The Montreal podcast that asks the folks behind the World’s Smallest Comedy Festival 4: Would you rather have $200 or $20 sunglasses? That question asked by Pat Guay back in episode 339.

If you’re a listener of the Go Plug Yourself podcast you really should already be a fan of the World’s Smallest Comedy Night – and guess what? The fine folks behind the World’s Smallest Comedy Night are back for the 4th edition of the World’s Smallest Comedy Festival. Walter J. Lyng, Troy Stark and Dan Carin join me at the back of Grumpy’s to talk about Prince Edward Island, the storied career of Weird Al Yankovic, live streaming comedy at a candy factory and of course the 4th Edition of the World’s Smallest Comedy Festival which kicks off this Monday at Hurley’s Irish Pub in the heart of downtown Montreal. For more information about the lineup and tickets head to worldssmallest.club now and in the meantime sit back, relax and Go Plug Yourself.

Enjoy the show and head out to the World’s Smallest Comedy Festival’s 4 Edition!

As always, a big thank you to the providers of our theme song: Leighland Beckman and Aural Turpitude!

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and sometimes blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

Lawrence Corber also produces some shows you may have heard of (you should probably check out the next Healthy Living show when you get a chance) and if you’re close with him you can call him Lully. The other way to call him “Lully” is to follow him on his socials. @Lully514 on Instagram.

Walter J. Lyng is a stand-up comedian based out of Montreal, you should follow him on Twitter @wallygoodtimes and on Facebook: Walter J. Lyng

Sarah is somehow still @femalewalter on Instagram. Follow her for pictures of our dogs and sometimes she remembers to post about all the arts and entertainment we take in all year long.

Troy Stark is yet another amazing Montreal comedian and promoter who indulges me in co-hosting this wonderful little show of ours. You can catch him pretty often at the World’s Smallest Comedy Night and Cheap Laughs at Rustik Pub, both of which he produces.

The post GPYS 340: World’s Smallest Comedy Festival 4 appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

Festival season is wrapping up and we’re finishing off our Fantasia coverage with three more movies.

Sarah checked out the world premiere of The Last Footage, Myanmar’s found-footage horror from writer-director-editor Arkar Soe Oo. It’s shot entirely in first-person through a pair of camera glasses, plays out in near-real time, and follows a group of friends heading to an inherited rubber plantation that turns out to be significantly more haunted than expected. Classic horror tropes, not much gore, no score leads to almost documentary-style tension. Perfect Friday-night watch if you’re into that Blair Witch-adjacent vibe and don’t mind a little cheese.

I caught the Canadian premiere of The Peril at Pincer Point from Jake Kuhn and Noah Stratton-Twine. Grainy black-and-white, early-2000s energy, and the entire thing is basically an elaborate inside joke about sound recording and indie film-making. A London sound designer gets sent to a crab-infested island to capture the perfect audio for some pretentious indie horror and ends up mind chasing ghost noises and angelic vocals. The actual sound design is excellent (as it better be), the runtime is breezy, and it feels like watching your friends make a movie that only they find hilarious. Hardcore Fantasia weirdos only.

Then we both watched the Canadian premiere of The Galactic Ghoul, Simon Harrisson’s gloriously low-budget space-opera goof starring Vincent Hoss-Desmarais in two roles and Ginger Snaps legend Katharine Isabelle as evil intergalactic royalty. Hardware-store costumes, over-the-top camp acting, and the kind of cheesy practical effects that only work when the entire movie is committed to the bit. Best experienced with a group of people who refuse to take anything seriously for 85 minutes. Sarah was less convinced. The rest of us had a blast.

See you next year at Fantasia International Film Festival!

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

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It’s… it’s… over? It’s over.

Just like that Osheaga 2026 has come and gone. Sarah and I made it out to all 3 days despite a broken leg and saw nearly 20 acts. Getting around the festival site was relatively easy while pushing Sarah around in a wheelchair so we managed to make the most of it. No afterparties this year though. We’re not THAT hardcore.

