“It’s a fucking meatgrinder,” says one soon-to-be meat patty towards the end of Dredd. He is talking about Mega-City One, the dystopian cesspool of violence and despair in which the story is set, but he might as well have been referring to the film itself. At its best, the action scenes are dazzling, the closest that blood spatter will come to approaching the sublime. At its worst, the violence is disturbing and rather sad, an unenjoyable experience for any, save the sadomasochist. And if violence is not exactly your cup of tea, well, unfortunately, Dredd offers little of anything else.

An opening voice-over introduces the post-apocalyptic mega-city to the audience. The 800 million residents of Mega-City One suffer 90 per cent unemployment rates, constant and bloody gang warfare, and an urban hellscape that is surprisingly drab. The only semblance of justice, we are told, is in the form of Judges: a group of men and women tasked with dispensing law in the streets. In the opening scene, the titular Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) does exactly this, charging and convicting a criminal with “attempted murder of a Judge,” then delivering the associated sentence of death in fiery fashion. This is “judge, jury, and executioner,” interpreted in the idiom’s most literal fashion.

Undoubtedly, few people enter such a film expecting more than violence and gore, but given the premise of the story, one cannot help but sense a missed opportunity. Where do the Judges get their legitimacy? Where do the laws that they carry out come from? Where is the state? Is there a state? These are  not  difficult questions, yet they remain unasked. The comic series on which the film is based explores such political themes in detail; the film is stripped of such cerebral fancy, and what little elements do remain are either diluted or ham-fisted.

Most of the film locks Judge Dredd in a life-and-death struggle with Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), a psychopathic former-prostitute and current gang-and-drug lord. Headey creates a terrifying and enrapturing villain, one who rivals the role she is most famous for—Cersei Lannister of Game of Thrones—in her confident and callous brutality. Urban’s Dredd combines crisp enunciation with a delivery that is bankrupt of emotion. This passes as deadpan during a few of the screenplay’s one-liners (which fail as often than they succeed), but most of the time it adds to the monotony one feels toward the protagonist, a sentiment mostly rooted in the fact that Dredd’s face is perpetually obstructed by a helmet.

The use of the drug Slo-Mo (which allows the user—and the audience—to experience exactly what the name suggests) provides a golden opportunity for innovative action sequences, an opportunity the film takes full advantage of. It’s not every day that one can describe the slow eruption of blood from a bullet exit-wound as being beautiful. At the same time, the film’s utterly senseless violence can be incredibly sad. Ever wanted to see multiple Gatling guns used on the innocent and the poor? Dredd is for you.

The gratuitous 3D glasses, as always, dimmed everything on-screen, and added little perceptible effect outside of the slow-motion shots. The bordering-on-garish lighting would not be out-of-place in a Joel Schumacher Batman film. Drugs, violence, and death are the only means of escape available for the wretched citizens of this world, and after watching Dredd I can sympathize. Hobbes must be rolling in his grave.

Dredd is currently showing at Cineplex Scotiabank Theatres, 977 Ste. Catherine Ouest.

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, when combined with Andersen’s uncanny sensitivity to nuance in virtually every aspect of filmmaking, allows him to craft films that combine the cerebral and the visceral. With The Master, Andersen artfully spins a web of subtle hints and cryptic allusions around a story which draws his viewers in with visceral intensity.

The Master begins with Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a PTSD-riddled Navy veteran returning from WWII. After equivocating his way out of the psychiatric hospital, Quell begins his new as life as a department store photographer, while mixing viciously potent cocktails out of whatever chemicals he finds in the darkroom. Thanks to Quell’s instability, however, he quickly loses his job, and drifts aimlessly until he chances upon a ship, which he sneaks aboard, and passes out. Upon waking, he meets the larger-than-life cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who immediately warms to Quell and offers him work.

