Features
Film producer Corey Marr’s new release draws inspiration from Leonard Cohen

By MYRON LOVE Filmmakers Corey Marr and Matthew Bissonnette have just released their newest production, “Death of a Ladies’ Man” to general acclaim. Former Winnipegger Marr reports that the film – which was unveiled in Canada on March 12th has garnered several positive reviews, is currently #6 on the iTunes charts, and has a 100% score on the popular ratings site Rotten Tomatoes.
The movie, starring internationally acclaimed star Gabriel Byrne (“The Usual Suspects”, “In Treatment”) and Canadian actress Jessica Paré (who may be best known for her role as Mrs. Don Draper in “Mad Men”) tells the story of a carousing college professor whose life takes a series of unimaginable turns when he begins to have surreal hallucinations and learns he may not be long for this world. “Death of a Ladies’ Man” is a Canadian-Irish co-production inspired by the work of great Canadian poet Leonard Cohen, and notes Marr, features some of his best known songs. Cohen gave Marr his blessing to use the music in the film before his death in 2016.
“We actually finished filming in 2019,” Marr says. “Our initial plan was to unveil the film at the annual Toronto International Film Festival last September, and follow it with a large theatrical release. The pandemic had other plans for all of us.”
To help promote “Death of a Ladies’ Man”, Marr, a former ad man and a musician himself (guitar and piano) contacted a number of leading Canadian recording artists about doing covers of their favourite Cohen songs. “We have been releasing one video a day since the movie’s release,” he says. “The artists have tens of thousands of followers on their platforms. This has really helped to raise awareness about the film. The response has been fantastic.” The series includes covers of Cohen songs by Ron Sexsmith, Whitehorse, Jenn Grant, Dan Mangan, and others, andn can now be viewed on the YouTube channel for “Death of a Ladies’ Man”.
The Toronto-based Marr launched Corey Marr Productions about 15 years ago after transitioning from advertising into film production. The son of David and Terri Marr and father of two boys notes that he always had a creative bent, starting with music and acting while growing up in Winnipeg. The Grant Park High School grad first left Winnipeg in 1993, after a couple of years of study at the University of Manitoba, to finish his B.A. in Toronto and study Creative Advertising. He returned to his hometown in ’97 for a couple of years before relocating permanently to Toronto.
Before hooking up with Matthew Bissonnette, Marr learned the ropes of filmmaking through development positions at Water Pictures and Heroic Film Company and as the assistant to Academy Award-winning producer Craig Zadan. He has also made a couple of short films.
Marr and Bissonnette met at a film festival. “We spoke about doing a feature film together,” Marr recalls. “Matthew sent me a script and we were on our way.”
Marr notes that their first collaboration – “Who Loves the Sun” – which was released in 2006 – was filmed in Winnipeg Beach and Kenora.
“We did some of the filming on an island in Kenora,” Marr recalls. “We actually hired B’nai Brith Camp staff to ferry cast and crew to and from the island.”
Marr himself is a Massad graduate and he attributes a lot of his creative drive to his years spent at the camp. “Massad is a place where the creative spirit can flourish.” He served as camp director for one summer in 1996 and is looking forward to attending Massad’s 70th anniversary reunion next year.
The award-winning “Who Loves the Sun” played numerous film festivals before being released theatrically and selling internationally.
The second collaboration between Marr and Bissonnette was the Los Angeles-set indie road trip film “Passenger Side”, starring Adam Scott. The movie was described by L.A. Weekly as “a thinking man’s Judd Apatow flick” and by The Hollywood Reporter as “a poignant portrait of sibling rivalry and affection”. The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival. “Passenger Side” won the City TV Award for Best Canadian Film at the Edmonton International Film Festival and was named to “Canada’s Top Ten” by the Toronto International Film Festival. Following a successful theatrical run in Canada, the film was released internationally.
