One of the best parts of university is that it allows you to find your niche. No matter how specific your interests are, there is probably already a club at McGill devoted to it; however, the sheer amount of variety can be overwhelming, so here are several clubs focused specifically on[Read More…]
Articles by Chris Lutes
The best albums of 2015 (so far)
15. Jenny Hval – Apocalypse, Girl Full of surprises, Jenny Hval’s fifth studio album delves into territory that her previous work had avoided entirely. It pushes boundaries, with noisy interludes and sharp melodies that are so well crafted it’s impossible to take all the musical arrangements in with one listen.[Read More…]
The best films of 2015 (so far)
Here's our list of the best films of 2015 so far: 15. Slow West Though Western films have long become stale, a fresh spin on its familiar tropes comes out every few years to show the genre still has some life left in it. In this period piece, a young[Read More…]
CRi looks at the present and the past
Montreal-based duo CRi just passed another milestone for local artists: Performing at Osheaga. Comprised of Christophe Dubé and Ourielle Auvé (during live performances), the electronica group formed in 2013. Their sound is reminiscent of early James Blake, with clipped audio samples looping over synth beats and droning organs. There’s an[Read More…]
Osheaga 2015 recap: Day one
Somewhere in between the beautiful and the profane is the Osheaga Festival Musique et Arts, back for its 10th time. This is to be expected from a festival that has to cater to both its corporate sponsors and a large base of young, passionate music fans. The Tribune is attending[Read More…]
Album Review: Vince Staples – Summertime ‘06
Many people are fortunate enough to be able to reminisce about their hometowns or past selves without the weight of shame or regret. In Vince Staples' stunning two-disc debut, Summertime ‘06, he shows that nostalgia is more complicated than that. Using the eponymous summer as a[Read More…]
Pop Rhetoric: Don Draper’s last stand
**SPOILERS** A man sits alone at a hotel restaurant smoking a cigarette. He's classically handsome in a way that went out of style with black and white cinema. It's 1959, and Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is the most talented advertiser in a city full of talented advertisers. Years later, the[Read More…]
Summer Film Preview
Tomorrowland (May 22) Brad Bird of The Iron Giant (1999) and Ratatouille (2007) brings one of the summer’s only blockbuster films that isn’t a sequel or an adaptation. George Clooney stars as a fading former boy genius who teams up with a troubled, yet brilliant teenage girl to discover the secrets[Read More…]
Album Review: Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar is at his best when he embraces the contradictions that define his life. He is one of the most famous rappers alive, but feels stifled by his culture and his past. He’s outwardly full of bravado and bluster, yet unable to get past his crippling self-doubt. Fame has[Read More…]
Inside the Echo Chamber
We are in the midst of a culture war where the personal and the political are becoming increasingly intertwined. A new discourse of social consciousness is emerging as the generation that was born in a world with ostensible equity across racial, sexual, and gender lines comes of age and realizes[Read More…]
Album Review: Modest Mouse – Strangers to Ourselves
A long time ago, we lost sight of something fundamental: The connection we had to the natural world has been severed—maybe permanently—and humanity has been left to suffer as prisoners to the cerebral and abstract. This is what Modest Mouse’s first album in eight years, Strangers to Ourselves, argues. [Read More…]
Round Dance: The circle of sex
If there’s a single universal truth to social interaction, it’s that people will say anything if they think it will convince the person they like to sleep with them. It was true in 1920 when Arthur Schnitzler’s play La Ronde debuted in Berlin to a shocked and offended crowd, and[Read More…]
The write stuff
Hemmingway once wrote, “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.” The lives of poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, as portrayed in Tuesday Night Café’s production of Dear Elizabeth, put that idea into practice. With a couple of brief exceptions, the sole pair of actors in the play are[Read More…]
Dark creatures and light humour in What We Do in the Shadows
Comedy, in a lot of ways, is the most subjective genre in any medium. Something that one person finds hilarious could fall completely flat for another—and both would be correct in their opinions because comedy comes from the realm of visceral, indescribable feelings, and gut reactions. Even more subjective is[Read More…]
Windy City for the win in AUTS’ Chicago
Part of the thrill that comes from live musical theatre is knowing that something could go wrong at any moment, but rarely does. The best theatre uses this to its advantage, radiating a sense of jubilant spontaneity that wriggles its way into the audience’s hearts and leaves them humming the[Read More…]
