Burial: “Loner”

Understated dubstep with kaleidoscopic synth-melodies and enough bass to keep you moving. Builds into and out of silent moments, keeping the track focused and uplifting.

Porcelain Raft: “Put Me to Sleep”

Soothing beats and bright, airy vocals. It satisfies but doesn’t overpower.

Talk Talk: “Taphead”

A carefully constructed lament that uses horns to heighten the song’s sense of anxiety.

John Coltrane: “Pursuance/Psalm”

If for nothing else, its length could serve as a good reminder when it’s time to pull your eyes away from your textbook.

A Tribe Called Quest: “Push It Along”

The jazzy vibes are addictive even if the message within Q-Tip’s lingo escapes you.

DJ Shadow: “What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4)”

The steady drum sample might seem repetitive, but it would be a mistake to dismiss this track as only background noise.

Filmofilia.com

Producer Todd Phillips (The Hangover, Old School) and director Nima Nourizadeh have turned up the intensity of the teen movie. Project X is Superbad for 2012; it’s edgy and the war cry of a generation.

 The film is the story of 17-year-old Thomas, whose “small get together” quickly turns into the century’s most chaotic party. It’s also the tale of a licentious, debauched group that sacrifices a college fund for the sake of this one-night insanity. Project X is somewhat questionable in its portrayal of mind-numbingly reckless teens and its lack of character development. Some will see sleazy, others will see sexy. Whichever one it is, Project X can lead to some interesting post-viewing debates.

 Viewers follow four average high school losers through the party they wanted to host as a “game changer.” To kickstart the party, Costa, Thomas’s hasty and obnoxious friend, pours four shots, one of which he hands over to the camera man, symbolically inviting the audience to drink with them. Cars arrive, hip teens come in large numbers, and quickly the house is packed; alcohol flows and girls denude.

 The entire movie is filmed by a handheld camera, reducing the distance between the audience and the characters to almost nothing, creating a spectator’s experience of the party. All the frames are skilfully trendy and provocative enough that it gives the average insipid teen movie an artistic spin and some much-needed flavour. The audience experiences the party with these teens: the slick combination of handheld shooting, moments of intense music, and overcrowded frames drags the viewer into the madness of a provocative party. The soundtrack alternates between indie electro  and hip-hop party tracks with the Kid Cudi/MGMT/Ratatat collaboration “The Pursuit of Happiness” serving as the anthem of the movie.

 The chaotic atmosphere is all the more real when the host’s anxiety increases with the increasingly uncontrollable mayhem. The audience is on edge alongside the characters as we see constant reminders that what these kids live through is often wrong, abusive, and immoral. The neighbours and the police snap us out of simply enjoying the decadent youth and propel the film into a strange suspense that is further emphasized by an unstable and fast-paced mood. The party grows in size as Thomas’ house becomes overcrowded, his father’s car is submerged in the family pool, and Thomas self-medicates with ecstasy.

Beyond the party frenzy, however, the film emphasizes both an aesthetic style and debauched youth trying to define themselves. Project X can’t be taken too seriously. Whether it really takes burning your neighbourhood down to get noticed at school is not the point. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s provocative. Perhaps the true virtuosos are the marketing team behind Project X who understood that this is the type of movie that the teen audience wants.

Aceshowbiz.com

At first glance, Wanderlust appears to be another film with all the makings of petty romantic comedy; the idea of Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd teaming up in a film about finding one’s inner self seems like enough to place the film next to other disappointing romantic comedies like Along Came Polly or One for the Money. But director David Wain (Role Models) successfully translates the same awkward and unexpected humour into a unique and hilarious context with enough absurd plot twists to keep viewers laughing throughout the entire film. Wanderlust warrants itself as a memorable comedy in its own right.  

The story centres on characters Linda and George (Aniston and Rudd) who, after hoping to start a new and promising urban life in New York City, are forced to leave their dreams behind after George is unexpectedly laid off. With nowhere else to turn, they reluctantly pack up and head to Atlanta to live with George’s older brother and wife. On the way there, they stumble upon the hippie commune Elysium. Upon realizing that George’s frat-boy brother is unbearable, they soon head back to Elysium to stay until they figure out where to go from there.  