“Death of a Ladies’ Man” has its U.S. premiere on March 20th. The film has been given the prestigious opening night slot at the Cinequest Film and Creativity festival in California. The virtual screening will be accompanied by a live introduction with star Gabriel Byrne and a live Q+A with writer/director Bissonnette, producer Marr and actor Jessica Paré.
Marr reports that the film is currently playing in select theatres across Canada and is available on Apple TV/iTunes, GooglePlay, and everywhere you rent and buy movies.
Celluloid Dreams, which handles international sales on the Gabriel Byrne-starring film, negotiated deals with Transmission Films in Australia and DDDream in China. The project was also picked up in Germany (MFA), Austria (Polyfilm and MFA), Switzerland (MFA), Russia (Kinologistika), China (DDDream), Middle East (Front Row), and the Balkans (Cinemania). In Australia and Zealand, the film will be released theatrically on May 20.
It was financed by Telefilm Canada, Monte Rosso Productions, SODEC, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, The Canada Media Fund, Ontario Creates, Bell Media’s Crave and the Harold Greenberg Fund, CBC Films and the Western Regional Audiovisual Producer’s Fund (WRAP Fund), and developed with the assistance of Telefilm Canada and the Harold Greenberg Fund.
In addition to his feature films, Marr over the years has produced content for Nike USA and worked on various television projects. He has also been associated with Canadaland, a news site and podcast network, funded by its audience, which focuses on Canadian media, news, current affairs, and politics.
Features
Why Jackpots Are A Whole Economy Inside A Casino
Jackpots look like a simple promise: one lucky hit, one huge payout, a story worth repeating. Yet jackpots are not only a feature on a screen. Inside a gambling ecosystem, jackpots behave like a miniature economy with its own funding, incentives, and feedback loops. Money flows in small pieces, gathers over time, and occasionally explodes into a headline-sized result.
In slots, that economy is especially visible because the format is built around repetition: spin, result, spin again. Jackpot slots turn that loop into a “contribution engine,” where thousands of tiny wagers quietly feed one giant number. The base game can be simple, but the jackpot layer changes how the whole product feels. A jackpot slot is not just entertainment. It is a pooled system that converts micro-stakes into a public, constantly growing figure that influences choices across an entire lobby.
In casino online games, jackpots also shape behavior at scale. They change what players choose, how long sessions last, and how marketing is framed. They influence which titles get promoted, how networks of operators cooperate, and how risk is distributed between game providers and platforms. A jackpot is not just a prize. A jackpot is a financial product wrapped in entertainment, and slot design is the packaging that makes it easy to keep funding that product.
How A Jackpot Is Funded
Most jackpots are funded through contributions. A small slice of each eligible bet is diverted into a pot. That slice can be tiny, but across many spins and many players it adds up quickly. This is why jackpots can grow even when individual stakes are small. In slots, this contribution is often invisible in the moment, which is part of the trick: the player experiences one spin, while the system quietly collects millions of spins.
There are different structures. A fixed jackpot is pre-set and paid by the operator or provider under defined conditions. A progressive jackpot grows with play and resets after a win. Some progressives are local to one site. Others are networked across many sites and jurisdictions, which is where the “economy” feeling becomes obvious.
Networked progressives behave like pooled liquidity. Many participants fund one shared pot. That pot becomes a big attraction, and it creates a shared interest in keeping the jackpot visible, trusted, and constantly active. In slot-heavy platforms, these networked jackpots can become the “main street” of the casino lobby: the place where traffic naturally gathers because the number looks like live news.
Jackpots Change Incentives For Everyone
A normal slot asks a simple question: is the gameplay enjoyable and is the payout profile acceptable? A jackpot slot adds another question: is the jackpot large enough to be exciting today? That question can dominate choice, even when the base game is average. It also pushes certain slot styles to the front: high-volatility titles, simple “spin-first” interfaces, and mechanics that keep eligibility easy.
For operators, jackpots can be acquisition tools. A giant number on the homepage is a billboard that updates itself. It can pull attention better than generic offers because the value looks objective: a big pot is a big pot. For providers, jackpot slots create long-tail revenue because contribution flow continues as long as the game remains active, even if the base game is no longer “new.”