So here it is, the breakdown of the many highs and very few lows of this year’s edition of Osheaga and as always we take a stab at who just might be headlining next year’s historic 20th edition. Fun fact: we’ve basically never been right with any of these predictions but that’s gotta change one of these years doesn’t it? Seriously, I’m really thinking next year is the year the Foo Fighters return to Osheaga. Let’s manifest it together.

The 20th Edition of Osheaga will take place from July 30th to August 1st 2027 and you can get your earlybird tickets right now if you’re so inclined.

Enjoy the show and see you next year at Osheaga!

All audio clips are copyright of their respective owners and used solely with the intention of promoting and editorial previewing Osheaga.

Our intro song is Paradise Engineering (instrumental) by YACHT and is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

Sarah is somehow still @femalewalter on Instagram. Follow her for pictures of our dogs and sometimes she remembers to post about all the arts and entertainment we take in all year long.

The post Osheaga Podcast (Unofficial) 2026: The Comedown appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

Sarah and I are still at it for the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. Healing is pain, as Sarah keeps reminding me, but we’re still getting out to movies.

On July 29th we actually split up because two interesting films were screening at the same time. Sarah decided to go full intellectual and catch the documentary. I went for the zombies-in-a-mall option. Both were worth talking about.

First up is Colony, the latest from Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan). A bioterrorist unleashes a fungal-style zombie virus inside a big Seoul office-mall complex that gets locked down. The infected have a hive mind and keep evolving, which gives the usual siege setup some fresh wrinkles. Gianna Jun plays a sharp professor who’s basically the Ripley of the piece — competent, figuring things out on the fly, holding it together. It’s action-packed, loaded with practical effects, and looks more expensive than it likely was. At just over two hours it does throw in a few extra speed bumps that maybe weren’t needed, but if you like high-octane zombie movies in the 28 Days Later vein, this is an easy recommendation.

Sarah, meanwhile, saw Black Zombie, a Canadian-Haitian co-production documentary about the actual origins of the zombie. It starts with Haitian voodoo culture and the plantation history, then tracks how the concept mutated through early cinema (White Zombie), Romero, and into the modern biochemical versions we know today. It also digs into how Western pop culture has pretty thoroughly misrepresented and vilified voodoo along the way. Slash from Guns N’ Roses even shows up as one of the talking heads. Educational, well-made, and especially interesting if you’ve ever wondered why “zombie” can mean so many different things depending on the movie. Bilingual and an easy watch for anyone who likes docs about horror genres.

Two very different films about zombies, both solid. We’ll keep going as long as the festival (and Sarah’s leg) allows.

Go see some Fantasia.

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

The post 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia: Colony & Black Zombie appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

If you haven’t seen the clip of Tommaso Ciampa pulling a Bobby Orr jersey out of a trash can in the middle of a hardcore match at AEW Redemption then you can probably go ahead and do that now.

Or don’t. (That’s what they call a “callback“).

AEW had their first pay-per-view in Montreal and I was happy to have made it out. Seeing Kenny Omega hit the One-Winged Angel in the middle of the Bell Centre is kind of like the wrestling equivalent to seeing Sidney Crosby score an OT game winner live. We spend the first half of the episode giving a rundown of the whole PPV so fair warning there.

You know who else was in town this weekend? The one and only Weird Al Yankovic. Jono took his kid to see him at Just for Laughs and endured a massive crowd and a run of openers who apparently thought working blue in front of a family-friendly parody legend was a solid booking choice.

Meanwhile Scott’s been watching Ride or Die on Prime and is fully on board with Hannah Waddingham as a tall, terrifying spy who still has a best friend who has no idea she kills people for a living. Scott’s take that it’s basically the first half of Kingsman if Kingsman didn’t get stupid is a pretty interesting endorsement tbh.

Hey. You.

We don’t run ads at 9ES since ads suck, but we do have a Patreon to help cover our hosting costs. Head over there to get access to over 150 episodes of Garbage Time our bonus show and now there’s new ways to support us. You can still subscribe to the “I Love 9ES” level to get access to every episode of Garbage Time but we know a recurring monthly subscription can be a pain so if you want to listen to just ONE episode of Garbage Time you can now do so!

