jojonews.com Making a film that deliberately attempts to confuse its audience can be a tricky thing. Not only is there the risk of repelling (or simply boring) viewers, but the incoherence can overwhelm the purpose of the trickery. Fortunately, first-time director Sean Durkin was able to avoid most of these[Read More…]
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Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu
Lou Reed is a strange fellow, so nobody should be surprised that Lulu would be a characteristically bizarre release. But who knew that a joint effort between Metallica and the former Velvet Underground legend could be so poorly executed? The album opens with the line, “I would cut my legs[Read More…]
To be or not to be Shakespeare?
If Shakespeare didn’t write any of his plays, who did? That’s the scenario of Roland Emmerich’s newest film, Anonymous. The film pits Shakespeare the person against Shakespeare the bard, but barely scratches the surface of the complex history of Shakespeare and his works. Based on the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare[Read More…]
Around the water cooler
Ryan Reisert In case you spent your weekend huddled around a Watercan, here’s what people were talking about around the cooler… BASEBALL — Headline writers everywhere had a field day as David Freese (deep freeze/freeze, frame/freezer burn/etc.) led the St. Louis Cardinals to an astonishing comeback in Game 6 of[Read More…]
The men who knew too much
alliancefilmsmedia.com alliancefilmsmedia.com Surviving Progress, as the name suggests, is a film that questions our understanding of progress by pushing viewers to see progress as a movement that threatens humanity, rather than as positive advancement. The documentary, based on Ronald Wright’s best selling non fiction book A Short History of Progress,[Read More…]
Sunparlour Players: Us Little Devils
Us Little Devils seems like a name too deviously coy for a band that’s named after their hometown’s sunny climate. Yet Sunparlour Players’ latest release is certainly not lacking in contradictions. Within a scant 36 minutes, listeners are dragged through a disorienting mixture of frenzied, eclectic, pop-rock Canadiana. What results[Read More…]
Shake and half-baked conspiracy theories
mcgill.ca Shakespeare has joined the ranks of Godzilla, alien invaders, and apocalyptic Mayan predictions, with the release of Roland Emmerich’s latest film, Anonymous, in which we, the English-speaking world, are the unknowing victims of a political and literary conspiracy of titanic proportions. A conspiracy involving Queen Elizabeth herself and the[Read More…]
Geuss’s winning maxim
Last October, philosopher Raymond Geuss stood in a graveyard in Cambridge, England for a mysterious filmed interview. In an eery setting, Geuss communicated an inspired statement: knowing the historical context of what you stand for “will change your attitude toward the world and toward yourself … It will prevent you[Read More…]
The Trib’s November Playlist
Halloween is over, it’s not Christmas just yet, and November is hectic, not to mention cold. Here are some relaxing pre-winter songs to provide a soundtrack to decorative gourd season and get you through the grind. Nick Drake: “From the Morning,” from Pink Moon (1972) Clazziquai: “Gentle Rain,” from[Read More…]
One senator’s request causes a polarized debate
haigoarts.blogspot.com wallpaperslibrary.com The beaver is thirty-six years into its tenure as Canada’s national emblem, and last week it faced its biggest challenge yet. As Senator Nicole Eaton said in a statement to the Canadian Senate, the beaver is both an outdated symbol and a destructive rodent. She believes we must[Read More…]