When Adam Gopnik was growing up in 1970s Montreal, he chose to steer clear of CEGEP. Instead—like Will Hunting—he simply went to the library and read. The choice appears to have paid off. Since completing his BA in Art History, the McGill alumnus (’80) has become an esteemed author, with[Read More…]
Articles by Ilia Blinderman
Depression and disaffection in Italy’s lost generation
“Che te dice la patria?” asked Ernest Hemingway in 1927. The question of what the fatherland—Italy, under the yoke of Mussolini—had to say was, in those years, of seminal importance; doubly so for Hemingway, a man whose first taste of love and death came on the Italian front during WWI.[Read More…]
A bitter pill to swallow: Zoloft’s inefficacy
Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in terms of revenue, is being sued by a woman who claims that the antidepressant drug Zoloft is no more effective than a placebo pill. The plaintiff, Laura Plumlee, alleges that Zoloft failed to alleviate her depression in spite of a three-year treatment course.[Read More…]
Chicken Noodle Soup: Fact or Fiction?
After the debauchery that is Winter Carnival and the exhausting weekends of Igloofest, many of McGill’s finest have begun to suffer from the effects of the common cold. Although cures like sage extract, licorice tea, and kissing a mule’s muzzle—a bit of creative flare on the part of the Romans—[Read More…]
Matt & Kim ride the lightning
When we get on the topic of Montreal, Matt winces. “Do people just not get us there?” We’re discussing Matt & Kim’s last Montreal appearance, a show that Matt remembers had a painfully low turnout. Immediately, however, he regains his characteristic ebullience. “We were looking for a chance to get[Read More…]
Between the gun and the runway
Prachi, a husky 24-year old with a dull gaze, barks at a group of young Hindu girls. After two and a half hours of running, crawling, and combat drills, their colourful saris are torn and dusty. While Prachi trains girls in the skills required of a Hindu fundamentalist at the[Read More…]
A Valentine’s day sentence: an author’s fight for freedom
On the morning of February 15, 1989, two unknown men knocked on Salman Rushdie’s door. The day before, a mortally ill despot in Tehran had issued an edict condemning all those involved in the production of Rushdie’s most recent novel, The Satanic Verses. The Valentine’s Day fatwa concluded in a[Read More…]
Acts to Watch
Need playlist suggestions for finals? Looking to expand your musical palette for the coming year? Hoping to impress the resident hipsters in your classes with your musical foresight? We’ve got you covered with a roundup of acts that should make a big splash in the year ahead. Half Moon Run[Read More…]
Film Wrap-Up
Looking back on this year in film, the Tribune’s Arts & Entertainment editors weigh in on the hits, misses, and the movies that slipped through the cracks. The Good Looper Telekinesis, time travel, mafia men—your average director would have combined these elements into something resembling a B-movie from the ’80s.[Read More…]
Blown Up: Gaming and War—a frustrating chore
I walked through the doors of the Montreal, arts interculturels (MAI) last Friday to find the exhibit space deserted. “Excellent,” I thought to myself, as I passed the archway to the main hall—the stormy afternoon seemed an opportune time, and the ideal backdrop, to see the MAI’s latest offering, Blown[Read More…]
FEATURE: Man and superman: Are neurocognitive enhancing drugs the steroids of the academic world?
Lucas* weighs over 350 lbs. He has a shaved head and a large frame densely covered with a menacing coat of tattoos. He’s also the strongest human being I’ve ever met. While waiting at the dingy 24-hour coffee shop where we had arranged to meet, I bumped into two friends[Read More…]
Books on books: award-winning authors share their insights
In his youth, Julian Barnes’ bibliophilia took on near-pathological proportions. Much like the shoe-obsessed, 2011’s Man Booker prize winner would spend the vast share of his disposable income on books, driving from town to town in search of secondhand treasures. “I bought with a hunger which I recognize, looking back,[Read More…]
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: The Heist
After Macklemore & Ryan Lewis partnered up to bring us the acclaimed The VS. EP in late 2009, some fans feared a sophomore slump. Instead, the duo’s latest release, titled The Heist, plays like a veteran rapper’s ‘best-of’ compilation. In a surprising turn for a rap album, The Heist provides[Read More…]
What we talk about when we talk about Englander
“They’re in our house maybe ten minutes and already Mark’s lecturing us on the Israeli occupation. Mark and Lauren live in Jerusalem, and people from there think it gives them the right.” So read the opening lines of Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,[Read More…]
Taken 2: franchise taken one sequel too far
“Buddy, what’s happening? How’s the weekend?” “Hey dude, same old. But, I did see this movie—the one produced by Luc Besson? The guy that directed Leon: The Professional and The Fifth Element. Oh, that’s what it was—Taken 2, with Liam Neeson.” “Man, I loved the first Taken! When he plays[Read More…]
My beef with art
In my youth, I would occasionally visit the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. For the uninitiated, the Tretyakov houses a vast collection of Russian fine art—picture the MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick collection all diced up and served as an exquisite borscht. I can’t remember much of[Read More…]
Lolcats and revolutions: the faceless future of hacktivism
Brian Knappenberger, the writer and director of We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, claims to have compiled a documentary which explores the roots of hacktivism. What Knappenberger has created, in fact, is a fawning, if well-intentioned, tribute to Anonymous—the loose virtual collective which originated on the 4chan message[Read More…]
A tale of human bondage
Paul Thomas Andersen is one of a handful of studio darlings whose films win big at both the box office and the awards circuit. Assuming dual roles of writer and director, Andersen is among an even smaller group that can weave a seductive story with absolute, creative precision. This control,[Read More…]
Christopher Hitchens’ last words
When Christopher Hitchens learned that he was the subject of a prematurely written obituary at the outset of 2007, he decided to set down an autobiography before the corrected proof came in. The book came fast on the heels of his bestselling anti-theist tirade, God Is Not Great: How Religion[Read More…]
New take on ancient wisdom
From terse, academic upbraidings by Richard Dawkins, to the wit and eloquence of Christopher Hitchens’ broadsides, the past decade has witnessed a surge in public cries challenging the power of organized religion. Amid the continual talk of misconduct and immorality in the halls of self-proclaimed holy men, several unbelievers simultaneously[Read More…]
Hip-Hop vs. Homosexuality: Is the rap game becoming self-aware?
