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July 8th 2011
Produced by Erica Bridgeman
Read BY Josh Nemeroff
Stories written by Michael Lemieux, Erica Bridgeman and Josh Nemeroff
Turcotte Verdict Protests
A controversial verdict has aroused some discontent for some Quebec citizens. After Guy Turcotte was found not responsible for his crimes, protests sprang up on Facebook.
Turcotte admitted to stabbing his two children to death in February 2009. Earlier this week a jury found he was not criminally responsible for the deaths due to mental illness.
The protests are set for Aug. 6, exactly one month and one day after the verdict was passed.
Turcotte will remain in an institution until he is fit to be released.
Lost dog found a year later and 4,500 km away
A Montreal family will soon be reunited with their lost dog, a year after she was lost. The Labrador mix named Pollux escaped from owner Isablle Robitaille's home last June. But that the runaway dog was found after so long isn't the most surprising part of this story.
Pollux was found in Kamloops, British Columbia, over 4,500 kilometres away from home. A good Samaritan had turned her into the local SPCA. Officials at the Kamloops SPCA were able to identify the dog thanks to a microchip in her neck.
Pollux was adopted by Robitaille from the Montreal SPCA. They have a standing policy to ensure all animals get a microchip before they are adopted.
Nobody but Pollux knows how she travelled to the West Coast so far away from home.
Film Review - Larry Crowne
As soon as the house lights illuminated the theater and the new summer flick Larry Crowne had finished, I thought to myself, "How the heck am I going to give Tom Hanks a less then magnificent review?" I must say that the tale of Larry Crowne is not an epic or adventurous one. The film was written and directed by Tom Hanks, but personally I think he should remain in front of the camera and not behind it. The character of Larry Crowne decides to reinvent himself by going back to college after the job that he held dear crumbled to the ground because he did not have a post secondary education. Without one, he couldn't progress within the company or get a promotion.
Larry Crowne heads off to the nearest local college to test his wits and acquire the knowledge he thinks he needs to be successful. During his classes, the audience get to meet his classmates, but they are not captivating or memorable at all. Rami Malek (The Pacific, Night at the Museum) is this bug eyed class clown who gets more laughs than Hanks. Julia Roberts plays Larry’s professor and obviously the path towards the romantic comedy is explored and forever leaves the audience dissatisfied. I could not engage in Julia’s character but Bryan Cranston's (Breaking Bad) portrayal of her porn addicted husband offers a chuckle or two.
We meet other characters along Larry’s journey to educational bliss. He makes friends with the students who ride scooters on campus; they even have a little gang with a secret handshake, which was uninteresting and altered the flow of the film (negatively). The two main members of the crew really get to know Larry and help him along the way. A young, free-spirited woman named Talia helps him dress to impress and learn the lingo to catch the eye of his beautiful professor. Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Undercovers) plays this young woman with a smile on her face throughout most of the film, but I thought there was sexual tension between Larry and Talia; the relationship they have is bizarre and uncomfortable. Hanks, on the other hand, is a master of his craft when it comes to his acting skill set. He portrays Larry with an ease and confidence that was really the only positive thing about this film. Hanks and Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) wrote the film together but there is no room for success at the box office for mediocre romantic comedies that can barely makes us feel a thing! I will forever admire Tom Hanks and his career, which is one of the only reasons I semi-enjoyed this film. All in all if you like fluffy films about college and love then go see Larry Crowne, but you might have to buy some popcorn to tune out the nonsense in between Tom Hanks lines.
Two out of Five stars
-Andrea Boulet
July 6th, 2011
Read by Danny Aubry
Produced by Nikita Smith
Stories by AJ Cordeiro, Dominique Daoust, Alina Gotcherian
Suoni Per Il Popolo: Prince Rama + Leopard et Moi @ Casa del Popolo
With the Suoni Festival done and the Jazz Festival taking its place, there won’t be as much concert-going in the Plateau in the coming days. Prince Rama and Leopard et Moi braved the stage of a small but patient crowd the night of June 23rd. They waited and waited for the hordes to come through the door of the small second stage at Casa del Popolo, but it didn’t happen. So, after about an hour and a half delay, Leopard et Moi finally started their set.
Hello high energy! Leopard et Moi, an assembly of a huge amount of percussion instruments and noisy electronic beat makers, put forth their enveloping melange of art/punk/noise/prog beats to the appreciative few. Their psychedelic vocal stylings complemented both the more rhythmic and ethereal hypnagogic pop that Leopard et Moi master. I had never heard of them, but if you’re interested in some quite interesting local talent, I would recommend checking out their tracks. They’ve got three releases, the most recent being one from May of this year, "L’Amour de la Nature."