The comedic magic lies in the commune’s exaggeratedly quirky and alternative lifestyle, one that Linda and George learn to embrace. The plot progresses with a hysterical depiction of their random day-to-day practices: George can only observe the commune with disbelief, but Linda unexpectedly eases right into it. Everything stereotypically associated with hippies—nudism, tantric sex, herbal tea, and drugs—is laid out before us through a cast of individuals that successfully transform into caricatures of the hippie movement. The dialogue has plenty of hilarious one-liners, and often painfully drags out delayed awkward moments and situations that left me crying with laughter.  

Both Aniston and Rudd do not stretch far from anything we haven’t already seen before. Rudd plays a sarcastic simpleton whose comedic quality lies in his awkward yet amusing way of dealing with embarrassing situations, though we do get to see his impressive improvisational skills. Jennifer Aniston doesn’t shock the same way her recent character as a nymphomaniac dentist did in Horrible Bosses, but it’s still great to see her play a comedic role. She has an undeniable charm and likeability that shines through her character’s free-spiritedness, and most of all she reminds us that even in at 43, she is the face for the elixir of youth. The real icing on the cake howver is the antagonist Seth (Justin Theroux), who holds intense passion for peace, harmony, yoga, and making love.  

Wanderlust is the kind of movie that is entertaining at face value. Any sort of logical progression of events is to be forgotten; director David Wain wants viewers to sit back and be amused. If you’re looking for a film with a deeper thematic meaning or emotional development of characters, look elsewhere. Wanderlust is for the sake of laughing out loud and nothing more.  

Julia Milz / Title 66 Productions

For many, good and evil are so straightforward. Truth is good, lies are bad; helping is good, hurting is bad. Easy. The History of the Devil takes the notion of black-and-white ethics and grinds it into the dirt. Its  tale of sin and sympathy, revulsion and redemption is served unflinchingly and relentlessly by the cast and crew of Title 66 Productions. The result is something slightly less than the sum of its parts, but it’s certainly not for a lack of ambition nor courage.  

With Heaven, there is also Hell. For thousands of years civilizations have lived alongside the Prince of Darkness, whose machinations have repeatedly brought woe upon humanity. Now the tables have turned. The Devil himself has been put on trial, and we are the jury. A conviction denies Lucifer of God’s grace, and binds him to a continued existence of torment on Earth. An acquittal sets him free.  

From this promising premise the script leaps through the pages of history, serving philosophical rumination alongside sex and blood. There’s Dante, beheadings, meta-ethics, and a stick-sparring session between Satan and Jesus Christ.  

The text is a smorgasbord of literary and philosophical references, none of which appear to have slipped past the cast. It takes intellectual acumen to dissect a script so obtuse, and the cast’s deft comprehension of the script was clear. The problem was more that the cast knew the script too well; there were a few rather esoteric exchanges that the actors simply charged through, leaving the audience struggling to pick up the smithereens.  

That said, this relentlessness was perhaps the single greatest strength of the production. The rapid yet focused pacing kept the show from being mired down in the density of the script. Dialogue was frictionless despite the speed, a testament to what must have been a considerable amount of time and effort devoted by the cast. In addition, Jeremy Michael Segal added precise and meticulous direction.

Unfortunately, victims to the pacing included projection—an issue most pronounced with Jane (Arielle Palik) and to a lesser degree, Sam (Kyle Mcilhone)—and enunciation. The latter was exacerbated by otherwise gorgeous masks (created by Danielle Fagen and Joshua Cape), which, when created to fit over the mouth, served to muffle nearly every actor behind them (with the notable exception of the wonderfully booming Liana Montoro).  

