A drunken man stumbled past our table, told us he loved us and mounted the stage. Commandeering the microphone, he slowly seemed to fade, and as he spoke he gradually collapsed to the floor. Adam Bell, lead singer of the Radical Dudez, was dead.
A thousand monkeys working on a thousand typewriters for an hour or so could have done a better re-write of the classic film, Planet of the Apes. William Broyles, who wrote the recent Fed-Ex-commercial-disguised-as-film CastAway, fails again, this time with his attempt to re-write Rod Serling’s original Planet of the Apes script. The relatively sparse dialogue in director Tim Burton’s treatment is so riddled with cliches that the entire movie comes across as a spoof.
These days, finding an R&B album that hasn’t been loaded with samples is harder than finding something on the Top 10 chart worth shelling out $20 for. Between Puff Daddy and Shaggy, every familiar song from the past two decades has been trussed with beats and refashioned as a slick urban chorus.
Looking for a great band with a good message? Your prayers have just been answered. Christian rockers Flood, consisting of Matt Baetz on lead guitar, Lee Casement on bass and mandolin, and Derek McGihon on lead vocals and guitar, have been producing quality sounds and inspiring lyrics for the masses since their formation in April, 1997.
Living in central London, working at a publishing company, attending curry buffets, and dealing with neurotic British friends—you might think my name is Bridget Jones. It’s not (see above). But the diary entries that follow attempt to reflect the thoughts of a twenty-something London, Ontario currently living in London, England.
This is the first installment of a regular feature that will profile independent Canadian bands, and attempt to address their attitudes toward playing music in Canada. The Igloo will appear bimonthly in the A&E section.
Daniel MacIvor is one of Canada’s most respected playwrights, and with credits including an acting role on CBC’s Twitch City and a nomination for a Governor General’s Award, his popularity is steadily rising. Part of what makes MacIvor’s plays notable is his ability to weave wit and sensitivity into unnerving and complex patterns—a talent which makes plays like Never Swim Alone difficult to produce.
For PlayerKing Productions, the brain child of two twenty-something Kingstonians, Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor’s Never Swim Alone is no ordinary play. “This play is absolutely perfect for the three of us,” says Jacob James. Will Taylor and James, PlayerKing’s artistic directors and two of the show’s stars, have known each other since nursery school. They met third actor Marnie McCourty at Theatre Five drama class when they were 12.
“I feel like a classical guitarist,” Canadian guitar-virtuoso Oscar Lopez told his Kingston audience during his opening numbers at the Grand Theatre on July 9.
The formula for Konkurrent records’ In The Fishtank series is simple: find one or two respected indie bands, commission them for a spontaneous recording session over a couple of days, and release the results on CD. Voila—simple music, captured with the initial creative impulse intact.
Any doubts about Angelina Jolie’s ability to play Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft are dispelled in the very first scenes of the film. Jolie jumps, kicks, and leaps with a gravity-defying panache that could only be found, well, in a video game. Along with the strap-on pistols, the practical-yet- flirty-braid and the more-than-ample bosom, Jolie has the physique to be an action hero and then some.
Several recent Hollywood films have attempted to refuel the endangered sub-genre of the cool car flick. After the disappointingly predictable Gone in Sixty Seconds blew through theatres last summer with all the unbridled power and white trash aplomb of a ’68 Mustang on cinder blocks, the future looked grim for speed junkies and their onscreen heroes.
If there’s any time of the year when people have more leisure time to go to the movies, it’s summer time. If more people go to the movies in the summer, those movies make more money at the box office. This being the case, why are most summer movies so poorly made, cheesy, unfunny, empty, and not worth the $10 cinemas are charging these days? And is it any coincidence they are all American-made?
On any given night on Princess Street, should you witness a bunch of sloppy drunk people unabashedly making fools of themselves, you would likely choose to walk away with a sour look on your face. That considered, it seems odd that whenever the Queen’s Players move the idiocy into Clark Hall Pub, give it a snappy title and charge $5 to get in, they expect people to be awestruck with the sheer hilarity of it all.
Combining art, artifact and multiple venues is the ambitious aim of Museopathy, the multi-media project that has been installed in no fewer than eleven of Kingston’s historical sites.
Memento should come with the following clauses: 1) Must see when alert and sober; 2) Skip late-late-show to avoid drowsiness and; 3) Is best seen by those who keep a Rubik’s cube in their glove compartment. If these requirements are met, Memento proves to be an incredibly fascinating film.
For almost two decades, the term ‘progressive rock’ has become as much an insult as a category. It conjures images of self-indulgent musicians from the seventies, playing instruments with too many strings and wailing about mountains, goblins, and other oft-mocked staples of fantasy lore.
It’s the swanky Agnes Etherington Art Centre’s sophomore year of hosting the Bachelor of Fine Arts graduates’ end-of-year exhibit. Guest curator Peter Krausz, from the University of Montreal, chose works to represent the accomplishments of the 29 students that make up the BFA ’01 class.
Some of you may think this doesn’t apply to Queen’s University, or any other university for that matter. Some of you may also think that only cracked-out raver kids gnawing on soothers use such forms of intoxication. If so, think again—you’d be surprised by the number of students ingesting this Class A drug.
