On Feb. 8, the first-year class of the college of medicine will put on their annual art show, the Med 1 Art Show and Silent Auction.

The show is a popular event at the College of Medicine, attracting faculty, alumni and members of the public. All artwork is produced by first-year medical students, who also provide silent auction items and entertainment. Each student contributes a piece of art, including painting, photography, sculpture and performance. Many local businesses and individuals have also made donations.

Every year, the students choose a theme for their artwork and a nonprofit organization to receive the proceeds from the event. In 2011, the show raised nearly $10,000 for Casa de Espera, an organization in Massinga, Mozambique that provides life-saving care to infants and pregnant women.

The theme of this year’s show is “nature” and the proceeds will go to Child Hunger and Education Program. CHEP provides a variety of community-based food services, such as child nutrition programs, community gardening and Good Food Boxes. Currently, CHEP is fundraising to build a grocery store at Station 20 West in downtown Saskatoon. The goal of the project is to provide affordable, healthy food to a neighborhood that has been missing a grocery store for over 10 years.

Some residents of Saskatoon’s core neighborhoods must choose less healthy food options from gas stations, convenience stores and fast food restaurants because there is no grocery store in the area. For a variety of reasons, people living in these neighborhoods are more likely to develop chronic illnesses like diabetes that are linked to poor nutrition.

U of S medical students hope that improving food security in downtown Saskatoon will contribute to the long-term health of the entire community. CHEP’s grocery store, called the Good Food Junction Co-op, will be locally organized and staffed by community members. Construction is already underway and the store is set to open in the summer.

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Image: Supplied

Gretchen (Anna Seibel) and Friederike (Jackie Block).

“Once upon a time” and “Happily ever after” — these phrases are not typically associated with the Holocaust. Yet so unfolds the storybook opening to All Through the Night.

The dark yet strangely whimsical drama is the latest offering from the Greystone Theatre, sporting an all female cast and a striking atmosphere.

“Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there lived, on top of the mountain there – a mean old man.” These are the words of Ludmilla as she begins to recount the events of the dark cloud that spread over Germany before and during the Second World War. This jarringly childlike account of the Holocaust is responded to shortly afterward by a scene of the principal characters as girls in German public school already having the ideals of the Nazi regime instilled in them by seemingly innocuous shows of patriotism.

Already they show divergent personalities, with some interested in resisting the authority and others following it with unwavering determination. As the story unfolds, the women veer off in drastically different directions as they come to terms with how to endure in Hitler’s Germany.

“It’s about survival,” said director Natasha Martina. All Through the Night is a lesser-known Holocaust story; as Martina says, some people are unaware of how Hitler “sought the demise of his own people if they didn’t fit” — women in particular. Thus, the characters find themselves confined in this new regime that demands of them loyalty, child-rearing and nothing else.

Martina came away from her production of The Odyssey last spring with an eye to do something very different. She was interested in an all-female cast, because one had not been done in at least six years. She was drawn to Shirley Lauro’s award-winning script for its striking political subject matter and the challenge it presented to both cast and director.

The script draws from the testimony of actual women in Nazi Germany, and the actresses needed to do extensive research to develop their characters. Anna Seibel plays Gretchen, a young woman who becomes a staunch supporter of the regime and does terrible things as a result. Seibel took inspiration from an actual female Nazi prison guard who was executed at the end of the war when she was just 23 years old.

“As dark and as terrible as it is, it shows something about human nature,” said Seibel. “Gretchen takes opportunities presented to her.”

The action plays out within a minimalistic set, formed in the manner of a crumbling building, devoid of comfort and washed in despair. The lack of props enables a fluid movement of action as the lives of the women unfold in a non-linear fashion — what Anna Seibel describes as a “hopscotch through time.” She says the minimalist set design forces audiences to use their mind’s eyes, and “allows the images to come to life.”

The mixture of the bleak subject matter with what Martina very tentatively calls the “fairy tale fashion” of the narrative style creates an arresting and unsettling image. All Through the Night is much more than simply a depressing march through the Holocaust, but the audience will have to decide how much triumph they find in the story.

At its core, it is the tale of four innocent girls put in a bad situation, and the ways in which they branch out to try to make it through the rough years they face. The audience may or may not choose to sympathize with them, but will have to understand them. Martina said the underlying question the drama poses is, “Have we learned something?”

The title All Through the Night evokes many ideas, from the terrifying to the romantic, and many of these ideas sneak their way into the play. In one sense, it refers to how “the atrocities of war stop for no one,” said Seibel, but it also speaks to the women’s need to survive long enough to see the dawn of a new Germany.

The play is unlikely to cheer you up, but it will make you stop and think, which is something we all need to do from time to time.

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Photo: Raisa Pezderic/The Sheaf

What is this I don't even.

Fortunately, I seem to be coming along nicely (thank you very much), but certain aspects of my identity are also coming into focus that are starting to cause dreadful anxiety and constant self-doubt. No, I’m not referring to my marks or getting a job or wondering why the heck I’m writing this article instead of the essay due tomorrow. No, it’s something far less relevant, but it stings just the same.

After 24 years, I’m starting to accept the fact that, despite my fervent love of the medium, I really suck at video games.

It’s not something any man wants to admit, particularly one from a generation raised on Donkey Kong and Super Mario, but it’s true. I’ve denied it so long that I’ve become laughable. How many times have I been reduced to just running around in GoldenEye trying not to get shot because killing me meant breaking a tie between two much better players?

“It’s Oddjob’s shortness!” I would declare.

Surely there was no way I sucked so much that I had lost all my lives within the space of two minutes. There was also no way I could have lost against my friend’s Klobb when I was packing a Cougar Magnum!

My stupid controller must have been off.

“Halo is impossible to learn!” I would say after being beaten down a mere second after re-spawning for about the ninth time.

“The game is so unbalanced against new players.”

I still have no idea what it’s like to actually drive a vehicle or fire a weapon in that game.

Looking back at all the games I loved, I realize I suck at every one of them. I can’t manage my healing and defense in World of Warcraft. I still don’t know how to use smash attacks in Smash Bros. and don’t ask me how you get out of a corner in Mario Kart.

I’ve used excuse after excuse to explain my terrible skill in these games and they never made me feel any better. But yet I kept making them, because as a young male I refused to believe that I could possibly be bad at video games.

Should I blame society for making me this way? By putting pressure on my gender to be good at video games, did they force me to lie to myself all these years? Is that why I’ve been stuck in the Water Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the last five years? Nope, that’s just another excuse.

The fact is I love video games. I truly do. But I suck at them, plain and simple.

And you know what? That’s OK. It’s good to understand a little bit more about my identity as a person. It doesn’t matter that I can’t seem to stay on the level in Super Mario 3D Land, a game so easy my girlfriend’s 10-year-old cousin is further along in it than I am.

The more you understand your appreciation of the arts, the more you get to know yourself.

A few months ago I looked up a list I made eight years ago of my favourite movies. I found so much joy in crossing off the ones I no longer care about and replacing them with new favourites. And the ones I kept on that list I was able to watch again with a newfound appreciation.

It’s the same now with video games since I’ve come to accept my absolute zero skill in the medium. I’m enjoying them more. My skills have even increased. Not by much, mind you. I’ve been stuck in the same part of Dark Souls for about a month and a half. But it doesn’t matter. I’m having more fun than I ever had when I was trying to be good at video games.

It’s part of growing up. You realize you have a few things you’re great at, a few you suck at and a million things you haven’t tried yet.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been lost in a castle in Skyrim for the last few hours. Anyone have a walkthrough?

rating: ★★★★

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.

Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams).

Largely due to Michelle Williams’ captivating performance as Marilyn Monroe, the film does not falter. It is no easy task to play Monroe. The entire film depends upon the dramatic switches in Monroe’s personality bouncing seamlessly back and forth between fallen angel in need of rescue and manipulative man trap.

This is what Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) discovers during his time on the set of Monroe’s movie, The Prince and the Showgirl. Clark has a dream of working in film and lands a job as a third assistant director, which essentially makes him a glorified errand boy.

The script is based on Clark’s diary of his time on set and the secret, week-long romance he shared with Monroe. The Prince and the Showgirl is directed by and also stars Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), whom Clark has a family connection to. Olivier spends the majority of the film bewildered and frustrated by the nervousness and fragility of Monroe on set. She takes a liking to Clark and of course he cannot help but fall deeply in love with her. This is where Monroe’s intent becomes shrouded. She is seemingly unhappy in her marriage, but there is no way of knowing if she loves Clark back or is just taking advantage of his innocence.

On the set, Monroe is completely vulnerable, teetering on the edge of a complete meltdown at any moment. She pops anti-depressants like candy and just drifts by, confused by everything that surrounds her. Nevertheless, it is goddamn impossible for the viewer to not be absolutely smitten by Williams’ charms and looks. She perfectly channels Monroe, a woman whose mere wink could make men weak in the knees. This is no exaggeration. This was always how she was perceived and Williams nails it, almost to a frightening degree. At her happiest, Williams’ Monroe could seduce any man with ease.

The whole film is undeniably delightful. It would take a large amount of heartlessness to not be moved by it. In its entirety, the film has a feel-good vibe to it that often comes from typical Hollywood fluff movies, the kind of movies Monroe would make back in the ’50s. It’s all so light. The highs are always so high and the lows are never too low and don’t last long enough to bring down the tone of the movie. Williams carries the film and its cast on her shoulders: it all revolves around her. When she is off screen, you sit in hot anticipation of the next moment you can get a glimpse of her, understand what her intentions are with Clark or just what emotional state she is in.

It is tough to say whether Monroe believed in love and romance or just simple manipulation of the men around her. All I know is that I enjoyed this film, and this cinematic week with her.

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Photo: Supplied

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

A woman ponders the meaning of “Mirage” by Kai Chan.

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.

The layered and detailed aspects of Chan’s work still exist within minimalist pieces that impress as much with their minute intricacy as they do with their overall simplicity.

The exhibition is appropriately titled A Spider’s Logic.

In “Aurora,” he collects layers and layers of red cotton and nylon thread and drapes them over a wooden beam to create a thick curtain that is both solid and fluid. In “Mirage,” hundreds of nails in a wall allow him to suspend red silk threads in a variety of flowing lines and shapes. The effect is both ephemeral and timeless.

Born in China in 1940 and raised mostly in Hong Kong, Chan moved to Toronto in his mid-20s and hoped to create entirely modern, Western art. However, he soon learned that his art still had strong Chinese influences that he could not entirely eliminate.