After about a half an hour set, Prince Rama took the stage. They were the band that I was looking most forward to seeing this Suoni, even above Omar Souleyman. If you have not heard of them already, I would recommend 2010’s Shadow Temple for starters. This group was raised on a Hare Krishna commune and escaped to the embracing arms of art school in Boston where they nursed their psychic selves and jammed on psychedelic themes. Their music is infused with heavy ritualistic percussion and Sanskrit chants, and transports you into a trippy headspace. Having had their music hypnotizing me via my headphones every morning for the past few months, I thought this show would be out of this world, literally. But everyone knows that feeling you get when you’ve anticipated something much too much and the actual performance is just not up to the stuff of imagination. That was the feeling I had watching Prince Rama. Still, though, I would recommend Prince Rama recordings any day. They’ve been enlisted by Animal Collective to play the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in the UK, so they’ll be big any day now.
-Danielle J hosts Runny Noise on Thursday from 10pm-12am
Bombardier lays off 1,429 UK workers
Montreal’s transportation giant Bombardier will lay off nearly 15 hundred of its employees in the UK. This is after losing the bidding war for new English trains with German rival Siemens.
The cuts will amount to nearly half of the workforce in its British manufacturing plant. This plant has been making trains since the 1840s and is one of the world’s largest rail manufacturing sites.
Trade unionists are afraid the remaining jobs in the plant will be lost after Bombardier’s last British contract finishes in 2014.
Canadian Aid Ship Seized
A Canadian ship attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza was seized Monday night by the Greek Coast Guard. The ship, the Tahrir, had at least 30 Canadian activists on board.
The Tahrir was part of a flotilla of aid intended to penetrate the Gaza sea blockade and bring help to people in Gaza. Last week Greece banned all boats in the flotilla from leaving port, fearing that an incident similar to last year when a different aid mission ended in tragedy after nine Turkish activists were killed by Israeli forces, could happen again.
15 minutes after leaving the port, the ship was boarded by two armed Coast Guard officers said an activist on the ship. He also said the officers drew their weapons as they seized control of the ship.
The Canadian government has criticized the flotilla but the activists aboard still hope they will receive support against what they say is an unlawful act by the Greek government.
The Gaza Strip sea blockade has been in place since 2007. The Israel government says it is to stop weapons reaching Hamas.
Suoni Per Il Popolo: The Strange Boys + White Fence + Purling Hiss
The last time The Strange Boys came to Montreal, they played a packed Casa del Popolo and thoroughly rocked the densely packed room with their particularly shambolic blend of backwards-looking garage / blues / retro psych-rock. I know that not because I was there, but because that was the main topic of discussion in the moments leading up to the Suoni Per Il Popolo four-fer taking place on a cool Wednesday night at the slightly remote Il Motore. Hype kills, though, so it seemed best not to absorb too much of the sentiment.
First up was Purling Hiss, a three-piece with a thick guitar sound and songwriting reminiscent of middle-era Pearl Jam, with a bit of a psych tinge to frontman Mike Polizze's raging solos. Unfortunately, without the odder numbers and distant production work of their LP Public Service Announcement, their set turned out more than a little monotonous, save for a few standout hooks (particularly on the anthemic "Run From the City"). That would've been fine for a 15-to-20 minute set - the sort you might expect from the first band on a quadruple bill - but Purling Hiss wound up pounding away for about 45. More than once, Polizze called back to the sound guys to find out how much longer they had, only to be told they could do a couple more. A few minutes later, it was announced that second-stringers Sic Alps had cancelled, thus explaining the extended set.
White Fence, touring behind their Is Growing Faith LP, were considerably less leaden, a more natural fit with the headliners (with whom they share a member), and considerably tighter and more boisterous than their recorded material might suggest. They quickly amassed a unique following, immediately in front of the stage where a mosh pit might have manifested under different circumstances: between eight and a dozen girls - and only girls - formed a loose-knit impromptu dance crew, some of them adopting mock-retro moves to go along with the band's appealingly jangly sound.
The headliners finally took the stage around 11:30 or so, launching into a (sadly, saxophone-free) set of tunes more or less evenly divided between their last two LPs, 2009's And Girls Club and 2010's mellower Be Brave. They didn't dare approach any of the outright ballads that make up a goodly chunk of the latter's tracklist (though an airing of "Between Us" might have been nice), generally sticking instead to two modes: mid-paced blues, and nimbler garage rock, with both making great use of the two-guitar setup. The highlights - "Be Brave," "Poem Party," and especially "This Girl Taught Me a Dance" - boasted the biggest hooks and the most infectious rhythms, easily working up the more active element of the crowd into a completely appropriate frenzy. After all the hyperbole, it must be said that the Austinites lived up to the hype, even if at least one hipster was heard to have said: "I mean, it was good..."
-Denis A hosts Dirty Work on Thursdays from 8-10pm
NOFX @ Metropolis
For a group that’s been in the business for years, NOFX show no sign of slowing down. It’s been almost 30 years after “Fat Mike” Burkett, