ARTS
Missing Kanye: Nostalgia and The Life of Pablo
Artists in the 21st century are expected to create and produce successful work with little turnaround time. Once fame is achieved, there’s only so much time before you’re left behind for someone keener, bolder, and maybe even younger. Frank Ocean and Rihanna have been prey to online communities begging for ...
The 5 Crappiest Movies Filmed in Toronto
5. Short Circuit 2 Whereas the original 1986 Short Circuit—also filmed in Toronto—was surprisingly successful, and had a compelling plot in a U.S. military robot that gains intelligence and escapes after “short-circuiting”, Short Circuit 2 catches up with the same robot several years later. He is embroiled in a gangster ...
The Strand’s EAs go to WInterlcious!
Bannock Restaurant Review Alison Zhou We arrived to a full-but-not-crowded scene and were the last to leave, a few minutes after closing. It was Wednesday (Hump Day); one of my dates had just trudged through his midterm, the other in from Finch Station. Despite this and the dreary weather-my inspiration ...
Antique Fables Theatre Collective: A Diverse and Contemporary Look at Classic Texts
This past week, I met up with Liz Laywine—UofT theatre grad, co-founder of the Antique Fables Theatre Collective, and director and producer of the first show of their inaugural season, Medea. We discussed the process that she and her co-founder, Travis DeWolf, went through in forming the collective, as well ...
The Strand Reviews UofT Drama Fest, which Celebrates Student Theatre
Every year, the University of Toronto Drama Coalition hosts its annual Drama Festival. This is an entirely student-run event; each college from the St. George Campus and groups from the Mississauga and Scarborough campuses are eligible to submit a play written and performed by students. This year—marking the 80th ...
St. Mike’s Evita: An Odd Choice, but it Paid Off
St. Michael’s Troubadours performed Evita, a musical by Tim Rice (music) and Andrew Lloyd Weber (lyrics), at Hart House this past weekend, with director Jeffrey Kennes and producer David Carcasole. The musical focuses on the ascension of historical figure Eva Perón (Madeline Foley), the wife of the Argentinian President Juan ...
Good Kid, mad city
I meet the five members of Good Kid at The Starving Artist on College Street. Michael, who plays bass, tells me as we wait for our table that he bought some balloons earlier since their single hit 100,000 plays on Spotify. “We’re using them for a video on our Facebook ...
Let’s talk about ZAYN
Boy bands are dependent on staying the same. Part of their appeal is remaining static throughout their career, and this can lead to personality-free products. One Direction is perhaps the strongest contemporary example of this phenomenon. (As we monitor the band’s rumoured disintegration over the next few months, it’s going ...
Review: Mozart in the Jungle
Many Golden Globe viewers were surprised when favourite-to-win Jeffrey Tambor was unseated in the Best Actor in a Comedy Series category by Gael García Bernal for Mozart in the Jungle. Amazon’s comedy series centres on a transitional period for the New York Symphony Orchestra, when new conductor Rodrigo De Souza ...
TIFF Top Ten review: Les demons
With choices such as Andrew Cividino’s Sleeping Giant and Stephen Dunn’s Closet Monster, several of the films at this year’s Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival took audiences on a tour of the Canadian suburbs, highlighting the struggles of the children and adolescents growing up in them. Philippe Lesage’s Les démons ...