Canada, in the 1960s and ’70s was a lot less multicultural than it is today, and Chan was adrift between two worlds: one he had left but could not escape, and one he was in but could not fully integrate with.

“People would ask me about being Chinese,” he said. “So I went to libraries and museums to find out.”

Ultimately, Chan came to straddle the Chinese and Western parts of himself, and it shows in his art. “Mountains and Water” resembles the Chinese characters associated with those concepts. “Moon in Water” is named from an old Chinese proverb. Chan also uses materials like bamboo and sticks of incense that are commonly used in China.

Chan’s award-winning art has gained international exposure, with exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Japan and numerous European countries. A Spider’s Logic, a career retrospective, is curated by Sarah Quinton and was on display at the Textile Museum of Canada from November 2010 to May 2011 and is currently on tour across Canada. The only flaw in the exhibition, after looking at the artist’s website, is that it doesn’t include more of Chan’s stunning work.

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Photo: Matthew Stefanson/The Sheaf

Heather Morrison, Chris Hapke (centre) and James Aaron.

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.

Put on by Live Five and written by the young playwright Hannah Moscovitch, East of Berlin is the story of a young man, Rudi, who discovers his businessman father was an SS doctor in the Nazi death camps and his subsequent attempt to reconcile himself with his inherited past.

The show consists of a compact cast of three: Heather Morrison, James Aaron and Chris Hapke. All three actors attended the U of S drama department, along with their director Brian Cochrane, set and lighting designer Byron Hnatuk and stage manager Liz King.

Morrison plays Sarah, a Jewish woman from New York who travels to Berlin hoping to learn more about her mother’s past. When Rudi meets Sarah, his plans for resolving his past are challenged by this new relationship. In a recent CBC interview, Moscovitch said that the play was inspired by real-life stories and some books on families of Nazi war criminals, specifically Born Guilty by Peter Sichrovsky and Legacy of Silence Dan Bar-Oh.

These real-life influences bring grit and truth to the story, and make Rudi’s story relatable.

Morrison believes the play “is great for students, especially because at its core it’s about being haunted by your parents. There’s that adage that we all turn into our parents, but what if your parent is a Nazi war criminal?”

While the latter may be an extreme case of the fears an average young adult may face, the underlying sentiment is relevant. The play also confronts a commonality not only felt by young adults, but people of all ages, “the feeling that if anyone truly got to know you, they wouldn’t like you.”

“These characters spend so much time and energy covering up their pasts that when they do come to the surface, it’s explosive,” Morrison said.

Morrison hopes that the play will pose some difficult, thought-provoking questions to the audience, giving people something to ponder on the way home.

While we may not have a past that matches that of Rudi’s, as citizens of the modern world we can appreciate the idea that our own history continues to play a part in our future, and unless we come to terms with where we came from, we’ll have no control over where we are going.

“East of Berlin is a drama, but there is humor,” Morrison said. “This isn’t a play about being bogged down by the past; it’s a play about escaping it. And that makes it thrilling.”

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Photo: Brad Proudlove

Two gents (James O’Shea and Carson Nattrass) harass Richard Hannay (Matthew Edison).

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.

While slight, Persephone Theatre’s production of The 39 Steps directed by Robert Metcalfe is a successful farce of a 1930s spy thriller. The humour can occasionally come across a little too broadly, but for the most part the play has plenty of laughs and a brisk running time — both rarities for many stage plays.

The play’s hero is Richard Hannay, a Canadian spending some time in his original home of London, England. While at the theatre, Hannay witnesses some shots fired and becomes entangled in a spy plot in which a group of nefarious foreign spies try to smuggle top secret information out of the country. When a beautiful woman ends up dead in his arms, Hannay is suspected in the murder, and so in an effort to clear his name and stop the information from leaving England, Hannay sets out to catch the villains in the act.

The biggest draw of The 39 Steps is its four-person cast. Matthew Edison plays Richard Hannay and does a capable job, all pencil moustache and smarmy charm. His performance anchors the play and without its success, none of the entertainment would work. Naomi Wright plays the three women who become romantically involved with Hannay throughout the show. While she emits the proper kind of sultry seduction for her femme fatale-type characters, her accents leave something to be desired.

And then there are the clowns. James O’Shea and Carson Nattrass play every other character in the play — old women, Scottish farmers, policemen, train passengers, jugglers and even inanimate objects — and sometimes all in the course of one scene. Nattrass in particular steals the show. He throws himself so thoroughly into every character and gives so vivid a performance in every part that he brings down the house at almost every turn.

The play’s set is sparse, nicely utilizing the open stage and the vibrancy of the performances to transform the stage into everything from the Scottish highlands to the theatre of the London Palladium. In particular, a chase set on a train shows just how effective and funny a blank stage can be when utilized properly.

The lighting is especially impressive. One scene utilizes shadow puppets to portray a chase through the Highlands and is hilarious for how low-tech it is. However, the impressive lighting shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the play won two Tony Awards, one for lighting and the other for sound design. The 39 Steps is technically marvelous.

Unfortunately, my time at the theatre watching The 39 Steps reminded me of one thing that can ruin a play regardless of the talent of the performers onstage: the audience. Not to say the audience at Jan. 27’s opening night performance of The 39 Steps ruined the play, but one audience member with perhaps the most obnoxious laugh that I’ve ever heard, one that sounded like a person trying to imitate a raygun while forcing up mucus from her throat, or Elmer Fudd sitting on a juicer, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, overshadowed much of the play’s humour.

It’s always a risk going to the theatre since your daring can be rewarded with interruptions by pesky, oblivious audience members who infringe upon your goodwill. Both the beauty and the danger of live theatre is that it’s live. Being in the physical proximity of other individuals opens you up to their charms, be they good or ill, and the reaction of the audience will always influence how well a play, especially a comedy, performs.

Luckily, the audience of The 39 Steps loved the play, and you will too. It’s the kind of breezy, light entertainment that emanates enough wit to charm you through two pleasant hours of farcical espionage entertainment.

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Photo: Catherine Francis

rating: ★★★

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.

The Ray follows the origin and exploits of Lucien Gates, an everyday California teen with a lifeguard job and new-age parents who gets hit with a blast from an experimental particle cannon. Being a comic book, instead of such an accident killing him, Lucien instead gains superpowers and is able to move at light speed, fire energy rays and disguise himself by manipulating light waves.

While Lucien deals with both his new abilities and the mutated sea life that is now attacking California, the reader is introduced to the villain of the story: Thaddeus Filmore. A sadistic documentary filmmaker who gained power from mystical forces, Thaddeus is determined to make the world into his latest snuff film, and Lucien has been cast as the tragic hero.

Art-wise, the comic is good but nothing special, and there are times when the artwork can feel stiff for a main character that travels at the speed of light, but the art team does a good job capturing the various expressions and ethnicities in the first two issues. This is helped by Guy Major on colours, who ties things together nicely with solid palettes and some clever use of a glow effect, reminding you that this is a character who fights with actual light as a weapon.

Gray and Palmiotti, on the other hand, work on bringing the personalities of these characters through to the reader, and they pull it off well. In the few appearances Thaddeus has had so far he comes across as a dark, powerful man who you do not want to cross paths with, and Lucien is a good-hearted hero despite some flaws and insecurities. The relationship with his parents is enjoyable and refreshing, where they not only know about and accept his new superhero role, but also give him advice on how to control his powers. The plot can seem rushed for some readers, and that can be a turnoff, but when there are only six issues to introduce this character, give him conflict and (hopefully) ensure a happy ending, this fault can be forgiven.

The Ray is currently a third of the way through its storyline, and while the story isn’t terribly groundbreaking, it’s a fun and refreshing read most people would enjoy. If you liked Gray and Palmiotti’s other work like Jonah Hex and Power Girl, you’ll probably like this series. If you’re new to comics, but would be interested in a story where there are no big-name heroes and the main character turns into light and fights mutant flying stingrays, The Ray is a great place to start.

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Image: Supplied

rating: ★★★

Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) unleashes lead in the streets of Barcelona.

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.

Although an action film, Haywire is not going to please the typical action audience whose cinematic diet consists of the kind of mind-numbing, viscerally bombastic films by the Michael Bay generation. At a crisp 93 minutes long, Haywire takes its time and doesn’t jam every scene full of shootouts and foot races, although there are a few of those.

The film revolves around Mallory Kane (Carano), a black ops freelancer with a knack for upsetting the expectations her attractive appearance projects. After a job in Barcelona and a double-cross in Dublin, she finds herself pitted against a series of ex-coworkers and bosses played by a veritable cast of Hollywood A-listers: Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas and Channing Tatum.

Of course, you don’t really need to know or care about any of this plot. Haywire’s plot is perfunctory, merely acting as a foundation upon which Soderbergh can play with genre tropes. The idea for the movie was apparently spawned after Soderbergh caught an MMA fight with Carano on television in a hotel room one night. He was taken with her athleticism and decided to fashion an entire action film around her.

As a result, the action in Haywire is impressive, if unconventional. Soderbergh stages his action scenes from a distance, allowing the camera free movement and an unobstructed view to witness Carano’s bone-crunching fighting skills. He doesn’t manipulate the pacing or the editing to make the fights assault you on a visceral level. He lets the strength of the fight choreography and the unfettered skill of the fighters speak for themselves. The fight between Carano and Fassbender, in particular, impresses. The fight’s brutality set in a ritzy hotel room really hits the audience in the gut. As well, the peculiarity of seeing a beautiful woman beat the snot out of the guy who plays Magneto is more than intriguing.

Part of Haywire’s appeal is that it features a female protagonist who upsets typical action movie expectations. She is definitely no damsel in distress, and her strengths aren’t the typical movie character traits given to underwritten female characters in action movies. Most intriguingly, she physically dominates the men of the film. Thus, the novelty of the whole exercise makes it worth a look.

When Angelina Jolie or Kate Beckinsale throw a punch in Tomb Raider or Underworld, you feel like they’d break a bone from the impact due to their waif-like body-types. With Carano, on the other hand, it takes no imagination to believe the beatings she inflicts on the various men of the film. When she punches and kicks, you know it hurts.

As for her acting ability, Carano is pretty good considering this is her first time taking a stab at the whole profession. She is cool and attractive and holds her own opposite some impressive actors. She is a more than adequate heroine for a film of this sort.

Just like its strengths, most of Haywire’s problems come from its novelty. Soderbergh, being a natural experimenter, plays with pacing and narrative, and the result is occasionally a little tiring. The film bears more than a passing similarity to Soderbergh’s previous film The Limey, also written by Lem Dobbs, which isn’t a plus.

