As the Vancouver Winter Olympics get underway, Canada’s national pride is glowing with the prospect of success. After months of commercials and merchandise sales leading up to the games. the moment we’d all been waiting for finally came. Given the fatal crash of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili earlier that day, the mood was both respectfully sombre and giddy with excitement for the upcoming games.
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
A group of Jolly Rogers take the stage in The Pirates of Penzance
The McGill Savoy Society’s presentation of The Pirates of Penzance both delights and entrances the audience with light-hearted charm. The Pirates of Penzance, or, The Slave of Duty is a late 19th-century comic opera, featuring the work of Gilbert & Sullivan.
Horror flop The Wolfman begs for a silver bullet
In cinema, there’s always a fine line between the supernatural and the ridiculous, and the best horror films flirt with this boundary without crossing it. Unfortunately, director Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman was less than tactful in his approach to the werewolf genre, and the film ends up resembling more of a farce than a truly scary movie.
CD REVIEWS: Four Tet: There Is Love In You
The fifth full-length album from British electronic musician Kieran Hebden (better known as Four Tet), isn’t a dramatic departure from his earlier work. Nor will it disappoint fans of Four Tet’s already well-established oeuvre. The album is barely over 45 minutes long and undemanding enough to not need your full attention.
Revamping spoken word
It’s hard to imagine how rewriting the lyrics to a Fat Boys song into his own beat-box symphony at the age of nine could lead C.R. Avery to where he is today. Currently on his Dead of Winter cross-Canada tour, backed by The Legal Tender String Quartet, you could say that Avery is in his element – his storytelling/harmonica-playing/beat-boxing element.
Valentine’s Day sucks
On Friday, I lost a bet with an A&E editor. Two days later, I was by myself, waiting in a long line of moon-eyed couples at the AMC Forum, ready to review Garry Marshall’s newest film, Love, Actually II. Wait, no, that was the working title. I mean Valentine’s Day, starring everyone you would expect.
Colm Tóibín, the award-winning Irish writer, on crafting prose
Colm Tóibín is a writer fascinated by other writers. Tóibín, the award-winning Irish journalist and author, first considered writing a novel after reading the work of other journalists who wrote fiction: Ernest Hemingway, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, and V.
Fear and loathing just outside of Las Vegas
It’s been said that there’s only two different types of stories: either the protagonist leaves his or her old life, or someone new enters it. Oversimplified? Yes, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any truth to it. In the case of Saint John of Las Vegas, it’s both.
CD REVIEWS: Line Spectra: Maps & Directions
Line Spectra has finally released their first studio album. For the past couple years, you may have noticed this all-girl trio playing at staple venues around Montreal and even a few shows at OAP. These ladies wield their instruments with a fancy, sparkle and a twist.
CD REVIEWS: Beach House: Teen Dream
Since 2004, Beach House has been the leader of the dream-pop scene with slow, simple pop melodies layered over lush soundscapes to create achingly beautiful songs of love and longing. Vocalist Victoria Legrand and guitarist/keyboardist Alex Scally have crafted a winning sound that is completely their own, and with Teen Dream it seems they’ve truly perfected it.