Every episode of Garbage Time is available for purchase individually in our Patreon Shop so if a particular episode sounds like fun you can now just grab that one episode and not worry about recurring monthly costs.

There’s more! We’ll be curating the back catalog of Garbage Time to make collections at special prices. The first collection is out now and collects the 5 episodes where we went over Rolling Stone’s Top 150 Sci-Fi Films.

Anyways, on the latest episode of Garbage Time we talk about everything that got announced at Comic-Con, the weirdness of 70 mm IMAX screens, and a little bit about The Odyssey which, full disclosure, we haven’t seen yet.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

The post 9ES 368: Jon Wants To Talk About Weird Al appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

Sarah and I are still grinding deep within the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. We’re not getting to as many screenings as we’d like (broken leg will do that), but we’re still hitting a solid mix of the classic Fantasia checkboxes.

Fresh episode of 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia is up, and this one covers two strong ones.

First is The Mouths, the North American premiere from Takashi Shimizu. Classic Japanese horror setup: a cursed tree outside a cemetery, a group of teens daring each other to touch it for a courage test, and then the usual (and very well-executed) fallout. Hollow eyes, streaky hair, excellent practical makeup and effects. The film is framed as a series of first-person accounts given to an investigating officer, which lets it play with both the supernatural side and the interpersonal drama between the characters. It leans into that familiar “you kind of brought this on yourself” Japanese horror energy. If you like the original Ju-On or Ringu, this is an easy recommendation. Short, breezy, and does the genre proud.

Then we get to the one that might be my favorite film of the festival so far (and one of my favorites of the year): I Love Paris. World premiere. It’s an underground music-scene mockumentary that happens to have vampires in it. Think What We Do in the Shadows energy, but less cartoonish and more grounded in the actual Parisian music world. Paris (played by Aminata Thiboult, who is fantastic) is an up-and-coming French artist who becomes a vampire mostly by accident and then has to figure out how to still chase a festival slot when she can only work at night. The vampire lore is kept deliberately light — no super strength, no fancy courts, just the inconvenience of living forever and needing blood. The music-scene side is so strong it could almost stand alone as a comedy about trying to make it. Bilingual, full of very French humor, and the main performance is a delight.

Two very different vibes, both worth your time if you’re hunting down movies off the beaten path.

We’ll keep watching. You keep listening. Go see some Fantasia films.

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

The post 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia: The Mouths & I Love Paris appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

Sarah and I are well into the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. The fest runs until August 2nd, and we’re doing our best to catch as many films as possible while keeping these chats spoiler-light and pretty honest.

This time around we covered three very different movies. Sarah still refers to them as “the baby one,” “the black and white one,” and “the indigenous one,” which somehow works.

First up is Nightborn (Finnish title Yön lapsi), directed by Hanna Bergholm and starring Rupert Grint. A young couple moves into her grandmother’s old cottage in the Finnish countryside, hoping to start a family. Things get tense fast. It’s a folklore-flavored take on the “is the baby evil or is the mother losing it” setup, full of constant baby crying that acts like its own soundtrack. Super effective, really stressful, and a solid cozy-horror watch if you’re into that vibe. Easy recommend, especially once it hits Shudder.

Next is Godhead from Mark H. Rapaport (who brought HIPPO to Fantasia before). This one’s a striking black-and-white film about two eccentric twins who show up claiming to be prophets and put a priest in a brutal moral bind. The cinematography is gorgeous — every frame looks intentional. Sarah watched this one solo and had mixed feelings. She liked the setup and the look, but the dialogue and performances felt a bit theatrical and didn’t fully land for her. It’s interesting, just not a slam dunk.

Finally we get to Ancestral Beasts, the world premiere from Tim Riedel. An Indigenous woman leaves the city for her auntie’s rural cabin, looking for some peace. What starts as a quiet character piece slowly builds into something much more unsettling. Think generational trauma and grief given a horror twist, with strong practical effects and a slow-burn “is this real or is this her mind?” tension that pays off really well. Solid Canadian horror with a clear point of view. Worth seeking out.

