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Wall*E wants you to stop wallowing

Drifting without direction, crippled by convenience and firmly affixed to the furniture, the hamster-like humans featured in Pixar’s recent animated epic are meant to remind us of ourselves – those of us still inhabiting this obsolete orb called Earth. It’s a light-hearted but heart-breaking exposé of our tendencies to become motionless machines of malaise. Funnily [...]

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Movie Review: Juno

Sometimes, when an episode of Gilmore Girls shows up on my TV (I’m not sure how they keep doing that, although I’m starting to suspect my wife might have something to do with it), I find it hard to focus on all the Stars Hollow drama. It’s not that Luke’s Diner doesn’t have enough gossip [...]

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Music Review: Radiohead, “In Rainbows”

I paid two pounds (approximately 0.9 kilograms, for you Canadians) for Radiohead’s intangible new release, the digitally delivered seventh album, called “In Rainbows.” Since the stunt was announced in early October 2007, this album has everybody talking, but for the first time in Radiohead’s career, the conversation has nothing to do with their music.

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The 10 Most Amazing Performances of the 2007 Calgary Folk Music Festival

The 2007 Calgary Folk Music Festival, a four-day foray into the world’s best music, took place during the last week of July 2007 at Prince’s Island Park, and the resulting noises and sounds made me wonder what on earth I’ve been doing with my ears my whole life. For posterity and for your perusal, I [...]

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Feist concert review: The headliner

Saturday night on May 19, 2007 at the Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary brought 3000 people into the three-floor concert hall to see Feist perform. Raised in Calgary herself, Leslie Feist has more than a passing connection to the city and the venue: at age 6, Feist took the stage to sing for her very first [...]

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Feist concert review: Opening act, Chad VanGaalen

A review of Feist, live at Calgary’s Jubilee Auditorium (Saturday, May 19, 2007). This is a review of the opening act, Chad VanGaalen. To read the part about Feist, click here! Opening act: Chad VanGaalen I think every opening act I’ve ever seen has somehow convinced me to follow up with the band. It’s through [...]

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The timeless literature of Dan Brown (or, why The Da Vinci Code just plain sucks)

The story of Dan Brown, famous author of even-more-famous best-selling book The Da Vinci Code is a curious one. As often re-told in the various author biographies around the web, this is how Dan Brown decided to be an author: one day, while at the beach in Tahiti, he finished reading some random paperback and [...]

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Movie Review: Melinda and Melinda

When somebody says “It’s a Woody Allen film,” I think you’re supposed to go, “Oh, wow, great, can’t wait to see it.” It’s supposed to indicate that an aging but prolific writer has produced yet another high-quality movie that is bound to touch audiences worldwide with its wit and humanity. In Melinda and Melinda, saying [...]

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Movie Review: Beowulf & Grendel

Tonight I was clubbed by Beowulf and Grendel. A latecomer into the Epic Movie Craze that’s been galloping throughout the film world for the past ten years, this film manages to turn an archaic Norse poem into a dull, disjointed, dialect-challenged drip of a movie.

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