The remainder of the film centres on the relationship between Dodd and Quell. The two men are, in many ways, ideal counterbalances. Quell, who Phoenix masterfully portrays with a jittery volatility, is a man buffeted about by the winds of his passions: his interest in women extends only so far as his lust; when upset, his spindly frame lashes out with volcanic fury. Hoffman, who shared Venice’s Best Actor award with Phoenix, plays Dodd with grandiose aplomb. Hoffman imposes his large frame on each scene, dominating all, save his wife (Amy Adams), with a combination of confidence and psychological insight. If Quell is the primal id, Dodd is the superego—slowly and forcefully repressing any animalistic notions in his followers with sheer mental strength. These two forces clash and grind, attempting to bend each to the other’s will. Whether it’s subjugation to our own nature or another’s will, Andersen skillfully uses the men to show that we are never really free—not even when we are the ones subduing others.

Like Andersen’s previous works, The Master is no less an exercise in cinematography than in storytelling. Mihai Malaimare Jr.’s camerawork invariably finds beautiful compositions in every shot; from Phoenix warily gazing from beneath a combat helmet, to him drinking moonshine below the decks of a Navy ship, one is struck by a pervading sense of visual weight and proportion. The lighting (which many directors woefully relegate to differentiating between night and day) is equally important to Andersen, who deftly employs the contrast between light and dark to underscore a character’s nature, or drastically increase a scene’s intensity.

The film’s symbolic elements are, perhaps, its most enjoyable aspect. The process of examining seemingly trivial remarks is, in itself, an exercise to be relished—Andersen is too meticulous a filmmaker to leave things to chance. It is rare for a film to approach its topics so adroitly, with such light strokes, as to abstain from walloping the viewer over the head with the point (I’m looking at you, Black Swan).

Good films are almost never a one-off encounter. The first watch tends to be too captivating to appreciate the details of its composition; it’s only on the second viewing that one can begin to appreciate the more delicate nuances. With The Master, Andersen offers a beautifully complex story crafted with rare skill—plan on watching this one again.

The Master opens in theatres on September 28.

A fusion of new and old takes the stage this week with Metachroma Theatre’s inaugural production, Richard III, brought alive through a contemporary spin on a Shakespearean classic. As Montreal’s newest theatre company, Metachroma aims not only to pay homage to he Bard, but also to make a cultural statement that resonates with the modern audience. The concept of “beyond colour”—the literal translation of the Latin words “meta” and “chroma”—has unified actors and actresses of visible minorities from around the city to take up roles traditionally denied to them.

For actress Julie Tamiko Manning, this unity is part of the fun of getting involved. Manning, who plays Clarence, in addition to the Duchess of York, a bishop, and a soldier (she plays both the characters of mother and son), is a founding member of the company and has witnessed the production’s evolution. “I’ve lived in Montreal for 20 years and there aren’t a lot of opportunities for actors of colour,” she says, making light of an ironic dilemma. Indeed, it is surprising that in a space as diverse as Montreal, visible minorities still remain underrepresented on the main stage.

Azeem Nathoo, another cast member, had no problem finding representation as an actor of colour when he lived in Britain. “Here, when I came back, I realized we were behind,” he says, referring to the traditional North American preconceptions of how actors should ‘look the part.’

In choosing Richard III for their first production, Metachroma Theatre invites the audience to forget colour, and simply, enjoy the show. “The story can be told by whomever,” says Manning. “It’s unnecessary for there to be a label.”

Instead, the company asks audience members to join them in untangling the complex web of deception and horror that is Richard III. An enduring tale that is as relevant today as it was during Shakespeare’s time, Richard III recounts the story of a man whose lust for power knows no bounds, and whose selfishness will cost him even more. He mercilessly cuts down anyone standing in his way, alienating an entire nation.

“The power struggle, the arrogance, it really resonates with today’s audience,” Manning says. Indeed, the dictatorship of Richard III continues to hold political salience, nearly 600 years after it took place.

Notably, McGill graduates are among the cast members. Nathoo, who studied economics and political science, has since found his true calling in the theatre world. Although he looks back fondly on his time at McGill, he adds a word of advice for McGill students who are thinking of dipping their feet in the acting industry: get proper training.

“I ended up going back into training. You need something like that,” says Nathoo, who became involved in his first production as a non-actor while studying at McGill.

While such devotion to the stage may not be for all of us,  Metachroma’s Richard III is perfect for those who are simply content with sitting back and admiring the art of theatre.