As well, because the plot is so basic and only an excuse for Carano’s fight scenes, the film can seem inconsequential. This gives the film a fun feel, but also makes you ponder the results if Soderbergh had really thrown himself into the whole endeavour.

Haywire is an intriguing, unconventional action film that will likely bore the occasional viewer. It’s the product of a technical genius who uses film as a means of experimentation. Steven Soderbergh is like a brilliant kid playing with Lego. With Haywire he introduces action figures into the mix.

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Photo: Supplied

Frank Welker voiced Fred on Scooby Doo, Where Are You!

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.

While Jackson’s movies have accumulated a worldwide gross of $9.9 billion overall, according to the-numbers.com, this person’s total gross is a staggering $12.9 billion. Who is this mystery man who has taken our money so greedily for years?

That man, believe it or not, is a humble and awkward looking voice actor by the name of Frank Welker. Sound familiar? It shouldn’t.

Welker, although he has done several movies, television shows and video games, rarely receives or demands credit for any of them. And yet, it’s highly probable that everyone reading this article has heard his voice at least once a day for almost every day of their lives the last 20 years.

This is not at all shocking. Back in the ’60s and ’70s voice actor Mel Blanc (best known as the voice of every non-female Looney Toon) estimated that 20 million people heard his voice daily due to his talents being so sought after — and that was before most people had a television.

You see, voice actors are cherished so much in the film industry that to find one that is not only reliable but so talented that they can get their work done in minimal time is a blessing from the heavens. Frank Welker is one of these actors, so whenever a voice talent is required, most movie and television executives immediately call him.

Welker’s earliest big role was as Fred on Scooby Doo, Where Are You! and from there he worked his way up in the ’80s to become one of the most reliable voice artists in Hollywood. He has played roles such as Abu in Aladdin, Santa’s Little Helper on The Simpsons, Pegasus in Hercules, the anaconda in Anaconda, George in Curious George, the dragon in the Shrek movies, and — have you noticed the animal pattern yet?

Yes, Welker is particularly well known for his animal voice talents, so much so that he is called up whenever an animal noise is required. In fact, one writer for The Simpsons once stated that Welker had the ability to do any animal voice on the planet. Even when asked if he could do a flock of geese and a flock of crows fighting each other he was somehow able to do it.

But it’s not just in animation that you can hear Welker’s voice. His talent with animal voices is so desired that he has shown up in movies like Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, all films that grossed over $1 billion worldwide. Add those grosses and the rest of his films together and it makes big money. He voices so many people that you’d be surprised by how versatile he is. Playing vastly different characters such as Nibbler from Futurama and Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget, Welker has a resume as big as Megatron (whom he voiced, by the way).

Sadly, the man whose voice has entertained millions over the years is starting to slow down as he enters his late 60s. That’s why I’m glad to be writing about such a talent. Google him, look up his IMDb page and smile at all the characters he so embodied that you never thought to yourself who the man behind them might be. It’s completely worth it.

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Image: Supplied

rating: ★★★★1/2

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.

Comforting pink images don’t tell the whole truth about breast cancer.

What pink ribbon campaigns are doing, in essence, is airbrushing the pain and suffering of cancer victims and presenting the public with an alternative reality that acts to profit the companies rather than the victims.

The film argues that pink ribbons soften and feminize cancer. The pink degrades the women suffering by refusing to acknowledge how ugly and painful cancer is. Like moustaches in November, the ribbons are a trend. Though participants may feel better about supporting the cause, ultimately Pink Ribbons, Inc. argues that these methods have been relatively ineffective. Breast cancer campaigns are often used as a modem to give companies a publicity face-lift.

For example, the NFL received criticism for the high rate of criminal activity amongst its players. Realizing that a substantial percentage of their viewers are women, the professional football league began supporting the cause in hopes that it would rehabilitate the sport’s image. Pink Ribbons, Inc. also shows us how the cosmetics company Revlon uses substances linked to causing cancer — such as formaldehyde and petroleum — in their products, and how milk products with growth hormones can be found in Yoplait’s yogurts, also linked to potentially causing cancer.

With many people involved each year and billions of dollars being raised, Pink Ribbons, Inc. asks the viewer to consider why so little progress has been made in finding a cure. These campaigns show numbers in order to distract from lacklustre results. The audience is confronted with more questions than answers.

Why don’t we know the causes of breast cancer and environmental factors? Why do only five per cent of proceeds go towards funding research in prevention? Why are the most popular treatment methods of the “slash/burn/poison” variety used when the condition is not yet understood? If the cancer reaches stage four, the reality is that there is no known cure.

These are the stories of women who have been silenced because their voices are not attractive; they don’t fit within the comforting pink image. Corporations fear that the reality of how hopeless and angry cancer can be will alienate a prospective audience. They want cancer to seem attractive so that people will buy their products — products that sometimes only donate a marginal amount of proceeds and that sometimes include ingredients that are known to be linked to cancer.

In Pink Ribbons, Inc. the viewer is introduced to a support group of women suffering from stage-four breast cancer. It is a rare chance for their perspectives to be shown. These are woman who, after being surrounded by pink images of hope and comfort, are told that this is the end of the road for them. The women interviewed are smart, articulate, confused and angry because they feel the public is being misled and that breast cancer culture may be doing more harm than good.

The problem with the alternative-reality created by breast cancer culture is that the individuals involved are putting money into the hands of corporations to decide how it is divided. These campaigns may motivate otherwise complacent people to become active for a cause, but they are unaware of exactly what their efforts are achieving.

While people may believe they are taking measures into their own hands to reclaim bodies, find a cure and save lives by buying pink products, Pink Ribbons, Inc. argues that breast cancer awareness has become an industry fuelled by the fears of a public that feels powerless and frightened — and that the reassurance that pink ribbon campaigns give back is superficial at best.

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Photo: Supplied

A large crowd turned out to support the various fine arts students of the U of S.

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.

The event had been in the making for several months, as a collaboration between the departments of drama, music and visual art. Traction had been building this semester, with feverish word-of-mouth and mass Facebook invites abounding, coaxing people into answering that age-old question: what are the fine arts good for?

In a perfect world this is not a question that would be asked, but in the wake of last year’s town hall meetings, which seemed to many a death knell for the university’s art departments (not to mention the elusive and mostly forgotten Clarion Project), the question was out there. Once again, the students rose up to meet the challenge.

Jordan Svenkeson (left), Whitney Mather (right) and others put on various shows for the crowd.

The drama department also had set and costume design projects on display that did not grab attention quite as much, but demonstrated remarkable creativity within their minimalistic form. There was no theme to follow in the gallery; it was a stunning mosaic of wildly different artistic voices that somehow cohered, presumably because they were united in a single purpose.

The evening started with a brief dramatic performance, invoking the Muse that inhabits the artists of the world. From there, the program flowed organically, alternating between dramatic and musical performances, visual arts film displays, and addresses to the audience.

Toryn Adams emceed the event. She was accompanied by speeches from the event’s organisers, the Drama Students Association’s president Adam Naismith, the Visual Art Students’ Union president Emma Anderson and the Association of Student Musicians’ president Mitchell Bonokoski, who gave a touching invocation to the teachers who have inspired so many students.

One of the main attractions was a “live action painting” by visual arts students Shaun DeRooy and Tyson Atkings. Following a drumroll, they attacked a large black canvas with paint and continued working throughout the evening, collaborating with little spoken discussion between them. Appropriately, it ended up as a rendering of artists. The painting was sold by silent auction.

The gallery was quiet at first, but soon swarmed with people. Over 240 attendees passed through the doors, whether students, professors, family or enthusiastic patrons looking to talk a starving student into selling. The atmosphere remained relaxed and fluid, which was sometimes unfortunate when a new performance would begin and two thirds of the room did not even realize it was happening. There was a stage on either side of the room, so the audience had to constantly be nudged one way or the other depending on the performance.

From Shakespearean comedy to a monologue by Satan, Opera to Jazz, oil paintings to animation to abstract art films, there was a little bit of everything on display. All the elements pulled together to form a picture that was enthusiastic and hopeful. It showed that there is an answer to what the fine arts are good for, but it cannot be expressed in words.

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Photos: Brianna Whitmore/The Sheaf &
Blair Woynarski

From left to right: Enver, Kay, Levi and Tallus of Reform Party.

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.

The Sheaf: You have all come from very different musical backgrounds. How did Reform Party end up coming together?

Enver Hampton: Tallus has played in a bunch of different bands over the years, so I know him through the music scene, and Kay has a background playing hip hop in the city. We got together in March 2011 to play Kayʼs album release party to play as his backing band. In the rehearsal I donʼt think we realized how cool it was, but after the show Kay said to me, “Weʼd be stupid if we didnʼt keep doing this.” We started playing through some old riffs that Levi and I had, which were a lot heavier and a little more angular. Kay started rapping and singing over it, and it worked out nicely. It came together to be what Reform is right now.

Sheaf: What aspects from previous projects have come to influence Reform Party?

EH: When we initially got together we were going to be playing hip-hop music. Levi and I  brought in some heavier riffs that we had on the back burner, and it worked out that Tallus was already a drummer accustomed to playing a heavier style of music. Kay still raps over the music primarily, but heʼs trying all sorts of things. When the four of us get together we really encourage and challenge each other to do different things. Not even intentionally. Itʼs just the energy that is created when we play together. It starts in one place and ends up somewhere completely different when we start jamming. This is definitely the coolest project that Iʼve been a part of.

Sheaf: What it was like recording your new video for “Matador” together? Who was the masked man reading in the corner?

EH: Weʼd never made a video together before, and it ended up being really good. We got together with a friend of ours, Josh Palmer, who did all the live sound. There was a gentlemen who Kay had worked with on a music video who offered to work on something with us and we ended up recording six songs. We really just wanted to capture the essence of what we do live, but not on a stage. Just us hanging out in the jam space. Thatʼs pretty much, aside from the dude in the corner, what we look like when we practice. The masked guy is an anomaly. He’s a friend of ours, but his identity is a secret.

Sheaf: How has the local music scene changed since you started playing music?

EH: The Bassment closed and I feel that it was so important to this cityʼs music scene. It was the licensed, all ages venue that anyone could rent out. There really isnʼt a place like that anymore. Thereʼs still an underground punk and hardcore scene, but it doesnʼt really have a home. Levi and I grew up going to shows at the Bassment and checking out metal bands, punk bands, rock bands, anything that would roll through there. It had a cheap cover, teenagers could go there, and people who were of age could go there and hang out. Now the underage fan base canʼt make it out to most shows.

