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Spending My Week with Marilyn

by on February 3, 2012 in Arts

When the words “true story” are associated with any film, particularly one with the name of a historical figure in the title, I tend to be overcome with weariness. The fear with biopics of this nature is that they are going to be completely dry and run on for an excessive amount of time. Sometimes watching a biopic feels more like reading a textbook than experiencing actual entertainment.

Luckily, Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn does not fall into this nasty trap that similar movies often find themselves in.

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Kai Chan captures the small beauties of life

by on February 2, 2012 in Arts

Wine bottles. Toothpicks. Silk thread. Using such small, simple components, Kai Chan captures the small, simple moments in life.

Over a dozen works spanning 35 years of Chan’s career are currently on display at the Mendel Art Gallery. His installations and sculptures are often misleadingly simple to look at. What may look like loose heaps of branches entangled in each other is, upon closer inspection, meticulously assembled, with each joint strategically connected to other components in a towering work that makes one marvel at the patience required to create this illusion.

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Escaping the past and finding yourself East of Berlin

by on February 2, 2012 in Arts

“This show is edgy. It’s gripping. It’s also surprisingly funny.”

That is how University of Saskatchewan alum Heather Morrison describes the Canadian play East of Berlin, which she stars in. The play runs at the Refinery on Dufferin Ave. starting Feb. 3.

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Persephone Theatre’s spy comedy The 39 Steps, based on the Hitchcock film, is a laugh riot

by on February 1, 2012 in Arts

Some people find it impossible to take spy thrillers from the ’30s seriously. Apparently playwright Patrick Barlow is one such person.

Barlow’s latest play The 39 Steps is a comedic take on the 1915 spy novel by John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, who was the 15th Governor General of Canada. His novel was adapted into the popular movie by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. The novel and film were thrillers, meant to captivate the reader or viewer with their classic wrong-man plot and devious German villains.

Barlow’s play may keep the exact plot of the film, but his goal isn’t to thrill the audience. It’s to make them laugh.

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DC’s new superhero franchise The Ray beams light into a gritty comic world

by on January 29, 2012 in Arts

Along with the DC Comics “New 52” marketing relaunch, in the last few months there have also been miniseries that have introduced more faces to this new version of the universe of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. One such miniseries is The Ray, written by the team of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, and with artwork by Jamal Igle (pencils), Rich Perrotta (inks) and Guy Major (colours). Currently on issue two out of six, the miniseries is worth a read.

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Soderbergh’s Haywire is not what audiences expect

by on January 28, 2012 in Arts

There seem to be two different versions of director Steven Soderbergh.

One version is the director of the Ocean’s movies, Out of Sight and Contagion who seems to be able to make standard Hollywood fare better than most other directors. The other is the indie wunderkind who broke onto the scene with Sex, Lies, and Videotape and has continued experimenting with the cinematic form through movies like The Limey, Full Frontal and The Girlfriend Experience.

Surprisingly, Haywire, a female-centric action movie starring mixed-martial arts fighter Gina Carano as a double-crossed black ops freelancer, is a product of the experimental Soderbergh.

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Who in the world is Frank Welker? (Hint: you’ll probably recognize his voice)

by on January 27, 2012 in Arts

Back in October 2011, Samuel L. Jackson was crowned the biggest movie star in the world due to his movies accumulating the highest overall box office total. While I find total movie grosses to be a poor indicator of who the biggest movie star in the world is — my gut tells me that Will Smith or Brad Pitt are more famous globally — I’ll play along.

When I first heard this box office number, my reaction was to shout an emphatic “Wrong!” — after which I puffed my inhaler and went back to organizing my action figures. Why were my nerd alarms so dramatically sounded that day? Because I love the truth, and the truth of the matter is that there is one actor whose total career gross is larger than Samuel L. Jackson’s, and not by a small amount.

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NFB documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc. examines the business behind breast cancer

by on January 27, 2012 in Arts

Pink Ribbons, Inc. emphasizes the realities behind corporate breast cancer awareness campaigns.

Directed by Léa Pool and produced by the National Film Board of Canada, the documentary explores breast cancer culture and what happens to all the funds raised from pink-ribbon products. It focuses specifically on the marketing schemes big corporations use on a public frightened by the realities of the disease and eager to be comforted and reassured that if victims fight hard enough they will beat the odds. At the same time, they irresponsibly imply that those who die of cancer do not try hard enough.

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We the Artists, hear us roar

by on January 25, 2012 in Arts

When I walked into the upper gallery of TCU Place on Jan. 21, I was struck by something unusual. It was classy — a little too classy. But that is the life of the fine arts student: spend your daylight hours shuffling through the hallway in black sweatpants or paint-covered jeans, but be prepared at any moment to clean up and dazzle your audience with elegance and charisma.

We the Artists was one such occasion.

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There’s a new party in town

by on January 25, 2012 in Arts

Although a new act in Saskatoon, Reform Party members certainly aren’t new to the music scene.

Guitarist Levi Soloudre and bassist Enver Hampton played together for years in Volcanoless in Canada, and have now joined together with other Saskatoon musicians, drummer Tallus Scott, who has been a part of several different local bands, and frontman Kay the Aquanaut, a well known hip-hop artist, to form the new group Reform Party.

Bassist Enver Hampton sat down with the Sheaf to talk about the birth of Reform Party, their new video release on Ominocity.com and future plans for the band.

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