Amazingly, nearly all of the cast fulfilled four or more roles. Great risks carry great rewards, and this impressive feat allowed the cast to show off their great range in characterizations. Particularly outstanding was Arielle Palik, whose portrayal of a mentally disabled child that is Satan’s first mortal victim was perhaps the greatest performance of the production. As the sole actor with a single role, Lucas Chartier-Dessert’s Devil was everything the script demanded him to be: paradoxically, the most human character of all. 

Ultimately however, the production leaves an impression that is cold, clinical, and bland. Much of it is admittedly not the fault of the cast. Philosophically, playwright Clive Barker writes from the shadow of Nietzsche—a thinker that is overarchingly defined by the prefix “anti”—and makes none of the efforts of the latter at amelioration. This is why some failures of the production cannot be hung on the cast directly. No matter how much life they attempted to blow into the corpse, Barker has stubbornly slapped his script with an order of “do not resuscitate.”

As a young company, Title 66 has plenty of time to flourish. The History of the Devil proved two very important things: that its members have guts, and by implication, an iron-clad will to thrive. With luck, the rest will come in time.

Canculture.com

On Provincial, John K. Samson, the front man of beloved Winnipeg folk-rockers the Weakerthans set out to uncover the forgotten histories and contemporary culture of his home province of Manitoba.

The project was initially conceived as a series of 7″ records based around different Manitoba roads before Samson decided to expand the concept.

“I kind of got it into my head that I’d like a record where I could take people to each song if they had a couple days off and a car,” Samson says. “I could take them to the songs and show them the places and kind of make a musical map of a radius around the place that I live.”

On paper, a Manitoba-themed record may not sound like the most riveting listen, but Samson finds some fascinating stories and his way with words coupled with solid folk-rock makes the songs all the more intriguing. The lyric book begins with an epigraph from Canadian poet Karen Solie: “Everything happens here, then nothing for a long, long time.” In a way, it’s the thesis of the album, and one that doesn’t attempt to dispel the perceived placid nature of the province; rather, it leads to the realization that there are stories everywhere if you’re willing to look for them.

“That just points to the fact that all of the places that I researched and visited for this record, to the naked eye, they’re not bustling places,”  Samson says. “There’s not a lot going on, but an incredible amount of story and life have been lived in these places and those stories have a real permanence that exist[s] beyond the exterior of what you see when you go there.”

One such place was the Ninette Sanatorium, Manitoba’s first treatment centre for tuberculosis that operated for most of the 20th century. It appears back-to-back on the album, first as the study subject of a frustrated grad student in the comical and upbeat “When I Write My Master’s Thesis,” and then in the tender “Letters in Icelandic From the Ninette San,” written from the perspective of a patient. The songs are the spiritual centrepiece of the album, and as a physical location, Ninette embodies the marginalized history Samson wants to expose.

“It’s this place where thousands of people lived and died and created this totally unique community that has just been wiped away,” Samson explains. “It’s now an RV park and you’re not even allowed to go and look at the plaques that were lovingly installed by patients and doctors over the years. These places exist everywhere.”

The album also does its part to sing the praises of unsung heroes. “www.ipetitions.com/petition/rivertonrifle” is written in the form of an online petition by the citizens of Riverton to induct Reggie “The Riverton Rifle” Leach into the Hockey Hall of Fame. A town hero, Leach overcame a difficult childhood to play several successful seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers before his career was cut short by struggles with alcoholism, from which he’s since recovered.

“He never really put together a string of seasons that would, on paper, make him eligible for the Hockey Hall of Fame,” Samson explains. “But I saw a great sense of pride the people of Riverton take in him—there’s an arena and a mural and a street named after him in the town. I wanted to try and figure out a way of honouring Reggie and discussing those things that you can’t find in statistics.”

Those who visit the URL will find an actual petition created by Samson that they can sign should they feel so inclined. It’s gathered over 1,100 signatures since it was posted in 2010, more than half of which have come following the release of Provincial. Samson hopes to gain more signatures as he tours, and plans to submit them to the Hall of Fame at the end of the year.