For players, jackpots create a new reason to play: not just “win,” but “win the one.” That shift changes decision-making. Some players will accept lower base returns or higher volatility because the jackpot feels like a separate lane of possibility. In slots, that can show up as longer sessions with smaller bets, because the goal becomes staying in the “eligible” loop rather than chasing quick profit.
Before the first list, one practical insight helps: jackpots do not only pay out. They also steer traffic, and in slot lobbies, traffic is basically currency.
What Jackpots “Buy” For A Casino Ecosystem
- Attention on demand: a visible number that feels like live news
- Longer sessions: a reason to keep eligibility and keep spinning
- Cross-title movement: players jump to jackpot slots even if they prefer others
- Brand trust signals: a public payout can act like social proof
- Operator cooperation: networked pools create shared marketing incentives
After the list, the economy metaphor makes sense. Jackpots function like a market signal that redirects time and money inside the product. Slots are the most effective delivery method for that signal because the spin loop is fast, familiar, and easy to keep going.
Questions Worth Asking Before Playing Jackpot Titles
- What triggers the jackpot: random hit, specific combination, or side bet requirement
- What counts as eligible: bet size, feature activation, or particular versions of the slot
- How the pot is funded: local versus networked contributions
- How often it resets: recent payout history can clarify the rhythm
- What the base game pays: volatility and normal payout profile without the jackpot
After the list, the healthiest conclusion is clear. Jackpot excitement should not replace understanding of the base slot game, because the base game drives most outcomes.
A Jackpot Is A Financial System In Miniature
Jackpots behave like an economy because they collect micro-contributions, pool risk, steer attention, and create incentives for multiple parties at once. Slots make this system run smoothly because the product is built for high-frequency decisions, quick feedback, and long sessions.
In the long run, jackpots succeed because they offer a story that never gets old: a normal slot session can turn into a headline. The smarter way to engage with that story is to treat jackpots as rare extra upside, not as a plan. The pot is real, the excitement is real, and the odds remain stubbornly indifferent.
Features
The Tech That Never Sleeps: Inside the Always-On Engines of No Limit Casinos
In communities across Canada, including Winnipeg’s dynamic Jewish community, technology has become an integral part of daily life, whether through synagogue livestreams, local cultural programming, or real-time coverage of global events affecting Israel and the diaspora. Modern digital infrastructure, while often unseen to the public, runs continuously behind the scenes, enabling information networks that never stop. The same notion of ongoing connectivity drives the 24-hour digital entertainment platforms.
One example of this infrastructure is seen in online gaming settings, where real-time data systems enable experiences that are meant to run without interruption. The global online gambling industry is expected to increase from around $97.9 billion in 2026, with internet penetration and mobile connectivity continuing to climb globally. As a result, readers interested in how these platforms work often consult a comprehensive list of No Limit casino platforms to gain a better understanding of the ecosystem.
While conversations about casinos sometimes center on the games themselves, what’s underneath the narrative is technical. Behind every digital table or interactive game is a network of servers, verification tools, live data processors, and uptime monitoring systems that must run continually. Unlike traditional venues that close at night, online platforms rely on always-on design, which means that their software infrastructure must run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, independent of player time zones.
Infrastructure That Never Closes
Although Winnipeg readers may be more familiar with the servers that power newsrooms, streaming services, and community websites, the technology center of global platforms shares similar concepts. Modern digital systems rely significantly on distributed cloud computing, which means that data is handled simultaneously over several geographical locations rather than in a single location.
This layout increases credibility while also allowing platforms to run consistently even when millions of people are actively accessing the system. Similarly, big cloud providers operate worldwide networks of data centers capable of providing near-constant uptime. According to reliability measures released by major cloud providers, such as Google Cloud infrastructure reliability overview, modern corporate systems typically aim for uptime levels greater than 99.9 percent.
