Jay Malinowski is best known as the singer/lead guitarist for Bedouin Soundclash, but his solo album, Bright Lights & Bruises, shows that he can stand on his own. It conspicuously lacks the reggae feel of Bedouin Soundclash’s repertoire, but for non-reggae fans this is all the more reason to give Bright Lights & Bruises a chance.
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
We Are The City take on the rest of the country
After recently winning Vancouver’s first-ever Peak Performance Project, a contest created by radio station 100.5 The PEAK and Music BC to encourage up-and-coming artists based in British Columbia, We Are The City is humbly starting to realize that what lies ahead for them is going to be a huge departure from their beginnings.
Cop Out lives up to its title
Kevin Smith’s supposed comedy, Cop Out, aims to be a big-budget action movie but falls flat with a potentially talented but ultimately disappointing cast. Combine Smith’s lackluster directing efforts with a poor script written by Mark and Robb Cullen and mediocre performances by both Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, and you have a two-hour long movie that feels more like four, with only a handful of scenes that are laugh-out-loud-worthy.
Far from home and close to danger in the Gaza Strip
Rachel, a new documentary from French-Israeli director Simone Bitton, tells the story of Rachel Corrine, an American activist who was killed while attempting to prevent the bulldozing of a Palestinian home in 2003. To this day Israel denies responsibility for her death, claiming the bulldozer operator’s line of sight was obstructed by the mound of dirt that crushed her.
CD REVIEWS: Hot Chip: One Life Stand
Hot Chip’s soft electropop is anything but middle of the road – it’s love or hate. One Life Stand is their fourth studio album, and is a mixed bag of standout tracks and one-listen flops. The album begins with a strong opening track called “Thieves in the Night,” which starts off sounding like Coldplay’s X&Y era.
POP RHETORIC: A Show of Patriotism
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.
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.