Talk of hockey naturally works its way to the return of the Winnipeg Jets, something that leaves Samson with mixed feelings.

“I haven’t taken to them yet,” he says. “I believe that the Winnipeg Jets existed until 1996 and the franchise that was the Winnipeg Jets is the Phoenix Coyotes. I’m very much opposed to the idea that these are the Winnipeg Jets. To me, that’s a huge mistake to name them that.”

However, Samson admits he’s happy that high calibre hockey is back in Winnipeg and, much like Leach’s impact in Riverton, he sees its effect on the people of the city.

“Mood accounts for much more than we give it credit,” he says. “I think it’s been a pretty spectacular season for Winnipeggers and you can feel it in the city. Again, it’s one of those intangible things. I personally don’t believe that a hockey team or a sports franchise does anything economically to a city—I think it’s a mistake to think that it does—but it does something to the people of the city.”

Samson and Winnipeg often go together in the same breath, but as specific as his songs get, his music has still managed to find a worldwide audience. He doesn’t fully understand it himself, but he has his suspicions.

“I guess it’s just some great commonality that we’re all from somewhere, that we all live in unique and universal places, that there’s something unique about every place and also universal. I always enjoy writing that distorts a place in a way that you haven’t heard it before and that’s kind of what I aspire to do.”

Provincial aims to show there’s more to Manitoba than meets the eye. Mission accomplished.

John K. Samson plays La Sala Rossa (4848 St. Laurent) Friday, March 9. $18 advance/$20 at the door.

Meaghan Tardif-Bennett sat anxiously waiting for her turn on stage. She was dressed in black and white, with pink nail polish, pink lipstick, and a pink handbag.  

“I was really stressed, and was very conscious of the impression I would make on the audience,” she says. “But I also wanted to feel as comfortable as possible in my skin. I was saving this bag for the spring, but it was pink and I really like it, so tonight I thought ‘fuck it, I’m using it.'”

Tardif-Bennett, a 20-year-old studio arts graduate from Champlain College, was taking part in a poetry slam organized by the Throw Poetry Collective at the Divan Orange. The event ran according to standard slam rules: judges were randomly selected amongst the attendees, and cut their evaluative teeth on a “sacrificial poet” in order to standardize the scoring and diffuse the worries that performers might have about going first. Poets then had three minutes on stage, with a good-natured heckle from the crowd and points deducted if they went over or under the allotted time.  

The poem Tardif-Bennett performed dealt with her coming of age.  

“My stuff is very personal. I’m applying for university now, and I wrote about what I wanted this part of my life to be like when I was younger, and coming to terms with what it’s like now,” she says. After her piece, she sat back in her seat, with only her bright smile betraying her quiet giddiness. The judges gave her high scores, and she moved on to the second round. 

Although the slam pits poets against one another in a public arena, there is very little ill-will between the participants.  

“After I slammed here, I loved it,” says Deanna Smith, a leading member of collective and the evening’s emcee.  “It’s very open and welcoming.  Even though it’s supposed to be competitive, there’s nothing negative about it.”

The remainder of the evening was filled with performances running the gamut from surprisingly funny to jarringly emotional. A young man comically rhapsodized about his relationship with coffee, eliciting peals of laughter from the audience. He was followed by a bearded man who chided the audience for their latent support of America (by virtue of living in Canada), and called the attack on the World Trade Center an instance of “post-modern war.” Tardif-Bennett, who had been unaware of a second round before that evening, performed a poem about her younger sister with little practice. It lasted over four minutes, and she was heavily penalized, coming last in the round. 

Despite the time mishap, Tardif-Bennett was beaming. “I’d do it again, hands down. As an artist, you’ve got this constant juice, this energy running through you. It’s like a waterfall. After you perform though, there’s this calm,” she explains, and enthusiastically expressed her plans to return in two weeks’ time. “This is a community I want to be a part of.”

The next open mic slam at Le Divan Orange is March 25. For more information, visit the Throw Poetry Collective at www.throwcollective.com.