Getting your car or house repossessed is one thing, but getting your new liver repossessed is quite another. In the dark, not-so-distant future of Repo Men, medical advances have led to a manufactured organs market – which is great news, but only if you omit the price tag, of course.
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
Caravaggio vs. Michelangelo
Although art historians and casual tourists probably won’t stop peering up at the brilliance of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the 16th-century Italian Renaissance man may find himself looking up at another art world rival as the top Italian artist in history, according to one renowned art historian.
POP RHETORIC: Burton’s formula
Tim Burton has a distinct, dark, and quirky style that puts him in a cinematic class apart from any other director. The problem is that after creating so many successful films, his new projects are always going to be compared to his earlier “glory days.” The empire he has created is subject to unwarranted, faulty criticism merely because of the expectations that he’s planted in viewers’ minds.
The Bald Soprano has some playgoers scratching their heads
Director Julien Naggar’s production of The Bald Soprano transports the audience into an absurd world that nonetheless seems strangely familiar. Playing this week at the TNC Theatre in Morrice Hall, The Bald Soprano brings TNC’s 2009-2010 season to a climactic finish with its parlour-room madness, reshaping expectations and challenging presumptions.
Sex, violence, and more violence
Joy Fielding’s The Wild Zone begins when a personal trainer, a dishonourably discharged Afghanistan war veteran, and a Princeton philosophy Ph.D. walk into a bar and make a bet over who can sleep with the pretty, quiet girl alone with her martini. Suzy Bigelow, naturally, has secrets and an agenda of her own, and she leads them all on a wild and deadly ride which, though two-dimensional, is remarkably compelling.
John le Carré: the spy who loved fiction
The 2010 International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) in Montreal kicks off on March 18, featuring 230 films from 23 countries. Shortlisted from this group are a competitive selection of 43 films from 14 countries (including eight entries from Quebec). Buzzed films from the competitive group include Je M’Appelle Denis Gagnon, a documentary about the Quebec fashion designer who made quite an impression at Montreal Fashion Week; The Real World of Peter Gabriel, on the Genesis lead singer; and perhaps most intriguing, King of Spies: John le Carré, a documentary about the life’s work of a spy-turned-fiction writer.
The White Stripes trade stage lights for Northern lights
Jack White is a busy guy. Playing in three successful bands (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather), taking on small roles in feature films, and running a production company in Tennessee doesn’t seem to be enough. White claims he likes to make things difficult for himself, so within a single year he signed on for two documentary films; It Might Get Loud was released at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008, and Emmett Malloy’s The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights – filmed during the band’s tour across Canada in 2007 – premiered there last year.
CD REVIEWS: Zeus: Say Us
Zeus’ debut album Say Us may want to make you skip spring altogether: it’s got summer written all over it. Getting their start as Jason Collett’s backing band, the men of Zeus have crafted an album of hooks, harmonies, and good ol’ fashioned rock. And I mean ol’ fashioned when I say it; almost everything from the guitar tones to the aforementioned harmonies have a strong retro vibe that recall the best of the sixties.
POP RHETORIC: An in-credible end
The music at the Winter Olympics was terrible. It was painfully obvious that the majority of televised performances were lip-synched, and that god-awful theme song “I Believe” was so sappy I could’ve poured it on my pancakes. But without a doubt the most disappointing and flat-out embarassing moment of these Olympics for fans of Canadian music was the closing ceremonies.
JUNO nomination proves Canada is Down With Webster
Born out of a junior high talent show, Down With Webster has grown into a seven-man hip-hop/pop/rock group that’s been signed to a major label (Universal Motown), headlined its own tour, and just last week was nominated for a JUNO Award for Best New Group.