Album Review: Belle and Sebastian – Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
Ever since Belle and Sebastian shocked the indie pop world with 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress by releasing a louder, dancier, more mainstream album than anyone thought possible, fans have had to reconcile with the fact that they’re basically a different band now. Gone are the days of lead singer and[Read More…]
Pop Rhetoric: Christopher Nolan and the cinema of abstraction
Christopher Nolan used to make movies about people. The director, along with his script-writing brother Jonathan Nolan, have made some of the best genre films of the past decade, including Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), The Prestige (2006), and two-thirds of the Dark Knight trilogy. His recent movies—particularly his latest film, Interstellar—have confirmed a[Read More…]
Play Review: Six Characters in Search of an Author
Most theatrical productions that work well are not trying to reinvent the wheel. As long as the writing is solid, a play will generally be successful if it just sticks to the script with few extra flourishes. This isn’t really an option with Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of[Read More…]
Birdman successfully walks a tightwire
I’ve often wondered why actors don’t just retire after starring in a high-grossing film. Presumably, they have more than enough money to do whatever they want for the rest of their lives, so what makes them turn away from a life of comfort? Is it fear of boredom? Is it[Read More…]
Criminal fails to evolve past story-telling tropes
Arguably, the most difficult subject to talk about objectively is yourself. Darius Monroe’s debut documentary feature Evolution of a Criminal confirms this idea. Though he places himself squarely at the centre of the film’s narrative as the titular criminal, Monroe evades revealing the motivation behind his actions, resulting in a[Read More…]
Deep Cuts: Joyful Hip-Hop
Eye Know Artist: De La Soul Album: 3 Feet High and Rising Released: March 3, 1989 This is perhaps the most unabashedly romantic song in the history of rap. De La Soul, the original hippies of hip-hop, crafts a song that tracks the trajectory of a relationship from courtship to[Read More…]
Pop Dialectic: The return of Twin Peaks and the “cult” TV phenomenon
Last week, TV show Twin Peaks’ cult following created an enormous internet buzz when it was announced that the show would be returning in 2016 for a nine-episode season after an unprecedented 25-year cancellation period. Two of our writers weigh in on the potential benefits and consequences of bringing a[Read More…]
Album Review: Weezer—Everything Will Be Alright in the End Republic
The quality of Weezer albums have always relied on their sincerity, and on that front, the new album Everything Will Be Alright in the End is a success—sort of. With impeccable production by Ric Ocasek, the album sounds better than a mid-to-late-period rock band typically does. If anything, it shows[Read More…]
What the Butler Saw is shocking good fun
Farce is a notoriously difficult genre to pull off. If the comedy is played up too much, character nuance gets was out in favour of cheap gags and nonsensical plotting.
The naked and the anonymous
Sometimes I wonder if anybody even deserves technology.
Fall TV previews
With the fall TV season underway, the Tribune A&E team has compiled five returning and five new shows we’re excited for. AMERICAN HORROR STORY Returning for its fourth season, mini-series American Horror Story is taking a walk on the wild side with its newest theme, “Freak Show.” Taking place in[Read More…]
Eastern premises serve Wes Anderson well in The Grand Budapest Hotel
The central characters in Wes Anderson’s films have always had a deep and inextricable connection to the places they love: Max Fischer had Rushmore; Royal Tenenbaum had the house on Archer Avenue; Steve Zissou had his ship, the Belafonte. Despite their usually roguish natures, these connections hint at some kind[Read More…]
Arcade Fire – Reflektor
As Arcade Fire is currently riding the crest of their popularity, the band’s newest release could have consisted solely of white noise and people would have talked about how groundbreaking it was. Thankfully, Reflektor is so much more than that. A big step up from 2010’s The Suburbs, the album[Read More…]
Players’ debut more than just entertaining
Hearing the title of this play conjures up the image of something dreadful: a stuffy costume drama, a ‘comedy’ of errors, or a farce by some witless Oscar Wilde wannabe. Those labels couldn’t be further from the truth. This play, after all, comes from the delightfully twisted mind of Joe[Read More…]
Album Review: Sheryl Crow – Feels Like Home
Since Sheryl Crow debuted in the mid ‘90s, she has tried on a number of different personas: earnestly personal, politically charged, and now—with her latest offering, Feels Like Home—folksy country.