National Ballet and comedic absurdity
MONDAY
The Little Drummer Girl
Watch this if: You’re optimistic that AMC and John le Carré will go two for two. Advance episodes of this spy drama didn’t make it to the Star’s newsroom, but we’re recommending it in the hope it will share some of the quality of The
Night Manager, the previous AMC-BBC co-production of a le Carré thriller. Certainly, the cast of this one is reputable — based on le Carré’s 1983 novel of the same name — with Alexander Skarsgard ( Big Little Lies) as spy handler Becker, Michael Shannon ( The Shape of Water) as spy master Kurtz and Florence Pugh ( Lady Macbeth) as young British actressturned-spy Charlie. Korean auteur Chanwook Park ( Oldboy, The Handmaiden) directs. (AMC at 9 p.m.) —Debra Yeo
TUESDAY
Kaia Kater
Watch this because: She’s got far more than an Appalachia-schooled banjo in her arsenal. With just a lightly strummed banjo and guitar as backdrop, Kater’s “Poets Be Buried,” the standout track from fourth record Grenades, mines her father’s Grenada roots. The album gets its local unveiling in this city, which the former Montrealer now calls home. More and more with each new work, including 2016’s award-winning Nine Pin, Kater draws on her own background in folky ways while remaining completely of the moment. With four bandmates providing added colour, she’s a great fit for this cosy room. Pair this with Colter Wall (Saturday at the Opera House) for contrasting down-home sounds. (Rivoli, 334 Queen St. W., doors 8 p.m.) —Chris Young
WEDNESDAY
Travis Scott
Watch this for: The trippiest of arenasized blockbusters. It’s often hard to get a fix on Scott, a serial dabbler/sampler from all over the map and the polar opposite to the more direct Pusha T, this week’s other big rap visitor. One thing is for sure: this Wish You Were Here tour stop looms as his biggest here yet, with Sheck Wes and Gunna among the support after figuring in the huge cast helping out on chart-topping summertime release Astroworld. Flame-dreaded Trippie Redd is also on the deep bill. The record’s a doozy of a head game and the live show ought to live up to the hype and then some; Drake and The Weeknd are among the surprise guests who’ve shown up in the past. (Scotiabank Arena, 40 Bay St., 7:30 p.m.) —CY The Dream, plus Being and Nothingness
Watch this if: You want to beat the ballet crowds. The National Ballet of Canada’s season opener, Anna Karenina, just closed and it’s almost time once again for The Nut
cracker next month. But don’t forget the company’s double bill in the middle of those juggernauts: The Dream, Frederick Ashton’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream (featuring male dancers en pointe), and Being and
Nothingness, principal dancer Guillaume Côté’s exploration of the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. Enjoy this meeting of comedic absurdity and thoughtful abstraction before Tchaikovsky reigns. (Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W., 7:30 p.m., on until Sunday.) —Carly Maga
Citadel Dance Mix 2018
Watch this if: You think the best pieces come in threes. Citadel + Compagnie is unveiling its inaugural triple bill with three works by some impressive choreographers: DA Hoskins, artistic director of the Dietrich Group; Dora Award-winning Allison Cummings (known for her latest pieces,
Final Savage Land and Exhale) and upand-coming Tori Mehaffey. The inspirations for these pieces range from D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover to a woman’s desire for control and the resurfacing of trauma. It’s a chance for the adventurous dancegoer to try something new. (The Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance, 304 Parliament St., 8 p.m., on until Dec. 1) —CM
THURSDAY
SuperGrid at Blood in the Snow
Watch this if: Maple-flavoured movie mayhem is your favourite kind. An annual celebration of Canadians’ often grisly contributions to the wide world of genre cinema, Blood in the Snow launches its six-day program of homegrown movie mayhem with a Mad Max-style action flick set in a dystopic version of the Great White North. The latest by the Saskatchewan-based star and director of the WolfCop movies - Lowell Dean and Leo Fafard - SuperGrid sends its two rugged heroes across an oddly familiar wasteland full of road pirates, vicious gangs and other threats that ought to be welcome sights for Blood in the Snow’s thrill-hungry patrons. (Royal Cinema, 608 College St., 9:30 p.m., festival on until Nov. 27) —Jason Anderson
FRIDAY
Shorts That Are Not Pants Film Festival
Watch this if: You love movies that never waste your time. Since 2009, local film blogger and programmer James McNally has presented a quarterly series of screenings featuring his favourite short films from all over the world. Now he and his team are pulling out all the stops for a whole weekend’s worth of bite-sized content for Shorts That Are Not Pants’ first festival. Highlights among the six programs over two days include the nutty Spanish minimusical Black Label, the Star Warsmeets- Shakespeare mash-up Squad
Leader TD-73028 Soliloquy and Souls of Totality, a cult-themed drama starring Tatiana Maslany and her actor beau Tom Cullen. (Cinecycle, rear of 129 Spadina Ave., 7 p.m., also Saturday with screenings between 1 and 9 p.m.) —JA
Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Watch this if: You want to start your holiday viewing early with a classic. Yes, it does seem early for Christmas TV shows (or lights or carols, etc.), but the Grinch is top of mind these days with Benedict Cumberbatch’s film version now in theatres. I haven’t seen that one, or the Jim Carrey rendition from 2000, but I maintain you’d be hard pressed to top the original 1966 cartoon, with Boris Karloff giving voice to the green curmudgeon and that inimitable Thurl Ravenscroft song. (NBC at 8 p.m.) —DY
SUNDAY
Tom Green
Watch this if: You miss ’90s gross-out humour. Tom Green is synonymous with late ’90s/early 2000s shocker comedy: his
The Tom Green Show premiered in the States on MTV in 1999, 2000s Road Trip made him known as the actor who put a mouse in his mouth and his infamously bad movie Freddy Got Fingered came out in 2001, the same year he married Drew Barrymore. Now, he’s back on a standup tour after beating testicular cancer and getting fired by Donald Trump on The
Celebrity Apprentice, and he’s bringing all of his life experience to bear this Sunday. (Comedy Bar, 945 Bloor St. W., 7 p.m.) —CM