Chilean director Cristián Jiménez’ Bonsai is at its roots a familiar modern love story: shy boy falls for punkish girl, love blossoms, love fades, melancholy grows, lives separate, and girl dies. No spoiler alert there; its tagline is its ending. From the first frames, we know Emilia dies and Julio[Read More…]
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
POP Montreal Wrap-up
I don’t order bottle service at clubs. Nor do I have ‘hook-ups,’ know ‘a guy,’ or am part of anything exclusive apart from opt-in emails regarding sales at The Gap. A media pass to POP Montreal was, therefore, a revelation. For those unlucky souls who have yet to step onto[Read More…]
The Noble Thiefs: Beyond the 11th Deck
We live in an age of the retrospective—of Adele, sampling, and electro swing. The challenge for vintage-inspired artists is updating oldies to the tastes of the 21st century. The Noble Thiefs, a Winnipeg-based band, are foraying into vintage-modern territory by combining a gaggle of genres. Their debut album, Beyond the[Read More…]
Christopher Smith: Earning Keep
Christopher Smith is more than just a musician. Hailing from Vancouver, Smith began as a visual artist but found the the medium’s boundaries too constricting. Naturally, he transitioned to music, and now works as a singer-songwriter. Moving away from the sound of his previous album, The Beckon Call (2010), Earning[Read More…]
Paper Lions: At Long Creek
Indie-rockers Paper Lions’ new acoustic EP, At Long Creek, is only one of the exciting ventures the Prince Edward Island band is embarking on this year. Other projects include the release of a full-length sophomore album this winter, and the video for their song “Travelling.” At Long Creek is a[Read More…]
In concert: Passenger
At first listen, Michael Passenger—who performs under his last name—sounds akin to a mix of Ray LaMontagne, Marcus Mumford, and Ed Sheeran. Even this comparison, however, fails to do justice to his unique musical style. There’s something hauntingly familiar, yet unplacable about his vocals, which could lead you to spend[Read More…]
The long arm of the law is dripping with blood
“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[Read More…]
A tale of human bondage
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,[Read More…]
A literary classic in a modern light
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[Read More…]
Christopher Hitchens’ last words
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[Read More…]