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.