All things considered, Martin Scorsese hasn’t made a decent feature film in over a decade. Gangs of New York seemed excessively brutal and utterly pointless, Bringing out the Dead sank like a stone and The Aviator, for all the accolades draped over it, hardly served its biographical purposes adequately and was a remarkably boring film.
Search Results for author "Ben Lemieux"
Putting Canada back on the television map
Tuesday evening saw the debut of CBC’s latest prime time original broadcast, the brainchild of Chris Haddock, nationally revered creator of decade-spanning Canadian success Da Vinci’s Inquest. His new series, Intelligence, examines a new facet of West Coast criminality, this time turning the camera towards the perpetrators rather than the victims and investigators.
STUDENT LIVING: How to…Talk shit in French
A few years past, one’s command of the French language had to be fairly deft to survive in Quebec for very long. McGill students, for the first weeks after arriving in Montreal, would need to assiduously commit dozens of key phrases to memory in order to obtain everyday household items, from milk to light bulbs.
OFF THE BOARD: Smart people have never been so stupid
I work at a record store and we have a listening counter on the basement level: a broad semi-circular counter with a half-dozen control panels and headphones jutting out of it at two-foot intervals. Customers stand about shoulder-length apart, skimming through the liner notes of a potential purchase, bopping their heads rhythmically.
FOOD: Tea’s company
Though it has only been a Western commodity for the past few centuries, tea has one of the longest and most illustrious histories of any beverage. Legend cites its discovery by Emperor Shennong of China around 2700 BCE, though early written record of the drink only stretches back to 300 CE or so.
RETROSPECTIVE: Jimi Hendrix 1942-1970
Even though he died 36 years ago yesterday, his music is among the most timeless and influential ever produced. Jimi Hendrix arguably changed the electric guitar sound more than any other guitarist in history. He was the guitar player who brought deft use of overdrive, feedback and the wah pedal to the masses and following in the footsteps of Eric Clapton’s days with Cream and John Mayayll’s Bluesbreakers, was among the first to swear by the Marshall Stack (amplifier) to give him one of the loudest, most blistering guitar sounds to accompany his legendary playing technique.
MUSIC: Ears wide open
Unending curiosity regarding the content of the evening’s set list was likely at the forefront of a Snow Patrol fan’s mind on their way to the band’s Sept. 12 Metropolis performance. In 2004, the Irish heartthrobs relased The Final Straw Stateside and it was among the 30 best sellers in the U.
OFF THE BOARD: Proud to be a man again
Early forms of feminism were founded upon the notion of female equality; that women should be able to take firm control of their personal and professional lives, be equally represented in the workplace, receive the same professional courtesy and salary as men and obtain the respect they merit in the home.
POP RHETORIC: My opinion is better than your opinion
It’s a conversation we’ve all had before. You’re sitting with one of your indie, Mile-End hipster friends at Bagel’s Etc. finishing off the remainder of your baked potatoes and, misfortunate as you are to be hung-over, you make the cognitively unsound decision to utter aloud, “Dude… Leonard Cohen’s music fucking sucks.
REVIEWS
Ray Lamontagne – Till the Sun Turns Black. Lamontagne’s mesmerizing debut, Trouble, was one of the most critically lauded sleeper hits of 2004, landing spots on a variety of film and TV soundtracks and rocketing him into folk-rock stardom. Since then, Lamontagne has been on a seemingly ceaseless tour schedule-dropping by Montreal three times in the past year.