That figure may sound abstract, yet it corresponds to only a few minutes of disturbance every month. In fact, ensuring such regularity needs sophisticated monitoring systems that identify faults immediately, quickly divert traffic, and maintain redundant backups across different continents. Unlike early internet platforms, which relied on a single server room, today’s large-scale systems function as interconnected worldwide networks.
Real-Time Data: The Pulse of Modern Platforms
While infrastructure keeps systems operating, real-time data engines guarantee that information is constantly sent between users and servers. These systems handle massive amounts of data per second, including player activities, system status updates, and verification checks. Although the public rarely observes these operations, they are the digital pulse of today’s internet platforms.
Real-time computing has also revolutionized industries known to Canadian readers. Financial markets, for example, use comparable high-speed data processing to quickly update stock values across trading platforms. The same logic applies to global logistical networks, airline scheduling systems, and even newsrooms that monitor breaking news as it occurs.
This is essentially one of the distinguishing features of modern digital infrastructure: information no longer moves in batches, but rather continuously over high-capacity data pipelines. Regardless of how complicated these systems are, they must stay reliable and safe, which is why developers invest much in automated monitoring and predictive maintenance.
Security and Verification in the Always-On Era
Technology that never sleeps must also be self-verifying. Modern digital platforms use multilayer security systems to identify suspicious conduct, validate user identities, and safeguard critical data. Many of these procedures remain in the background, but they are extremely important for preserving confidence in online services.
Unlike older internet platforms, which depended heavily on passwords, newer systems often include behavioral analytics, device identification, and automatic danger detection. These technologies work silently, yet they examine patterns in real time, detecting unacceptable behavior before it spreads throughout a network.
The larger IT sector has made significant investments in these measures. Organizations such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology cybersecurity framework overview give guidelines for software developers throughout the world in designing resilient digital systems. Similarly, academic research from universities continues to investigate how internet infrastructure can stay safe while yet allowing for large-scale connectivity.
Lessons for the Wider Digital World
Although talks regarding entertainment platforms often focus on user experiences, the underlying technology symbolizes a larger revolution in the digital economy. Today’s online systems must run constantly, expand fast, and stay safe even under high demand. While normal user may only observe the automatic interface on their screen, the real story is the engineering it takes to maintain that experience.
While technology develops very quickly, one thing remains constant: systems meant to function indefinitely need both intelligent engineering and meticulous management. Despite their complexity, these digital engines have become the silent basis for modern life, powering everything from local news websites to global platforms that never sleep.
Features
ClarityCheck: Securing Communication for Authors and Digital Publishers
In the world of digital publishing, communication is the lifeblood of creation. Authors connect with editors, contributors, and collaborators via email and phone calls. Publishers manage submissions, coordinate with freelance teams, and negotiate contracts online.
However, the same digital channels that enable efficient publishing also carry risk. Unknown contacts, fraudulent inquiries, and impersonation attempts can disrupt projects, delay timelines, or compromise sensitive intellectual property.
This is where ClarityCheck becomes a vital tool for authors and digital publishers. By allowing users to verify phone numbers and email addresses, ClarityCheck enhances trust, supports safer collaboration, and minimizes operational risks.
Why Verification Matters in Digital Publishing
Digital publishing involves multiple types of external communication:
- Manuscript submissions
- Editing and proofreading coordination
- Author-publisher negotiations
- Marketing and promotional campaigns
- Collaboration with illustrators and designers
In these workflows, unverified contacts can lead to:
- Scams or fraudulent project offers
- Intellectual property theft
- Miscommunication causing delays
- Financial loss due to fraudulent payments
- Unauthorized sharing of sensitive drafts
Platforms like Reddit feature discussions from authors and freelancers about using verification tools to safeguard their work. This highlights the growing awareness of digital safety in creative industries.
What Is ClarityCheck?
ClarityCheck is an online service that enables users to search for publicly available information associated with phone numbers and email addresses. Its primary goal is to provide additional context about a contact before initiating or continuing communication.