Sheaf: Do you have any plans for touring this summer?

EH: Yes, absolutely. This summer is going to be a big one. Our tour dates are tentative, but we want to head to Eastern Canada and the Eastern seaboard of the States. Iʼd really like to drive through and stop to play in the States if at all possible. Driving through Canada, itʼs eight hours from Saskatoon to Winnipeg, another nine hours from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay, another nine hours from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie. People from other countries think weʼre insane, touring this country.

Sheaf: Does the name Reform Party have anything to do with Preston Manningʼs conservative party in the 1990s?

EH: (Laughs) It doesnʼt, no.

Sheaf: Am I correct in assuming itʼs more about growing and bringing about change?

EH: Yeah, and having a good time doing it. It was either that or Brad Pittsburgh. Those were two of the best names that we had. Thank goodness it wasnʼt Brad Pittsburgh.

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Photo: Kaid Ashton

At The Drive-In

At The Drive-In and Refused are reuniting this year, both restarting their glory at Coachella 2012.

Both bands broke up at the height of their success, shortly after releasing their respective masterpieces: At The Drive-In’s Relationship of Command (2000) and Refused’s The Shape of Punk to Come (1998). These are two incredible albums, among my favourites, and they set the bar very high for a reunion. Though neither band has confirmed any new material, the return of such quality musicians warrants those unfamiliar with the music to seek out these two albums from the late ’90s.

At The Drive-In disbanded in 2001, a year after releasing Relationship of Command. Named one of Spin magazine’s greatest albums from 1985 to 2005, it was the crescendo of everything punk and hardcore rock had been building to. It only takes a swift clobbering to the face by the opening track “Arcarsenal” to understand the pace at which the crunchy guitars and lyrical trips will tear through your senses.

Their most popular track, “One Armed Scissor,” is also their most accessible and was the one that drew me into this band, introducing me to an album that encapsulates everything I love about rock. Considered post-hardcore — whatever that means — At The Drive-In sounds not unlike Rage Against the Machine, while adding a kind of psychedelic aggression that has yet to be replicated.

Relationship of Command has a deft balance of melody and pure cacophony within and between the tracks. It is a loud and relentlessly efficient album, lyrically obtuse yet deeply satisfying. Watch any video from their last festival performance at Sydney’s Big Day Out 2001 on YouTube, and you will see exactly what I mean. If you like loud, acidic punk rock, At The Drive-In is not to be missed.

On paper, Refused set themselves up to fail with their last album. Calling your album The Shape of Punk to Come and containing self-referential songs like “Refused Are Fucking Dead” and “The Refused Party Program” while adding electronic elements into punk-rock all take a special type of confidence. Luckily for them, the album is flawless.

Refused

It is a politically-charged work of anthemic screams and effect-laden melodies that demand to be head-banged to. Their most recognized track, “New Noise,” is what I would describe as the ultimate hype song. In the same vein as Blur’s venerable “Song 2,” it builds, drops and builds again, and even contains ambient crowd-noise to steep you in its tension. It’s the perfect song to set to a movie trailer or extreme sport segment, while having that endless replay value few songs can deliver.

Other standout tracks are “Liberation Frequency” and the aforementioned “Refused Are Fucking Dead.” This album is often recognized as a seminal piece of modern punk rock, and elements of their then-progressive sound can be found in the genre today. Go buy this album, then imagine a world without it, and cry.

Hopefully these bands’ reunions will inspire a new generation of musicians to capture the essence of the late ’90s post-hardcore scene and make it new. Though there have been a great number of bands since, nobody has seemed to really capture the pure energy these two bands — and specifically these albums — possess.

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Photos: Supplied

Herzog’s film captures the complexity of a system that claims the right to put people to death.

Fred Allen, the former captain of the Death House in Huntington, Texas, sat across from acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog during an interview, telling him that he had overseen over 125 executions in his time.

“We were doing about two per week,” Allen said heavily, “and that was getting tiresome.”

It’s hard enough to imagine a crime fit for capital punishment, or the state having a legal right to end a human life for such a crime, but to consider everyone else involved — not just the family, but the people that seem to fade into the background of the situation — is something unexpected.

In Into the Abyss, Herzog fearlessly explores these intricate and deeply personal experiences with the people closest to capital punishment.

He focuses the documentary on the 2001 triple-homicide of Sandra Stotler, Adam Stotler and Jeremy Richardson in Conroe, Texas. Taking his camera behind the yellow tape and into the video footage of the police investigation, he compels his viewers to experience both disgust and emotional trauma from watching the sombre details of the case. Only moments later, Herzog asks his viewers to sit across the partition with the men who committed the crimes.

It’s a hard transition, but a powerful one.

Herzog interviews Michael James Perry, who was sentenced to death, and Jason Burkett, who was sentenced to life in prison for the triple homicides, 10 years before Herzog interviewed them.

Herzog tells Perry during the first few minutes of their conversation that he “didn’t have to like [Perry], but he respected [him] and [he] was a human being,” which seems to set the tone for the documentary, as many of his interviews seem also to indicate his aversion to capital punishment, most notably when he says that it seems somewhat “Old Testament.”

Herzog interviews everyone involved in the case, from the reverend moments before he is scheduled to be present at Perry’s execution to the families of the victim and the convicted to the former captain of the death house. But the strangest interview had to be with Burkett’s wife.

Her only contact with the convicted killer was through mail correspondence, until Burkett told her he was in love with her, eventually leading to marriage and finally to in-vitro fertilization. Keep in mind that they were married with a partition dividing them and the most intimate thing they had ever done was touch hands.

Only Herzog could coax such peculiar facts out of his subjects and tell so strange and dark a story in such a personal way.

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Photo: Supplied

Although Redline is the craziest kind of anime film, you don’t need to be into anime to like this movie. You just need to be a fan of insane movies.

The film screened Jan. 7 at the Broadway Theatre, sponsored by the Dark Bridges Film Festival. The screening coincided with the release of Redline on Blu-ray on Tuesday Jan. 10.

Redline is best described as the kind of movie made by someone who watched Speed Racer while on acid and then wrote a script while taking even more acid. The plot revolves around Sweet JP, a racer who drives a tricked-out yellow trans-Am. JP is a racer in futuristic races that involve robots, aliens and cars decked out with an assortment of weapons.

JP’s chief rival and potential lover is Cherry Boy Hunter Sonoshee McLaren, a hotshot driver and the film’s leading lady. JP and his mechanic friend, Frisbee, are involved with the mafia, who fund the modifications to JP’s car. In return for the modifications, JP wins or loses based on what the mafia tells him to do, thus fixing the gambling odds for the races.

The film opens with the adrenaline-packed Yellowline race, which Sonoshee wins. This opening sequence misleads the audience a little, as the next adrenaline-packed race doesn’t happen until the end of the movie.

However, as a result of the Yellowline race, JP is inducted into the Redline race as a substitute. All other races are qualifications for the Redline, the ultimate sporting event in this distant future world. The Redline race happens every five years and is a huge draw for race fans and gamblers. However, this particular Redline race is guaranteed to draw an even bigger crowd because it is being held on the Roboworld planet. The denizens of Roboworld forbid the race from happening on their planet and are willing to use military force to stop the race.

The final race on Roboworld is a lengthy sequence, full of adrenaline, a rain of bullets and crazy futuristic tech, suiting the film’s animation style very well, which is a little reminiscent of the futuristic anime classic Akira. The love story develops subtly in the background, which is great because it doesn’t distract from the action of the film. The foreshadowing isn’t as subtle, nor is the fan service, but it all works together. Towards the end there is some general ridiculousness, leading up to a bit of a non-sequitor ending, but for Redline, it works.

It isn’t flawless, but Redline is a movie for anyone who likes unusual and nonsensical action films.

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Image: Supplied

rating: ★★★★1/2

Do you remember the Nintendo side-scrolling games? Do you remember Mario, Mega-Man or Castlevania? Of course you do. At least one of these timeless classics has probably earned its rightful place in your childhood.

Now imagine you are playing one of those treasured titles, except you are completely stripped of your weapons, you can only jump about three feet high and you can only see in black and white. Mostly black. Did I mention there are glow-worms that burrow into your head and make you run off cliffs?

Scary-eyed boy tries to save sister, dies by giant spider attack instead.

Wait, let me start over. The indie game we are looking at here is Limbo, a simple yet gripping 2D puzzle-platformer created by Danish developer Playdead and released in July 2010. Just glancing at its spooky, voiceless trailer (and considering it has won more game awards than I knew existed) offers more than enough reason to give it a look.

The game opens in a dark forest, entirely black and white, and seen through a pulsating, flickering grain like a film noir or German Expressionist dream sequence. You wake up here as a small boy who appears only as a silhouette, apart from your beady glowing eyes. Almost everything else in your environment is, like you, a mere shadow, and the background is painted an eerie grey blur.

Aside from the creepy minimalist soundtrack, all you can hear is the unnerving ambiance of a forest: crickets, creaking trees and the pitter-patter of your feet. Already you are submerged in a surreal, disturbing atmosphere swathed in darkness, leaving much to the imagination.

The game is rather scant on details, but your goal is to find your lost sister. It is not clear why she is missing or why, in order to find her, you must tread through a vast landscape littered with bear traps, pits-of-spikes, giant spiders and other children trying to kill you, but if we never asked these questions about Mario surely we can go with the flow here as well.

Your only defences against the above threats are your wits and dexterity as you move boxes, pull levers, activate water pipes and essentially turn traps against your enemies to overcome your brutally hostile surroundings.

The puzzles are fairly simple once you know where to look — and listen. The game gives a few hints early on about how to make use of its impeccable sound effects to compensate for what little you can see, adding an interesting dynamic to a genre largely dominated by bright lights and neon signs telling where the player to go.

Despite this, one notable way in which Limbo is very similar to retro games is this: you will die. You will die a lot. Playdead even took pride in what they called its “trial and death” play style, hearkening back to an age of more difficult yet more rewarding platformers.

Unlike older platformers, however, Limbo does not punish you through points or lives, as it even offers checkpoints generously close to your place of death. The real penalty for death in Limbo is a punch to your sense of empathy. Despite Limbo‘s fairly plain graphics, the variety of gruesome and horrific deaths your character can (and will) suffer invoke not only shock value but deep sympathy for the helpless, faceless, speechless little protagonist, urging you to do better next time or witness yet another mangling.