This piece contains language used by others that some may find offensive and hurtful. These quotes do not reflect the views of the Tribune. Had the Beastie Boys gotten their way, their iconic 1986 release, License to Ill, would have been called Don’t Be A Faggot.* Big Daddy Kane, widely[Read More…]
Le Cagibi
Locals will proudly inform you (in addition to boldly asserting that Harvard is America’s McGill) that Montreal is Canada’s worthy answer to New York. While the general sentiment is somewhat bucolic, Montreal does hold a few gems that would fit snugly on the ground floor of a refurbished textile factory[Read More…]
Roman Holiday
Despite a longstanding love of film, I’ve never been drawn to Woody Allen’s neurotic charm. My review of To Rome With Love, therefore, should have been nothing more than another addition to the burgeoning disappointment of the majority of film critics. In fact, I was so taken aback by its[Read More…]
Bully is a wake-up call for more than just students
After a typical day of school, 12-year-old Alex Libby jumps on the trampoline in his yard, or walks around the neighbourhood, delicately holding hands with his angelic sister Jada. Sometimes, he throws rocks near the train tracks behind his house as the burly freights pass. In the morning, Alex heads back to[Read More…]
Bully is a wake-up call for more than just students
www.allmoviephoto.com After a typical day of school, 12-year-old Alex Libby jumps on the trampoline in his yard, or walks around the neighbourhood, delicately holding hands with his angelic sister Jada. Sometimes, he throws rocks near the train tracks behind his house as the burly freights pass. In the morning, Alex[Read More…]
Michael Glawogger’s Whores’ Glory delves into the abyss
Michael Glawogger’s documentaries have long demonstrated his fascination with the dark and gritty. The Austrian filmmaker has focused on the struggles of the impoverished who are forced to eke out a living, first examining how the indigent survive in the world’s largest cities (Megacities, 1998), before moving on to the[Read More…]
Prémices/Open-Ended clever but vacant
Manuel Mathieu’s Prémices/Open-Ended, the solo exhibit by the young Haitian-born Montreal resident, comprises some dozen paintings dealing with the organic and mental reconstruction that follows a cataclysmic event. Mathieu’s paintings depict scenes of a world violently squeezed into primordial swirls of aggression, inchoate shapes and forces, sometimes in an extension of[Read More…]
Prémices/Open-Ended clever but vacant
Manuel Mathieu Manuel Mathieu’s Prémices/Open-Ended, the solo exhibit by the young Haitian-born Montreal resident, comprises some dozen paintings dealing with the organic and mental reconstruction that follows a cataclysmic event. Mathieu’s paintings depict scenes of a world violently squeezed into primordial swirls of aggression, inchoate shapes and forces, sometimes in[Read More…]
Michael Glawogger’s Whores’ Glory delves into the abyss
www.docgeeks.com Michael Glawogger’s documentaries have long demonstrated his fascination with the dark and gritty. The Austrian filmmaker has focused on the struggles of the impoverished who are forced to eke out a living, first examining how the indigent survive in the world’s largest cities (Megacities, 1998), before moving on to[Read More…]
No Room for Rockstars makes some noise
me-review.net No Room for Rockstars, which chronicles the 2010 Vans Warped Tour, faced the seldom attempted, and typically unmet challenges set to all music documentaries. On the one hand, it is obliged to focus on the bands and organizers who make up the annual music and extreme sports festival, sating[Read More…]
Nature Medicine editor talks science journalism
Last Wednesday, Elie Dolgin (BSc ’03), the associate news editor at the prestigious journal Nature Medicine, returned to McGill to speak about science journalism and reflect on his time at McGill. “I did my undergrad in this very building. If you go upstairs, you’ll see one of the window boxes-I[Read More…]
Waxing poetic at the Divan Orange
Meaghan Tardif-Bennett sat anxiously waiting for her turn on stage. She was dressed in black and white, with pink nail polish, pink lipstick, and a pink handbag. “I was really stressed, and was very conscious of the impression I would make on the audience,” she says. “But I also[Read More…]
A Separation stands alone
metropolefilms.com Oscar-winning A Separation is a movie that discreetly avoids the inveterate handicap plaguing large-scale commercial films. While Hollywood blockbusters typically attempt to tell cinematic epics scaled to Homeric proportions, they falter when sincere subject matter is lost amidst the one-upsmanship clashes between special effects, sentimentality, or the primordial intensity[Read More…]
Woody Harrelson rampages in Rampart
collider.com In his second directorial feature, Oren Moverman firmly eschews the rules of hard-boiled cop cinema. Instead, he offers a surprisingly human story of a man born 30 years too late—Rampart is what Dirty Harry may have been if Eastwood’s Harry Callahan, .44 Magnum, and trademark of the “Do[Read More…]
In Darkness sparkles, but fails to shine
metropolefilms.com Despite my initial excitement for In Darkness, Agnieszka Holland’s Oscar-nominated depiction of a Polish man’s real-life efforts to save a group of Jewish people during World War II, I could not help but feel a tinge of disappointment when the film ended. Holland knows that a film set during[Read More…]