Richard III will run from September 19th to the 30th at the Segal Centre of Performing Arts, 5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine

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 Poisons Everything. Brimming with Hitchens’ customary eloquence, immutable moral certitude, and jaunty wit, the autobiography was an instant success.

On June 8, 2010, when he was due to double-bill both The Daily Show and the 92nd Street Y, Hitchens awoke to find he was barely breathing. Weeks later, the diagnosis was in: Hitchens had Stage Four esophageal cancer. As the author was fond of saying, there was no Stage Five.

For the next 19 months, Hitchens attacked life with furious, defiant abandon. Despite undergoing extensive debilitating treatments, his incendiary polemics in Slate continued, as did his prolific speaking engagements. In his last weeks, drifting between frail consciousness and morphine induced stupor, he composed an incisive essay on G.K. Chesterton, whose biographer he scolded for misinterpreting aspects of the man’s character. It was during this period that he wrote his final book.

Mortality is unlike any of Hitchens’ previous writings. In past works, Hitchens delivered beautiful analyses with an overwhelming  confidence, ranging from invectives against Mother Teresa to detailed examinations of George Orwell and Thomas Jefferson.  In Mortality, a distillation of Hitchens’ dying thoughts and observations loosely grouped into chapters, the writing feels less grounded. There’s no sense of this missing spirit in chapters centered on religion or torture; contemplations of that old lie, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” as well as cancer etiquette, however, evince a rare helplessness in the face of his characteristic self-assuredness. This chink in the stoic armour is precisely what makes the personal chapters, like that in which the author laments the loss of his voice, so affecting. Especially distressing is the final chapter, which consists of his fragmentary personal jottings—one cannot help but picture the waning author amidst a web of IVs, scrambling to write his final thoughts.

Nonetheless, Mortality is replete with the perspicacity which Hitchens’ readers have come to expect. The most perceptive writers tend to expand from the specific to the general, and Hitchens fills his pages with observations that use the immediately personal to glean something broader. His protracted discussion of his own medical treatment never borders on the solipsistic, and seems largely formulated to emphasize the maddening senselessness of those standing in the way of certain medical research. While fraternal accounts of similar cancers, such as that written by the British columnist John Diamond (the laudably honest C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too) opt for a narrative, Hitchens refuses to tell a story—he has too many ideas to limit himself with a story arc.

Although his obituary ran on December 15, 2011, Hitchens always endeavored to write as if he were to be read posthumously. With Mortality, the first book published after his death, Hitchens is still flashing what his close friend Ian McEwan calls his “Rolls-Royce mind”—it’s just that he’s suddenly become more human.

Kevin Loring’s Where the Blood Mixes, winner of the 2009 Governor General’s Literary Award, has an intriguing simplicity in its outlook. Although the Teesri Duniya Theatre production foregrounds a realism with its sharp humour, Lib Spry’s direction helps the performance segue into the poetic.

The sombre play about the haunting legacy of Canadian First Nations residential schools is gradually infused with poignancy, as it depicts the reality of what the first peoples have gone through—and continue to experience—as a community.

The story is set in a First Nations community “where the two rivers meet, where the wind sings songs of the dead,” and where in the local bar, Floyd (Jeremy Proulx) and Mooch (Charles Bender) also meet as old drinking partners. From what seems like an elegantly simple scene, the play proceeds to unveil a layered depth. We soon discover that both characters are residential school survivors—an experience which neither has outlived as they continue to lead troubled lives. Mooch regularly steals money from his girlfriend, June (Emilee Veluz), to fund his drinking habits, while Floyd’s bitter disposition manifests itself in his refusal to reminisce with Mooch, even about the few good memories that they once shared.

Although the play frequently moves backwards in time, the characters’ wounded past is never directly addressed. Paradoxically, a play driven by series of anecdotes is characterized by a reluctance to speak­—or perhaps even a deliberate evasion of speaking—at least initially. This apparent stasis is finally broken when Floyd’s daughter Christine (Alarey Alsip), whom the state placed in the care of foster parents when she was still an infant, manages to get in touch with her father and decides to visit him. What follows is an outpouring of soul-wrenching confessions, a detailing of losses and reconciliations that are set off—with great surprise­—by a deluge of tears from Floyd, who, prior to his daughter’s arrival, remained callously stoic.