Rather than relying purely on intuition, authors and publishers can access structured information to assess credibility. This proactive approach supports safer project management and protects intellectual property.
You can explore community feedback and discussions about the service here: ClarityCheck
Key Benefits for Authors and Digital Publishers
1. Protecting Manuscript Submissions
Authors often submit manuscripts to multiple editors or publishers. Before sharing full drafts:
- Verify the contact’s legitimacy
- Ensure the communication aligns with known publishing entities
- Reduce risk of unauthorized distribution
A quick lookup can prevent time-consuming disputes and protect original content.
2. Safeguarding Collaborative Projects
Digital publishing frequently involves external contributors such as:
- Illustrators
- Designers
- Editors
- Ghostwriters
Verification ensures all collaborators are trustworthy, minimizing the chance of intellectual property theft or miscommunication.
3. Enhancing Marketing and PR Outreach
Promoting a book or digital publication often involves connecting with:
- Bloggers
- Reviewers
- Book influencers
- Digital media outlets
Before sharing press kits or marketing materials, verifying email addresses or phone contacts adds confidence and prevents potential misuse.
How ClarityCheck Works
While the internal system is proprietary, the user workflow is straightforward and efficient:
| Step | Action | Outcome |
| 1 | Enter phone number or email | Search initiated |
| 2 | Aggregation of publicly available data | Digital footprint analyzed |
| 3 | Report generated | Structured overview presented |
| 4 | Review by user | Informed decision before engagement |
The platform’s simplicity makes it suitable for authors and publishing teams, even those with limited technical expertise.
Integrating ClarityCheck Into Publishing Workflows
Manuscript Submission Process
- Receive submission request
- Verify contact via ClarityCheck
- Confirm identity of editor or publisher
- Share draft or proceed with collaboration
Collaboration with Freelancers
- Initiate project with external contributors
- Run ClarityCheck to verify email or phone number
- Establish project agreement
- Begin content creation safely
Marketing Outreach
- Contact media or reviewers
- Verify digital identity
- Share promotional materials with confidence
Ethical and Privacy Considerations
While ClarityCheck provides useful context, it operates exclusively using publicly accessible information. Authors and publishers should always:
- Respect privacy and data protection regulations
- Use results responsibly
- Combine verification with personal judgment
- Avoid sharing sensitive data with unverified contacts
Responsible use ensures the platform supports security without compromising ethical standards.
Real-World Use Cases in Digital Publishing
Scenario 1: Verifying a New Editor
An author is contacted by an editor claiming to represent a small publishing house. Running a ClarityCheck report confirms the email domain aligns with publicly available information about the company, reducing risk before signing an agreement.
Scenario 2: Screening Freelance Illustrators
A digital publisher seeks an illustrator for a children’s book. Before sharing project details or compensation terms, ClarityCheck verifies contact information, ensuring the artist is legitimate.
Scenario 3: Marketing Outreach Safety
A self-publishing author plans a social media and email campaign. Verifying influencer or reviewer contacts helps prevent marketing materials from reaching fraudulent accounts.
Why Verification Strengthens Publishing Operations
In digital publishing, speed and creativity are essential, but they must be balanced with security:
- Protect intellectual property
- Maintain trust with collaborators
- Ensure financial transactions are secure
- Prevent delays due to miscommunication
Verification tools like ClarityCheck integrate seamlessly, allowing authors and publishing teams to focus on creation rather than risk management.
Final Thoughts
In a world where publishing is increasingly digital and collaborative, verifying contacts is not just prudent — it’s necessary.
ClarityCheck empowers authors, editors, and digital publishing professionals to confidently assess phone numbers and email addresses, protect their intellectual property, and streamline communication.
Whether managing manuscript submissions, coordinating external contributors, or launching marketing campaigns, integrating ClarityCheck into your workflow ensures clarity, safety, and professionalism.
In digital publishing, trust is as important as creativity — and ClarityCheck helps safeguard both.