More movies coming soon. Go see some Fantasia.

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

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It’s once again time for Go Plug Yourself and our Osheaga podcast series to have what has become their annual crossover episode!

We asked Pat (among many other things): Where are the best fries and pizza in Montreal? That question was asked by Abby Stonehouse & Dawn McSweeney back in episode 349.

Patrick Guay from evenko returns to talk about all the ins and outs of booking festivals like Osheaga, Lasso and Ile Soniq. It’s a great chat where we talk about some memorable concerts, the changing landscape of live music and so much more. It’s a must-listen if you’re a music fan in Montreal, sit back, relax, go plug yourself and see you at Osheaga on July 31st.

Osheaga runs from July 31st to August 2nd at Parc Jean Drapeau. Check out osheaga.com for more info and tickets.

All audio clips are copyright of their respective owners and used solely with the intention of promoting and editorial previewing Osheaga.

Our intro song is Paradise Engineering (instrumental) by YACHT and is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

Sarah is somehow still @femalewalter on Instagram. Follow her for pictures of our dogs and sometimes she remembers to post about all the arts and entertainment we take in all year long.

The post Patrick Guay (evenko) Returns – Osheaga Podcast 2026 / Go Plug Yourself 340 appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

Sarah and I are still deep in the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival here in Montreal.

It’s time for the second episode of 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia. As usual, we’re keeping it loose, chatting about the movies we’ve seen, and trying not to spoil anything big. Our dog Clementine made us do a few extra takes again, but we got there.

In this episode we talk about two very different Canadian premieres. First up is After School (also known as Straf), a Dutch dark comedy directed by Merijn Scholte Albers and Tobias Smeets. It follows Edwin (Rutger de Bekker), a music teacher who’s a total pushover and gets himself into deeper and deeper trouble after a bad decision with a nightmare student. It’s super tense, cringe-inducing in the best way, and genuinely one of the funniest straight comedies we’ve seen in a while. There’s a second screening on July 25th so you still have a chance to see it at Fantasia.

Then we get into Dance Freak, from Alan Resnick and Robby Rackleff. This one’s a lot weirder — high-contrast black-and-white surreal absurdity with a ton of practical effects. Underground internet comedy vibes from the 2010s turned into a feature length film. If you’re into the wild late-night Adult Swim shorts (think Unedited Footage of a Bear, Too Many Cooks, etc), Mike Diva stuff, or Sarah Sherman’s SNL sketches, this might be your jam. I was cracking up; Sarah was mostly just staring at me wondering what the hell I was laughing at. It’s definitely not for everybody, but I had a great time with its pure absurdity.

We’ve got more screenings coming up and more episodes on the way. If you’re at Fantasia, come say hi. If not, throw this on while you’re figuring out your schedule.

Go see some Fantasia films kids.

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

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Sarah and I are back for the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival (July 16th to August 2nd).

We have turned our usual post-movie rambling once again into a podcast this year, so welcome to 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia 2026. Each episode we’ll chat about the films we catch, share what we thought and give you honest reviews and opinions of the films we saw.

We kick things off with You Are the Film, the North American premiere from Makoto Ueda (the screenwriter of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes). It’s a short, super breezy time-bendy movie that plays with reality in clever ways. We both loved the small-cast energy, the quirky humor, and how it keeps surprising you even after you think you’ve figured out the rules. Sarah’s takeaway about the weird cafe order may be the best part of her review.

Sarah checked out Tight Lettuce, a world premiere she caught solo. It’s a raw, funny, and sometimes heavy look at a grown son and his dad’s complicated relationship, with addiction in the mix. Really strong performances, especially the dad played by Emmanuel Bilodeau. An amazing standout of Quebecois cinema.

We recorded the whole thing in our usual back-and-forth style (complete with Clementine barking and forcing a second take). It’s loose, honest, and exactly how we talk about movies in real life.

So throw the episode on while you’re waiting in line or planning your schedule. We’ve got more films coming soon.

Go see some Fantasia.

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

The post 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia 2026: You Are The Film & Tight Lettuce appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).