Does it work? After watching the poor boy drown in a pathetic, flailing mess for the ninth time, I can safely say yes. Yes, it does. If by the end of this game you are not a better gamer, you will at the very least be a braver one. If you are too traumatized to reach the end of this game, you probably have a soul and should go buy a puppy.

On a more sobering note, though I have likely been spoiled by newer, easier, more mainstream games, I did find that in a few of Limbo‘s puzzles it was only after about ten minutes of “trial and death” when I found, by total accident even, what the next step was.

The whole game being in black and white does result in some puzzle objects being blurred in with the rest of the foreground, making the exercise occasionally feel more like a terrifying stumble in the dark than a puzzle. Whether this adds to the game experience or subtracts from it may depend entirely on the kind of games you play. Nonetheless I suspect even the most casual gamer will feel compelled to solve each puzzle and feel handsomely rewarded for it. By rewarded, I of course mean that you live to see the next puzzle.

On the whole, Limbo feels like a nightmarish traipse through your childhood backyard or playground, with innocent familiarities such as tree-houses and tire swings contrasted with deranged, expressionist depictions of child-like fears, from spiders to drowning to clubs of rival neighbour kids.

Though later on you do move into an urban environment, your surroundings are always dark, silent and unforgiving, and like a child you feel frightened, alone and vulnerable. If you persevere against all odds, however, this four-hour game will leave you with a sense of triumph most games take twice as long to achieve. Just watch out for the brain-burrowing glow-worms.

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Photo: Supplied

Inhabit offers the public a chance to see artists at work.

“The concept of the show is that there is no show,” said Eileen Murray, one of the graduate students practicing painting and photography at the University of Saskatchewan. With words such as “occupy” buzzing more than an old refrigerator, the exhibition’s title, Inhabit, brings a refreshing spin to the MFA group show.

In Inhabit the Gordon Snelgrove Gallery’s space is transformed into the site of construction, a myriad of mental and creative processes unfolding. From the static to the dynamic, from the gallery as graveyard to the gallery as growing, the graduate students will be treating the big white space as a come-and-go workplace where viewers can visit multiple times, see the site evolve and have the opportunity to interact with artists at work.

In viewing works in process, one gets a bit of an insight into the many ways creativity is expressed.

“Work makes work. I’ve just got to do it and get it all out,” Donna Bilyk said with an energy that was matched only by the visual effect of her chipboard paintings.

A show about nothing? I could get behind that.

Meanwhile, David Dyck takes the concept to a literal level, constructing an exercise in exploration and visualizing the gallery from both outside and inside that brings the concept of “inhabit” to the level of experience. The tools of the construction trade whirr and buzz as Dyck moves the place of the viewer within, inside a movable gallery wall. The intention behind all this displacement is to build a periscope capable of seeing above the ceiling of the gallery, into the spaces we rarely think on, into the in-betweens.

“Everyone has a story,” Bilyk said.

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Photos: Photo: Raisa Pezderic/The Sheaf &
NBC Universal

Do you ever wonder, as you walk by, what’s going on in the practice rooms of the Education Building, the studios in the Murray Building or the classes in the John Mitchell Building? What are the fine arts majors doing in there?

The Gordon Snelgrove Gallery, Quance Theatre and Greystone Theatre performances exist to remedy some of that mystery. This year, a new initiative adds itself to the roster of events bringing student art to the community.

We the Artists, taking place Jan. 21, is a one-night celebration of the best student work in visual art, drama and music. Organized by the student associations from each department, and featuring student submissions, it’s a new kind of event.

It’s a chance to sample work from different disciplines: think buffet.

Two stages for drama and music will be interspersed with visual art submissions.

Drama students are set to perform scenes and monologues, some of which have been adapted specifically for Saturday’s event. Students in the department’s design program will also have their projects on display.

Musical highlights include vocalist Whitney Mather, Gerard Weber on saxophone and Jaclyn Goetz’s solo piano. A jazz finale by the Jared Tehse Trio is slated to close the evening.

Between performances, the audience can take in submissions from visual art students.

In this way, the event is a survey of the best artwork being made at the University of Saskatchewan right now.

“We’re trying to bring some light to what we do,” said Adam Naismith, president of the Drama Students’ Association. “Many of the people in our departments are the future of the arts in Canada.”

Emma Anderson, president of the Visual Arts Students’ Union, agrees. “The only people that get to see our work are our classmates and our friends and our parents. This is a great mass opportunity to show our work.”

Once the event places different art forms side by side, there is also the possibility of collaboration — of artists stepping into each other’s territory.

This time, think fusion cuisine: A live-action painting by Tyson Atkins and Shaun De Rooy accompanied by improv jazz.

The event offers something to people both inside and outside the campus art community.

“Actors will probably be walking around in their costumes after their performances,” said Anderson. “You’re going to have an opportunity to talk to people performing in this event or having art in this event.”

Also, performers can interact amongst themselves.

“On campus, arts, drama and music are kind of spread out as far as they can be from each other,” Anderson said. “Say, for example, I’m in visual arts. I’m very familiar with the visual arts people who come to our shows and receptions. The same thing happens with music and drama. They have their own crowds. This event brings all those crowds together, so I’m looking forward to some talk amongst the creative communities.”

Imagining a student initiative that brings different disciplines under the same roof, it’s hard to ignore the context in which We the Artists appears.

Naismith hatched the idea for this event as a response to last year’s town hall meetings over the state of the university’s Fine Arts and Humanities programs. Mitch Bonokoski (president of the Association of Student Musicians), Anderson from VASU and Toryn Adams quickly embraced the idea.

“One message that came out of the town hall meetings was the administration’s desire to see more interdisciplinary cooperation,” explained Bonokoski. “Together, we laid out a plan that features the creative work of our three departments’ finest artists.”

“Hopefully this will encourage people to see the Fine Arts as an essential part of our university community,” he said.

And if the yet-unbuilt Clarion Project is the elephant in the room, Anderson clarifies what kind of message this event can send.

“This is doing something now and putting energy in the right kind of streams,” she said. “Students have more power than they realize and they’re capable of doing a lot.”

“It’s been really nice to see the amount of support we’ve been getting from the university and from our respective communities,” said Anderson, acknowledging the USSU, Art Placement and the Persephone Theatre.

It seems the event will be a largely unpredictable mix of its different components. For one night, a room in TCU Place will transform into an experimental artistic laboratory. Now I borrow metaphors from science class. Ah, interdisciplinary harmony!

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Poster: Supplied

Misterfire: not your Average Saskatoon band.

Not every upstart band in Saskatoon has an indie music bent and eyes CBC Radio 3 as its goal. Sometimes bands are purely driven by their interest in the music, in the effect it has on an audience and in having a good time doing what they love.

This is the case with Misterfire, a genre-defying band with ska and funk elements who are releasing their debut album at Louis’ on Jan. 21. Refusing to pin themselves down musically and aim only for a niche audience, Misterfire’s hope for their album is just to spread the music and get their product to a larger audience.

“Our goal as a group when we started was just ‘I wanna make an album,’ ” said frontman Ben Fortosky, sitting down with the Sheaf last week. “And we’ve gotten there. And I just want to see where it takes us.”

Misterfire was born in November of 2008 during Fortosky’s first term at the University of Saskatchewan.

“I came up with the idea to start a group that wasn’t strictly jazz just as I was going into university,” he said. “I randomly ran into [keyboardist Cameron Baribeau] the first couple days of engineering and I was like, ‘Hey, I know you. You play trombone. I play trumpet. We should start a ska band.’ ”

The band started out as a ska group inspired by local talent North of Shorty. However, due to the members’ diverse musical talents built up through past years in jazz bands and the Saskatoon Youth Orchestra, Misterfire branched out into different musical territory.

“Our first show was a house party. We were just playing covers that we had all listened to. I liked how the show turned out,” Fortosky said. “There was no really clear stage where we decided we wanted to keep doing stuff. We just kept getting more gigs and having fun with it.”

The band has gone through a few lineup changes over the years before settling in July 2011 on the current lineup of Fortosky, Baribeau, Jordan Welbourne on lead guitar, Emmett Fortosky on bass and Ethan McKibben on drums. Fortosky, Baribeau, Welbourne and McKibben are all U of S students, while Emmett Fortosky is still in high school.

“Because we all have a common background in jazz, I think we especially appeal to people who play music and are music students because we do do a lot of stuff that is kind of out there,” Fortosky said.

Their debut album, All Lit Up, being released Jan. 21 is a collection of the best original music they have produced over the past few years.

“There’s not really a complete central theme, per se, but we feel the title describes the music pretty well because the music is all relatively upbeat and guaranteed to get people dancing,” Fortosky said. “It’s what we like to do.”

Misterfire strive to have a high energy stage presence and transfer their energy to the audience. Thus, like all their music and shows, All Lit Up is aimed at people who like dancing to upbeat music. It is also completely self-financed.

“Basically everything we’ve raised over our time together as a group has gone into that and we’re pretty proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish with all independent planning,” Fortosky said.

Fortosky hopes his band offers a different musical option to people who aren’t into the local indie or alternative music scenes.

“Our songs, they appeal to a wide audience because we don’t really have a fixed genre,” he said. “So putting the CD out there is definitely going to expand our fanbase quite a bit.”

But beyond expanding their fanbase, Fortosky says Misterfire’s biggest priority with All Lit Up is to  deliver an enjoyable time to audiences.

“We like to party. We like to have a good time. And we like to make sure you have a good time when listening to us.”

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Photo: Anne Baycroft

The Internet has changed the way consumers access media by allowing us to share everything digital across the entire world. This fact makes lawmakers’ heads spin, leaving them scrambling to punish those who break copyright laws.

Most high-end entertainment is made in North America, but many of the uploaders are elsewhere in the world, largely untouchable under current laws.

That Goomba didn't take Mario out... It was SOPA.

All this without stepping into court.

Guilty, shut down and bankrupt, until proven innocent.

While the intention is to stop online piracy (which is a legitimate problem), the discretion given to the American law enforcement and companies is the most troubling part of the current bill. With SOPA, companies won’t have to pick their battles; in fact, there won’t be a battle to be fought. If you are in violation by their loosely defined parameters of infringement, you will cease to exist on the Internet.

