Dove Shore Electronic music has always maintained a modest yet comfortable position in mainstream music’s landscape, but the recent explosion of electronic’s various subgenres—particularly house, dubstep, and breakbeat—has turned what was once a novelty into music that is now viewed, alongside pop, as pure social necessity. To what (or whom)[Read More…]
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Ghost Rider sequel crashes and burns in stunning 3D
filmbuffonline.com There are some films which one enters with such low expectations that, by the grace of Providence, the movie manages to just barely surpass them. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is one such case. Like a resuscitated drowning victim, the few elements of the film that worked coughed and[Read More…]
Plants and Animals take their time
secretcityrecords.com Montreal has become recognized for producing some of the best musicians of the past decade, and Plants and Animals is certainly no exception. The band’s first full-length album, Parc Avenue, was shortlisted for the 2008 Polaris Music Prize and nominated for two Junos in 2009. Not bad, right? It’s[Read More…]
Monkeys threaten crop production in Barbados
(inspiritmagazine.net)(travelpod.com)(Noah Caldwell-Rafferty / McGill Tribune) (inspiritmagazine.net)(travelpod.com)(Noah Caldwell-Rafferty / McGill Tribune) Every two years McGill’s department of geography sends a group of McGill students on an environmental field study in Barbados. Led by Professor Thom Meredith this year, 14 students touched down on Feb. 18 to spend reading week studying in[Read More…]
Picking up on the real prospects of picketing
McGill Tribune More than 65,000 students from CEGEPs and universities across Quebec are currently on strike in opposition to the Quebec government’s plans to raise tuition fees. Classes at the University of Montreal, UQAM, and Laval have been cancelled. The key question is: should McGill join the strike? The idea[Read More…]
Girls’ Generation: The Boys
The first North American album release by Korean dance-pop group Girls’ Generation (or SNSD), The Boys caps off SNSD’s five-year rise to stardom since their Korean debut in 2007, landing them a label spot with Universal—home to Lady Gaga and Eminem. The titular track is the album’s flagship, and the[Read More…]
A Separation stands alone
metropolefilms.com Oscar-winning A Separation is a movie that discreetly avoids the inveterate handicap plaguing large-scale commercial films. While Hollywood blockbusters typically attempt to tell cinematic epics scaled to Homeric proportions, they falter when sincere subject matter is lost amidst the one-upsmanship clashes between special effects, sentimentality, or the primordial intensity[Read More…]
The danger of the anecdote
The anecdote has its place. It is sometimes the only way to illustrate stark, numbing statistics to a reader. The problem with the anecdote, however, is when it takes over from hard data and honest analysis. In such cases, the anecdote becomes a pernicious a tool for lazy, deceptive, and[Read More…]
Why I’m against an unlimited student strike
The proposal of an unlimited student strike by arts students is certainly cause for concern. On Jan. 31, the AUS General Assembly saw heated debate regarding the creation of an AUS strike committee. One of the biggest concerns raised was the issue of whether or not students actually want to[Read More…]
We don’t need to fight a 200-year-old battle to know who we are
It is the year 1812. Yankee soldiers, some waving gigantic versions of the Red, White, and Blue, storm northwards under the auspices of a Greater Power. As a blazing sun sets on Upper and Lower Canada, budding Canadians everywhere yield to the call to keep their True North strong and[Read More…]