Aid, and starred in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The world finally recognized her as the Queen of Rock and Roll. Her second act lasted decades. Record-breaking tours. Twelve Grammy Awards. Over one hundred million records sold. A career rebuilt entirely on her own terms. And love found her too. Erwin Bach met Tina at an airport in 1986 and never left her side. When her kidneys failed in 2016, he offered her one of his own without hesitation. In 2017, he kept that promise and saved her life. On May 24, 2023, Tina Turner passed away peacefully in Switzerland at the age of eighty-three, with Erwin beside her. She left behind more than music. She left proof. It is never too late to reclaim your life. You can begin again at forty. At fifty. At any age. All it takes is the courage to cross the road. Thirty-six cents. A gas card. And an unbreakable will. That is how legends are made.