While SOPA will affect every facet of entertainment, SOPA most jeopardizes the robust community sustaining the gaming industry. By the very nature of the medium, much of the discussion on the Internet regarding gaming requires a level of “infringement” like posting pictures, videos and other user-generated content. It is how fans stay informed and involved in the medium they feel connected with. This, of course, leads to the sale of video games to a well-informed, actively participating consumer base.

Gaming is as lucrative as it is precisely because of a free Internet.

SOPA also threatens to stifle investment into gaming innovation. Novel games and technology gain traction because people are interested in new ideas, some of which don’t come from behemoths like Microsoft and Nintendo. It’s also no secret that a good idea (and a lot of luck) can explode virally thanks to the free Internet we already have.

And what will happen to the gaming press? While there are always allegations of sites being paid off to provide favourable reviews for certain games, these concerns are largely unfounded. With SOPA, this fear might come to fruition. What will stop a disgruntled company from utilizing their discretion against a site for an unfavourable review by using “copyright violation” as their red herring?

The tinfoil-hat-wearing types will finally be right.

And it’s not just the Gamespots or IGNs of the world. Gaming coverage is now part of hugely influential entities like USA Today, Forbes, CNN and the Sheaf.

Despite many gaming companies claiming to have rescinded their support, the Entertainment Software Association, the trade organization representing the biggest companies in the industry, is behind SOPA. This is the same group that was a champion of the recent push to protect video games under the first amendment, which makes their stance on SOPA rather tragic to gamers.

With the ESA onboard, SOPA has at least enough political capital to worry gamers, hopefully leading to some old-fashioned Internet backlash. In fact, many web companies like Google, Yahoo and eBay are considering a full blackout of their services in protest of SOPA. And in December, 83 engineers, including some of the creators of the Internet itself, addressed a letter to Congress imploring them to drop the legislation.

So please fight back against SOPA. If you are a person who cares about gaming, remember the following: SOPA will hold the entire industry back and hurt it much more than piracy ever will. And it will do so by filtering what information you can access.

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Photo: Nintendo

Two years since their debut album Lungs in July 2009, English indie pop group Florence and the Machine released their second album, Ceremonials, in Oct. 2011 to a patient and loyal following. And for the most part, it was worth the wait.

Led by singer-songwriter Florence Welch, the group has chosen to dive back into the darkly beautiful moods and instrumentations introduced in Lungs, placing more emphasis on the powerful, driving songs they are capable of. The album opens with “Only If For A Night,” a haunting song about lost love, and switches into the more triumphant melody of “Shake It Out.” This is probably the strongest track on the album, celebrating the ability to face your demons and the death and rebirth that can occur from such a confrontation.

The group plays to their strengths on this album, with many of the tracks packed with emotion and energy despite the dark themes. Among other tracks, the aforementioned “Shake It Out” and “Heartlines” encourage you to dance. The vocals help this feeling, where editing allows Florence’s voice to be repeated and pieced together in a chorus of one person, loud and almost overpowering, but still passionate.

If this collection has its flaws, though, it’s in its lack of variety. The album has a strong beginning and end, but while the middle tracks have different melodies and “Seven Devils” is lovely, the similar percussion beats tend to meld songs together, causing one to lose focus on the music.

A few softer songs, or at least ones with less intense drumbeats, could have helped break up the music and give the listener a chance to rest and prepare for the next big track, and it’s disappointing to not have the same kind of variety as the group presented in Lungs. The album manages to end on a high note, however, with the track “Leave My Body” bringing us back to that dark, rich and emotional feel that Florence is best at.

Ceremonials is ultimately a strong second album and a clear example of a group coming into its own, but the lack of experimentation leaves something to be desired. This isn’t to say it’s not recommended, though, because it is a pleasure to listen to and will leave any old or new fans of Florence wanting more.

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Image: Supplied

If you are unfamiliar with the Old Republic series, the first game Knights of the Old Republic single-handedly established Bioware as a best next-generation role-playing-game developer. They then proceeded to make such well regarded games as Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Although these other games are great, fans demanded another Old Republic game and Bioware finally answered those demands.

One of the perks of the Sith Assassin is the ability to use double-bladed lightsabers.

What’s different about The Old Republic from the previous games is that it is a massively multiplayer online game, which means the game is absolutely huge and can be played simultaneously by millions of people. I currently have a level 26 Sith Assassin who works as a stealth damage-dealing character, much like a Rouge. Assassins are based off the Darth Maul character from Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace and therefore have the special ability to use double-bladed light sabers. I have also created a Republic character who is a Smuggler. However, my playtime with the character has been very limited so most of my experience comes from the Sith Assassin perspective.

This game lives up to and exceeds the hype fans expected of it. It has everything one could want in a role-playing game: morality choices, companions with personality and a deepening of the Star Wars expanded universe. That’s not to mention the addition of a massively multiplayer world where you can do all of this in a group setting. As expected, there are tons of quests, but what makes them different from any other MMO is the fact that each character has full voice-over dialogue and most of their quests end up being interesting short stories that add to the universe.

When you have picked your character and class, you have your own story missions that deal with only your character and the choices he or she makes. This insures that all the quests feel much more meaningful and makes you feel immersed in this giant world Bioware has let you explore. Immersion is something that all MMOs have lost me on, but Old Republic truly is demanding me to give up my normal social life.

I never really understood the MMO addiction problem that apparently comes with games like World of Warcraft until now. The way Old Republic manages to be more addictive is by having these voiced story elements that are interesting whether or not you are playing within a group.

Old Republic also captures the incredible feeling of being in the world of Star Wars. Every time I land my ship on a new planet (most recently Tatooine) I get a tingle running all the way down my spine. I have been in love with the Star Wars movies since I was a child and to now have the ability to explore these planets with friends to such an enormous degree is nothing short of staggering.

A Republic Trooper and Smuggler pose in front of their ship.

The companion system of Old Republic can also allow for interesting new gameplay. You get the companion near the end of the quest line on your beginning planet, and I received the companion Khem Val, who specializes in getting enemies’ attention and taking damage while I quickly kill them using my Assassin’s stealth abilities. This system works very well and adds a new degree of strategy when playing the game solo.

The companion is not just used as an aid in battle though. He or she actually talks to you and will become more attached depending on the decisions you make while he or she is around. This is something that Bioware has always done in their games, but it’s pretty huge for an MMO to have.

If you are familiar with past Old Republic or MMO games, the combat should also feel pretty familiar. It is all based on hot-keys and a recharging “Force” bar. That doesn’t mean it’s a carbon copy of previous games, however. The melee action is much faster than what most MMO players will be accustomed to. In my brief time with a ranged character, the combat felt completely different, definitely influenced by Bioware’s other franchise Mass Effect. With the Smuggler you actually use cover and can jump from spot to spot based an enemies position, which for an MMO feels fresh.

There is a ridiculous amount of content in this game, but the folks at Bioware have already been adding new content. The Old Republic is likely to be a game I will be playing for years to come. I have been so immersed in it that I haven’t even touched Skyrim since its release.

Bioware has done the seemingly impossible by creating a world that feels truly like Star Wars while combining everything that people love about classic MMOs and integrating important aspects from their past games. They have created a truly unbelievable experience that I cannot wait to sink more time into.

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Images: Supplied

Liam Neeson looking chilly in The Grey (2012).

The winter movie season in January and February always feels like a letdown. This is to be expected after the abundance of middle-brow, awards season films that flood the cinemas around Christmas. But there’s another, perhaps more obvious, reason for this. Most of the movies the studios release in January are terrible.

Looking at the past three years of January releases, you begin to see a trend for the month’s releases. The winter movie season is filled with cheap horror movies, shallow romantic comedies and bigger films that obviously displeased the studios and have no box office potential.

In horror, there have been plenty of terrible ones over the past three years. In 2009, viewers were subjected to My Bloody Valentine 3D, The Unborn and The Uninvited. In 2010, there were Daybreakers and Legion, and 2011 had Season of the Witch and The Rite.

However bad these horror films are, they usually make money. My Bloody Valentine 3D made $51 million against a $15 million budget and The Unborn made $42 million against a $16 million budget. They cost almost nothing to make (comparatively speaking) and have an established demographic. This has to be the reason why Hollywood keeps pumping them out in this unlikely season (August and October are the typical horror movie months).

This year already had a cheaply-made, moneymaking horror movie, The Devil Inside, which debuted to an astounding $34 million despite boasting a horrific seven per cent rating on the Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer. When January is populated by mid-range films the studios deem financially risky, it makes economic sense to release inexpensive horror movies that are almost guaranteed to take the top of the box office on the weekend when it’s released and make a profit.

Speaking of those mid-range films, every title that ends up in January can be seen as having gained the studio’s disfavour. That’s not to say that the films were displeasing enough for the studio not to release them (which is something studios do), but enough for the studio to resist an intensive and expensive marketing campaign. Sometimes even the studios know they have a stinker on their hands.

Last year’s The Green Hornet had gone through several iterations and directors before finally securing a release date in the dreaded month of January. Having seen the finished result, it makes sense Columbia Pictures felt last-minute trepidation at releasing a big budget superhero movie starring Seth Rogen and directed by the guy who did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The film did end up grossing $98 million, but against its $120 million budget and compared to other superhero films based on established characters, it was a financial disappointment.

The same trepidation goes for Edge of Darkness from 2010. It was the first film in eight years to star Mel Gibson, and even though there had been four years since his DUI arrest and anti-Semitic rant, his star power was still feeling the damage of that outburst. The studio was backing a volatile product, and this was before the Internet went aflutter with the release of his raging telephone calls to his ex-girlfriend. The studio had a middle-brow action film starring an ex-A-lister. The logical decision was to dump it in January where they didn’t have to worry about it.

Romantic comedies operate along the same principles as horror films. They have established demographics, cost relatively little to make and serve as deliberate counter-programming (read: they are geared at female audience members who, generally speaking, won’t show up for the horror and action films). The fact that January is stuffed full of films like Leap Year (2010), New in Town (2009), No Strings Attached (2011) and When in Rome (2010) should then come as no surprise. They have big stars and they make modest profits.

Regarding the current slate of January films, 2012’s releases promise to be much the same as others, with a few wild cards. The Devil Inside covers the inexpensive horror category. One for the Money is another Katherine Heigl vom-com. Man on a Ledge and Red Tails seem to be movies the studios feel uncomfortable about. We even get another Underworld movie with Underworld: Awakening — and no one needed another Underworld movie.

