Michael Bublé brings class to Christmas classics and Christmas is solid all the way through. It’s got charm, personality, and brings a new, fresh flavour to songs that get overplayed every holiday season. There are elements of jazz, some contemporary pop, a bit of swing, and even some big band-esque[Read More…]
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
Justin Bieber: Under the Mistletoe
At this point it’s a social obligation to scoff at any Justin Bieber release, but where’s the fun in that? Justin’s lyrical contributions, trite as they are, provide seven original tracks on his new holiday album. The other four are ‘classic’ holiday songs in which Bieber adds miniscule doses of[Read More…]
With new novel, Jeffrey Eugenides is keeping it real
interviewmagazine.com Jeffrey Eugenides began his new novel, The Marriage Plot, with a single idea: his female protagonist, an English student at Brown University in the early 1980s, is discovering love while the postmodern theorists she reads in her classes are deconstructing the very concept. The book, as he conceived it,[Read More…]
Common ground comedy
Do you ever feel left out during the holiday season because you don’t celebrate Christmas? Why not cure this alienation with comedy? This was precisely the thought that sparked Kosher Jokes for the Halaladays, a comedy show intended as a Christmas present, if you will, for Jews and Muslims. Featuring[Read More…]
The Marriage of Bette and Boo might end ugly
Emily Doyle / Players’ Theatre Dark comedy is a perplexing concept. Though initially a contradiction in terms, most people understand the subtlety involved in such a label. The work may make upsetting issues “lighter”; perhaps, conversely, it may convey typical subjects of comedy in acidic, disturbing ways. In both of[Read More…]
With The Artist, silence is golden
eraziel.com The Artist is cinema for cinephiles. Set at the dawn of the Golden Age of Hollywood, it’s at once a post-mortem and celebration of the silent genre. Director Michel Hazanavicius crafts a rich, beautiful world using minimalist cinematic strokes by today’s standards, and in his effort takes the viewer[Read More…]
Harold and Kumar, rehashed
filmofilia.com On the all-time stoner comedy list, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas doesn’t sniff any of the classics—Up In Smoke and Half Baked are safe—nor does it approach the charm of its White Castle predecessor; however, no one’s going to argue that this movie isn’t a good time.[Read More…]
Goat Rodeo Sessions
You recognize success in mixing genres when connoisseurs on either side think the music is beyond their field. My friend, a venerable bluegrass expert, recommended Goat Rodeo Sessions to me, saying he failed to understand the classical nuances. After I listened to this album, I wanted to give it back,[Read More…]
Drake: Take Care
Drake is living proof that not every rapper has to resort to insipid, vapid rhymes about dollar bills and girls in order to still talk about dollar bills and girls. Returning strong with his second studio album Take Care, Drake continues to rely on his articulate, straightforward lyrics and his[Read More…]
Dvorak’s Rusalka makes a visual splash
Yves Renaud Opéra de Montréal calls Antonin DvoÅák’s Rusalka “the story of The Little Mermaid, enhanced by DvoÅák’s captivating