This act of storytelling provides the platform for healing and connecting. If Floyd and Mooch were to stay silent, their stories would die with them, and so would history. Throughout the play, numerous instances of comic dialogue ease the audience into emotionally-wraught situations, while several heartfelt scenes provide the piece with a beauty that saves it from being all too distressing. Though the content of the play may seem like a melancholic endeavour to watch, it ultimately ends in hope as the community discovers the voice of common humanity.

Artistic Director Rahul Varma described it as a “message that needs to be heard over and over again.” The message is one that is both touching and valuable, highlighting Canada’s First Nations cultural heritage, one which should never be forgetten.

Teesri Duniya’s production of Where the Blood Mixes runs Wed-Sat at 8pm, with weekend matinees at 2pm, until Sept. 30th, Centre Culturel Calixa-Lavaleé (3819 Calixa-Lavaleé). Student tickets are $12.

This past Saturday, Opéra de Montréal opened its 2012-2013 season with Verdi’s La Traviata. The opera tells the story of two lovers, Violetta and Alfredo, whose public love affair brings great shame to Alfredo’s family. After an unexpected visit from Alfredo’s father, Violetta realizes the detrimental consequences of her love affair on his family’s honour, and she leaves Alfredo. Alfredo mistakes her sudden departure for infidelity, and humiliates her in front of many close friends and family, including Alfredo’s own father. Some time later, Alfredo finally learns the truth about Violetta’s sacrifice, and rushes back to her side to apologize. Violetta, however, is dying from a serious illness, and Alfredo finds himself in a race against time.

“It’s really the story of a great love affair,” says Opéra de Montréal’s artistic director Michel Beaulac, “[It’s about] people who weren’t really meant to socially blend … to live together, to fall in love with one another, but they do, and … before she dies, all of the characters—the father, the son who is in love with Violetta—they all realize that finally, all of those social differences have no importance, and that this separation should have never taken place.”

La Traviata was written in 1853, during a phase in which Verdi wrote an opera approximately every nine months. This creative spree resulted in what is now known as his ‘popular trilogy’ of opera works—Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata. In the past two years, Opéra de Montréal has performed both Rigoletto (2010), and Il Trouvadore (2011), and concludes its presentation of Verdi’s trilogy with this week’s performances.

Few may grasp the amount of work required for such an elaborate production. “Before we go on stage, we start building the set; we mount the lighting equipment … and we start planning the sequence of when the set changes are going to take place, how they are going to take place, and how many members of the stage crew are going to be necessary to make this operation possible,” Beaulac said. “The most important roles are sung by artists who have done the roles several times, so they all know their parts.”

From the onset of the opera, the soloists were captivating in their roles. Grecian soprano Myrto Papatanasiu, playing Violetta, possesses vocal talent that not only allowed her to communicate the musical elements of the opera, but also to clearly express the complexities of her character, leaving audience members with a slight heartache after leaving the theatre.

In describing Opéra de Montréal’s process for choosing a soloist to play Violetta, Mr. Beaulac explains that “when you have something very specific in mind in terms of the characterization, the interpretation, the colour of voice, the stage presence … one must have the soloist in mind … and Myrto Papatanasiu is splendid in the role.”

Many of the choir members onstage are members of Opéra de Montréal’s apprenticeship program—a training program designed for graduate students wishing to pursue professional careers in opera. Beaulac describes the program as a “stepping stone and the final preparation for an operatic career,” in which the students “have coaching, language courses, movement courses, [and] acting classes.”

Italian tenor Roberto de Biasio flourished as Alfredo, and his humble stage presence allowed for a tasteful yet emotionally compelling performance. Luca Grassi’s performance as Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father, was the highlight of the evening. In comparison to Violetta’s often dramatic persona, Grassi’s simple acting style quickly grasped the audience’s attention. His sonorous, colourful voice, paired with this tasteful acting technique, briefly drew the spotlight away from Violetta and forced the audience to listen—truly listen—to what he had to say.

La Traviata will be showing at Place des Arts, Wilfred-Pelletier hall, Sept. 18, 20, and 22. Opéra de Montréal offers heavily discounted ticket prices for students that range from $20-$25