Mile End Kicks to open Friday
Mile End Kicks, a movie about the neighbourhood back around 2011 when it was felt to be a hotbed of new pop music and coolness, opens on Friday. Wikipedia says the working title was Anglophone. Descriptions in Le Devoir and La Presse.
Tangentially relevant, the Gazette looks at the disappearance of affordable artist studios, the factor which is probably most responsible for the decline of this city as a creative hub.
MarcG 09:14 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
Pretty harsh that a film set in a Montreal music scene couldn’t pick a local song for the trailer.
PatrickC 09:31 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
Reminds me a bit of Guillaume Morissette’s fine novel New Tab (Véhicule, 2014), set in roughly the same place and time, although its (mostly anglophone) characters would have laughed cynically at the supposed life lesson of the movie, which according to a critics cited in Wikipedia, is about “learning to embrace our love, our anger, and our talent,” thanks to the magic of the neighbourhood.
Kate 11:46 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
Makes me think about that musician in Mile End who was bludgeoned to death by his bandmate with a bass guitar. It wasn’t all wine and roses.
Ian 13:34 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
Artists ate the shock troops of gentrification. People dont have loft parties because they dont like ballrooms.
Cheap studio space in a neighbourhood the cops don’t care about too much is all that is required. A couple of dive bars and a good diner helps. The parasite class like the Kornbluths and Shiller-Lavys of the world will inevitably follow when the desirable/cool boundary approaches, next come the yuppies and chain boutiques.
Ian 13:36 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
*artists are
Lol
Janet 14:23 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
I thought you were supposed to eat the rich.
azrhey 14:33 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
no no no Janet, eat the rich is wrong!
God knows what they are filled with
OTOH, compost the rich…grows tasty strawberries and fragrant tomatoes…
MarcG 15:29 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
If anyone’s looking for a way to support local music, CKUT 90.3FM is currently running their yearly funding drive.
EmilyG 12:03 on 2026-04-19 Permalink
I hope the film doesn’t have any glorification of Arcade Fire. It seems that that band is just somehow facing no consequences for the rotten things their lead singer has done.
Kate 14:37 on 2026-04-19 Permalink
What consequences do you think they should face?
EmilyG 15:57 on 2026-04-19 Permalink
They still sell out concerts, and even were on Saturday night Live I think it was, after the allegations against their lead singer came out. People just still casually mention the band without condemning them.
I wish more people would speak out about the harm they’ve caused. The harm caused by both their lead singer who’s accused of sexual misconduct, and the rest of the band, for condoning his actions by not speaking out against them.
I wish fewer people would go to their concerts and buy/stream their albums. I wish fewer venues would book their concerts (maybe weird to say in our current age, when music venues and live music performance are in danger, but I don’t care how good their music is because sexual misconduct is serious. And I say that as someone in the music business myself.)
I think some radio stations have stopped playing their music. Which is probably the right thing to do, though I don’t know if that’s enough.
I’m aware that I might sound like a vindictive and vengeful person or that I complain too much. Or want to “censor” or “cancel” people. I guess I just wish there were consequences for sexual misconduct, when it just seems to be business as usual for Arcade Fire. Which implies that that kind of behaviour is okay.
I do what I can about the situation, and speak up about it. I’ve found that there are actually people who didn’t know about the allegations. If you want to read more, there’s this article here: https://therover.ca/opinion-arcade-fires-rotten-legacy/
Kate 17:54 on 2026-04-19 Permalink
I never followed the story in great detail, but it sounded like Win Butler took advantage of fangirls, as rock stars have been doing for decades. It isn’t admirable, but we’ve seen so many men leveraging their fame, wealth, social position, to get younger women into the sack – can we expect the front man of a mildly popular band to be more saintly than them? Or did Butler present himself as a more decent man than most, therefore the disillusion is worse?
I don’t know how his colleagues could condemn him without bringing an end to the band – which perhaps you’d feel only appropriate, I don’t know.
EmilyG 18:06 on 2026-04-19 Permalink
Yes, there has generally been a culture of taking advantage of fangirls in the past, though that seems to be somewhat changing these days.