Steven Soderbergh’s female-centred action film Haywire seems to be something of a wild card. The only film that people seem to be genuinely excited for is Joe Carnahan’s The Grey, and not so much because it looks like a good film but because it stars Liam Neeson as a survivor of a plane crash in the Arctic who has to fight off timber wolves by taping broken glass bottles to his knuckles. The chance to see Neeson punch wolves is not to be missed.

A new phenomenon that is seeping into the winter movie season is the 3D re-release. Beauty and the Beast comes out in 3D this Friday, hoping to repeat the success of this past fall’s The Lion King re-release. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is being released in 3D in February and Titanic in April. The presence of 3D re-releases in the winter movie season only goes to support the argument that the weak programming of January is dictated by the studio’s finances, much like everything else.

The only film in recent years tried to be an event movie in January was Cloverfield and that was a modest success and a one-of-a-kind film that not every studio is going to greenlight every year.

For the most part, January will remain a movie-going wasteland dictated by the studios’ financial worries. When cinephiles are busy catching up on awards season contenders and the casual filmgoer is taking a break from going to the movies every weekend to recharge for the bigger fare ready to drop in March, Hollywood isn’t interested in releasing great films, focusing instead on the upcoming summer movie season.

Films released in January aren’t destined to be financial failures, but it will be a cold day in Hollywood before films released in winter are nominated for Oscars or make the year-end box office top 10. Things like that don’t happen. The deeper you dig, the more you realize everything about the movies is dictated by money. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

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Image: Supplied

MADELON KIROV
The Concordian (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — Yes, it can be frustrating, difficult, and extremely exhausting to cultivate a wonderful piece of writing. But despite the obstacles of writer’s block and trying to find widespread success, well-known author Robert Munsch encourages young writers to keep working at it — as he continues to do so himself.

“I have over 200 unpublished stories that I am working on,” the eccentric and beloved author told The Concordian in an interview, as he shared details about his life in storytelling and offered young writers advice on the art of writing.

Many have grown up reading Munsch’s short stories as children. Munsch, 66, is an American-born, now Canadian author who currently lives in the city of Guelph, Ont. A member of the Order of Canada since 1999, he has published over 47 children’s books, including The Paperbag Princess and Love You Forever, that have sold more than 18 million copies across North America.

As an elementary student, Munsch almost failed Grades 1 to 5. In fact, he claims to have never learned how to spell properly and graduated from Grade 8 still counting on his fingers to do simple addition. He was generally “not a resounding academic success,” in his words.

He began writing poetry in elementary school, which sparked his interest in literature. In high school, he did not get along with anybody and after seven years of studying to be a Jesuit priest, he decided that it was not his calling. On the topic of post-secondary education, Munsch said, “I liked university better than any other schooling. I think it was because I was interested in what I was learning and had finally taken responsibility for my education.”

Every successful writer begins small. Munsch recalls how difficult it was to get published. “I never have had an agent and I sent stories to nine different publishers before one said yes,” he said. In 2008, Munsch suffered a stroke that affected his speech, though over the years, he has slowly recovered and can now do public readings again. His writing career has, however, been put on hold until a full recovery.

When asked what he believes is a writer’s greatest enemy, Munsch answered, “Trying to find an agent or publisher!” He added that the most important skill needed as a writer is perseverance and a willingness to accept criticism.

But before getting to that point, writers need to start at square one. To write successfully, Munsch said to “write about something you love, something you feel strongly about or something you know about.” This makes all the difference in the delivery of the piece; the higher the interest level of the writer, the more effort, care, and love is put into the writing. When it comes to writer’s block, Munsch explained he makes up random unrelated stories on the spot from which more ideas expand, and often ends up finding inspiration in the original material.

For those interested in children’s literature, Munsch shared some more of his insight on this specific target audience.

“Kids are so new. They’re so open-ended. I can look at a kid and wonder what they’ll be,” he said. “The job of children is to be professionally appealing to adults. That’s how they get what they need.”

Finally, when it comes to improving and maintaining a budding writer’s skills, Munsch provided wise and valuable feedback.

“Keep on writing. Write a diary, write short stories. You don’t learn to swim by reading about it and you don’t learn to write that way either. If you want to learn how to write, write a lot and you will get better at it.”

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Graphic: Katie Brioux/The Concordian

Tyler, the Creator busting his controversial rhymes.

Looking at the best-selling acts of the last few years, you might say that rap never went anywhere, but although rap has been around for decades, it was turning into a genre that lacked any kind of creativity, whether it be lyrically or in production. This last year a new breed of rap entered the ears of the masses thanks to the new free Internet mix-tape scene, giving all kinds of different rappers a way to get their music heard.

Last year really marked when people started to innovate in a genre that was becoming increasingly stale.

Lyrically, what 2011 brought to the world of rap was individuality. Last year’s new breed of rappers were saying things that were pretty much unheard of and the delivery of the lyrics was equally as original.

Bands like Odd Future made their mark. They started to gain popularity in 2010, but really exploded in 2011. The group, whose full name is Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, is led by the eccentric and hyperactive Tyler, the Creator. These controversial rappers’ lyrics seem to be all about shock value, but they also reveal deeper parts of the psyches of all the members themselves. Odd Future is the rap collective everyone has their eyes on, especially Tyler with his MTV VMA win in 2011.

But while Odd Future made the most noise, the best rap album of the year was Kendrick Lamar’s Section 80. It easily proved Lamar to be one of the most interesting rappers active right now. What Lamar does is not necessarily new. He has a quick and somewhat monotone delivery, yet his lines pack much more meaning and are far more significant than any other rapper’s.

There are many rappers who deserve to be noted from last year: Danny Brown, A$AP Rocky, Vince Staples, Childish Gambino and Das Racist.

The production behind most mainstream rap has always been pretty simple: a generic boom-clap. This changed in 2011. Background production became a reason to listen to some rappers. This is most notable with A$AP Rocky, who as a rapper isn’t anything extraordinary, although his mellow distorted vocals about getting high on cough syrup do have a certain appeal. It is really his production that pushes him to the next level with various underground producers providing beats that feel like melting while in space.

This last year in rap feels like producers discovered how to use synthesizers and distortion in interesting and creative ways.

The artists I have mentioned so far have all hit a pretty wide audience. Since these artists would typically be underground, their popularity has opened up a whole new side of original rap in that underground scene.

Two bands come to the forefront. The first one is Death Grips, a group described as angry hobo rap on the music blog The Needle Drop. The emotion and passion that is displayed in their songs makes Odd Future’s music sound like a children’s choir. These guys are able to elicit a reaction that I thought only punk and metal were capable of: one of pure anger that can only be fixed with some heavy moshing.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Shabazz Palaces. These guys are art rap. They are very laid back with production that sounds like a stripped-down Animal Collective. Lyrically, they are abstract and daringly dense.

If 2011 was any kind of sign of how the world of rap is progressing, there are many reasons to look forward to what 2012 will bring. Give these artists a look even if you are not typically into rap. They are unlike anything you have ever heard.

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Photo: Supplied

The Black Keys may be single-handedly keeping blues rock out of the poor house. While in recent years there have been other heavies emerging in the genre, the undeniable leader of the pack is still this two-man outfit from Akron, Ohio. However, it’s getting harder to keep them rooted in the genre they’re accustomed to.

Since their first release in 2002, the Black Keys have proven themselves to be one of the finest working groups in the industry. Throughout the years their music has matured and changed to reflect the shifting interests of frontman Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney. While a definite shift can be heard across all of their albums, the biggest change in their style came from the 2010 album Brothers.

Before the release of Brothers, the Black Keys never strayed far from the rootsy blues rock that had made them mainstays on college radio. But through collaboration with hip-hop producer Danger Mouse, Brothers became a much more complex animal. This album wasn’t just another distortion-heavy collection of garage rock and blues riffs. It was a mesh of rock and rhythm — the Black Keys with soul. In the last two years, they’ve stepped half out of the blues-rock genre in which they grew up, making them much more difficult to define.

What was so surprising about Brothers was how the group managed to take such a departure from their usual sound and still maintain the same spirit that made their music great in the first place.

El Camino also contains all of the old elements that made the Black Keys such a refreshing group. Auerbach’s songwriting is still a deceptively simple weave of anger and longing, allowing the listener to experience a good deal of conflicting feelings in the space of one song. Some tracks, like “Little Black Submarine,” make bold changes in tempo and tone halfway through, becoming completely different songs in the space of a second, but never losing the thread of their meaning.

El Camino is a triumph in much the same way that Brothers was. By mixing their capable musicianship with the masterful production of Danger Mouse, the group has continued to evolve in the way they make music. The instruments, harmonies, even the tempo of some of the songs on El Camino are entirely unlike anything on the group’s first few albums. They have meshed their traditional combination of guitar and drum with less than ordinary blues instruments. They traded the harmonica for a synthesizer.

The asset of having a producer who usually works outside of a group’s genre is a fresh perspective and offers a deeper pool of resources. Of course, the problem with it is that often musicians are inflexible in the way they write and producers are unreasonable in their expectations. This is the reason that cross-genre collaborations rarely pay dividends, but if their last two albums are any indication, it seems that the Black Keys and Danger Mouse have found a natural rapport together.

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Image: Supplied

After an up-and-down 2011 for gaming, 2012 looks like it’s going to be a quality (and expensive) year for gamers.

Clockwise from the top: Grand Theft Auto V, Master Chief, The Playstation Vita, Bioshock: Infinite, Diablo III, and the Wii U.

Hardware

This year we are about to be inundated with new hardware, and that (hopefully) means innovation.

With Sony set to release their handheld powerhouse the PlayStation Vita in February, and Nintendo readying their follow-up to the wildly successful Wii, the Wii-U, consumers will have to make expensive choices. On top of those two, rumours are swirling about Microsoft and Sony preparing to unveil their next generation of console hardware this year.

With the inclusion of Facebook, Twitter and Netflix capability, downloadable game marketplaces and online profiles, the current generation of consoles have become more than video game systems. This year we will most likely get a glimpse into machines that will further combine gaming and non-gaming media, bringing consumers new experiences to their living rooms.

As companies start development on the next-generation hardware, gamers should still expect some incredible games to come from the current-gen consoles. PC gamers also have very high-profile games to look forward to. It is quite possible, as many successful business models are coming from the PC world (free-to-play, Steam, independent publishing), that console companies will emulate the once stand-alone market of PC games.

Games

Some standouts to consider in early 2012 are Bioware’s epic space opera Mass Effect 3, the slick (and Skrillex’d) espionage-shooter-reboot Syndicate and Ken Levine’s highly anticipated follow-up to BioShock, BioShock: Infinite. Rockstar is aiming high with releasing both Grand Theft Auto V and the long-awaited Max Payne 3 this year.

