Kevin Courrier (November 23, 1954 – October 12, 2018) was a Canadian film and music critic, best known as the author of books about

Randy Newman Randall Stuart Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer, songwriter, arranger, pianist, composer, conductor and orchestrator. He is known for his non-rhotic Southern American English, Southern-accented singing style, early America ...

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...

and

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

.Adam Nayman
"When The Beatles became bigger than God, one Toronto critic understood that the utopian promise of their music was shadowed by malevolence"
''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division. ...

'', November 20, 2023. He began as a film critic for

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

campus-community radio station

CJRT-FM CJRT-FM (91.1 MHz) is a Canadian public radio station and charitable arts organization in Toronto, Ontario, known as ''JAZZ.FM91''. The studios are on Pardee Avenue in the Liberty Village neighbourhood of Toronto. The station describes itself a ...

in the 1980s, before becoming more widely known as the regular film critic for

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

's entertainment newsmagazine series ''

Prime Time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

'' in 1989 after the program's prior film critic,

Geoff Pevere Geoff Pevere (born October 1957) is a Canadian lecturer, author, broadcaster, teacher, arts and media critic, currently the program director of the Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival in Toronto.John Semley, "Can we play with madness?: Toronto' ...

, was promoted to host. He was also a freelance film critic for various newspapers, including the ''

'', the ''

Financial Post The ''Financial Post'' is a financial news website, and business section of the ''National Post'', both publications of the Postmedia Network. It started as an English Canadian business newspaper, which published from 1907 to 1998. In 1998, the ...

'' and ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'', continuing to write for those papers after ''Prime Time'' was cancelled in 1993. In 1998, Courrier and Susan Green published ''Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion'', a compendium about the ''

Law & Order ''Law & Order'' is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, launching the ''Law & Order'' franchise. ''Law & Order'' aired its entire ...

'' television franchise. An expanded edition of the book was published in 2000 to add the 1999 season. In 2002, he published the Frank Zappa biography ''Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa''. He subsequently published ''Randy Newman's American Dreams'' in 2005, ''Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica'' in 2007, and ''Artificial Paradise: The Dark Side of the Beatles' Utopian Dream'' in 2008. He was also a coordinator of film screening series for the Silver Screens Arts Festival, the

Revue Cinema The Revue Cinema is a cinema in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Built between late-1911 and early-1912, it is a designated 'heritage' site and is Toronto's oldest standing movie theatre in use for showing movies. When news of its closure became public, ...

, and the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre.Jason Anderson, "A fragile democracy springs into action". ''

'', December 30, 2011. He died of cancer in 2018.

Books

*''Law & Order: The Unofficial Companion'' (1998) *''Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa'' (2002) *''Randy Newman's American Dreams'' (2005) *''Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica'' (2007) *''Artificial Paradise: The Dark Side of the Beatles' Utopian Dream'' (2008)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Courrier, Kevin 1954 births 2018 deaths 20th-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian non-fiction writers 21st-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian biographers Canadian male biographers Canadian film critics Canadian music critics Canadian radio personalities Writers from Toronto