Tried-and-true franchises are still alive and kicking, with new Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty and Halo titles all but confirmed for 2012.

The aforementioned PC crowd will get their usual glut of amazing independent games, most notably Jonathan Blow’s The Witness. Sure to ignite the nostalgic flame in millions all over the world, Diablo III is expected in early 2012. Blizzard Interactive will most likely double its efforts by releasing the second (of the second…) installment of its venerable Starcraft series, Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. And don’t forget the World of Warcaft expansion, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.

Now with bears.

If you are looking for something that isn’t a sequel or a reboot, there are a few new intellectual properties ready to blow your mind and subsequently spawn sequels, collector’s editions and Subway endorsements (see: Uncharted).

Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning aims to satiate those who want more action out of their fantasy action-role-playing games. Naughty Dog is taking a crack at a post-apocalyptic, infected-but-pretty-much-zombies genre with The Last of Us, and Capcom is finally releasing a new original title with their action-adventure Dragon’s Dogma.

And finally, Nintendo…

The Wii is all but finished in terms of new titles, but the 3DS will most likely be getting Animal Crossing, Kid Icarus: Uprising and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, just to name a few.

What has yet to be seen is what kind of third-party support the Wii-U will have. It will get Darksiders 2, GTA V and last year’s Batman: Arkham City. However, it’s a rather lacklustre lineup considering it is a brand new console getting current-generation games.

Despite this, Nintendo did announce in 2011 that they have been thinking about, maybe, starting to consider releasing a new Super Smash Bros. in the future. And that’s all I really need.

We will of course get a better picture of 2012 and beyond after some of the trade shows this year, starting with Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Jan. 10 to 13, but from what we know now, there is a lot to be excited for.

As for gaming news, if 2011 is anything to go by, expect the unexpected. From the PS3 hacking catastrophe, to the U.S. Supreme Court protecting games under the First Amendment, last year’s stories highlighted a maturing industry. While we should expect to see more stories about rights and privacy, the unpredictable nature of an evolving medium will create new kinds of stories and controversies that will break further into the mainstream, continuing to involve more and more people as the industry grows.

There is a lot to look forward to in 2012 for gaming. New consoles, new and old franchises and a few fresh stories should keep every gamer busy. Best to start doubling up your paper-routes and cutting back on your groceries now.

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Graphic: Brianna Whitmore/The Sheaf

The lights of Lima during the holidays.

I woke up in Lima, Peru on Christmas Eve and knew little more than five Spanish phrases — most of which were incomprehensible because of my shabby pronunciation.

The following morning, however, I became a bit more optimistic. I downloaded a translation application for my iPhone and knew that this would help me become fluent over the next three weeks. My high spirits lasted until I reached the street and realized that traffic in Peru doesn’t stop for pedestrians and the sun was intense enough that by mid-afternoon my skin had burnt to a crisp shade of pink.

On this day consumerism thrived. Mall speakers played Michael Bublé’s new Christmas album, locals brushed past each other as they scoured the department stores for last minute gifts and two blocks away a young girl, maybe seven years old, sold individual sheets of wrapping paper for a few soles a piece. In the plazas stood plastic Christmas trees 10 metres tall. As I settled into bed, fireworks were erupting over the beach.

With the hot, muggy weather, loud crowds and fireworks the atmosphere resembled July 1 as much as it did Christmas Eve. In the morning, as my travel group boarded the bus for Pisco the public had abandoned the streets, seeking refuge in the churches and company of their families. Atheism here is nearly unheard of. The Peruvian population consists primarily of devout Catholics. At the next few destinations we encountered quieter celebrations, many intricate Nativity scenes in churches, restaurants and our hostels. Across Peru, Christmas is still a religious holiday centred around Jesus Christ.

We missed our families and I had never felt so far away from home. On Christmas Peruvians serve a traditional cocktail called an aigarronina made from a fruit of the same name, pisco and cinnamon. It is sweet, sour and frothy. We drank our aigarroninas while our travel group, consisting of six people, were introduced for the first time.

Our charming guide, Freddy, told us about his favorite Christmas song, “Burrito Scenero.” Freddy said the lyrics roughly translated to, “My little donkey on the way to Beleing, say hi to me on my way to Beleing.”

“Since I was little that is the song that makes me think of Christmas,” he said.

Freddy smiled and sang to me a few versus in Spanish. Not once in Lima or Pisco did I hear Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad,” which I had expected and had stuck in my head for the first few days in Peru.

We spent New Year’s Eve in Puno. Yellow was everywhere. The street was decorated with balloons and streamers. Street-side vendors sold funny yellow hats and ties and glasses. Our group exchanged pairs of yellow underwear that Peruvians wear at midnight to attract prosperity in the upcoming year. Red underwear is worn to attract love.

We ate 12 grapes at midnight, one for every hour, and concentrated on our resolutions. In our back pockets we kept charms, flimsy plastic bags filled with different seeds, which were doubly lucky if they broke while we danced at one of the small crowded nightclubs lining the street. Confetti and foam rained down on us as midnight struck and the crowd erupted in celebration. Fireworks were lit in the street. It was raining as I walked back to the hotel, cold in an intrusive way that seemed to suggest that I would never be warm, or for that matter dry, again. With still a half-hour left until midnight in Saskatoon, I settled in.

The one tradition we had missed was one that I had become most interested in. On the day of New Year’s Eve, before midnight, Freddy told us that you could take a special bath to cleanse your aura. The bath would be filled with herbs, flowers, spices and red wine. Thinking positively, bathers would submerge themselves in chamomile, carnations, rose pedals and lavender oil. The bath is meant to rid the bather of stress from the past year.

I ended the year happily, hugging new, strange and unexpected friends, across the globe from my home, and shouting, “Feliz ano nuevo” without any help from my iPhone.

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Photo: ChimiFotos/Flickr

Moses (John Boyega, left) and his crew from Attack the Block.

Attack the Block

 (dir. Joe Cornish)

Alien invasion movies come a dime a dozen, but there are few as fresh and intriguing as Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block. Set in inner city London, the film follows a group of young hoodlums who have to defend their apartment block against aggressive alien invaders. The result is the most refreshing entertainment from 2011, boasting great atmosphere, a dynamic cast of young characters, a memorable score and classic, practical special effects.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams 

(dir. Werner Herzog)

Werner Herzog is the master of the esoteric documentary and Cave of Forgotten Dreams may be the most important documentary he has ever made. It is part art history lesson, part examination of the birth of humanity as Herzog takes you into the Chauvet Caves in France, home to the world’s oldest known paintings, dating 30,000 years. See it in 3D if you can because the added dimension will make the cave drawings so real, you’ll feel like you can reach out and touch them.

Certified Copy

(dir. Abbas Kiarostami)

Often films that deal with profound philosophical questions are pretentious and divorced from reality. Luckily, Certified Copy is neither. Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami crafts a very human tale dealing with the question of whether a copy is as meaningful as an original. It focuses entirely on one day in rural Italy where a French shopkeeper (Juliette Binoche) and an English writer (William Shimell) decide to take a drive and see the region. Along the way, their conversations and situations reveal that their relationship may not be what it seems, and point to greater truths of human experience.

Into the Abyss

(dir. Werner Herzog)

Into the Abyss is Werner Herzog’s examination of a triple homicide in Texas and all the people involved, the still-grieving family members of the victims, the police officers, the prison wardens and the killers, one of whom is on death row scheduled to be executed mere days after Herzog’s interview with him. With this documentary, Herzog takes a step back from the subject matter, refusing to add his own narration or commentary on the proceedings. He lets the events and the people speak for themselves. The result is a profound portrait of the moral failure of humanity.

The Interrupters

(dir. Steve James)

The Interrupters is an honest and fascinating documentary exploring how to combat gang culture and street violence. Documentarian Steve James (Hoop Dreams) follows one year in the life of violence interrupters in Chicago, ex-gang members who have dedicated their lives to stopping violent encounters between gangs and helping towards a healing process in broken inner city communities.

James lets the camera roll unobstructed allowing the city to speak for itself. The result is a film that shows the immense problems that inner city communities face, but also some hope in how to combat such problems. It breaks down social problems to the level of the individual, and paints even the most violent offender as nothing less than a fully formed human being.

Melancholia

(dir. Lars von Trier)

It is hard to imagine a more beautiful depiction of the end of the world. Controversial Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier’s Melancholia is an exquisite portrait of depression, following two sisters, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), as they grapple with their own anxiety and family issues — all while a planet hurtles forward in space on a collision course with Earth. Von Trier doesn’t pull any punches when depicting Justine’s depression and the film will likely leave viewers feeling drained, but in awe of its beauty.

Shame

(dir. Steve McQueen)

With Shame, Steve McQueen, the British director behind Hunger, makes another hard-hitting drama starring Michael Fassbender. With gorgeous visuals, impeccable craftsmanship and a fearless performance by Fassbender, Shame is an explicit examination of a sex addict who spends his days surfing porn and his nights having sex with strangers. Through its performances and visuals, McQueen and Fassbender make Shame as powerful a portrait of addiction as Requiem for a Dream and The Lost Weekend.

Take Shelter

(dir. Jeff Nichols)

This was quite the year for apocalyptic films. In Take Shelter Michael Shannon plays Curtis, a father and husband who is tormented by dreams of an apocalyptic storm. His family has a history of mental illness, so Curtis is unsure whether he is seeing prophetic visions of the future or succumbing to his own genetic flaws. Take Shelter is a haunting exploration of mental illness and also the most unconventional and lastingly unsettling horror film of the year.

Winnie the Pooh

(dir. Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall)

There are few fictional characters as lovable as Winnie the Pooh and Disney’s latest film following the lovable bear is the most true to the classic books by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard. The simplicity of the animation, the gentle humour, the classic songs sung by Zooey Deschanel and the good-natured plot driven by confusion and misunderstanding make Winnie the Pooh the perfect film for children and children-at-heart.

Young Adult

(dir. Jason Reitman)

Every high school had her: the popular, beautiful, bitchy girl with the jock boyfriend who seemed impervious to the problems of life and scornful of anyone worse than her. Director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody’s Young Adult explores this character, Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), 20 years after high school, where seemingly nothing about her has changed. Young Adult is awkward and hilarious and painfully accurate in depicting the arrested development of a generation. Its greatest strength is that it makes us care about Mavis, no matter how nasty and unappealing an individual she is.

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Images: Supplied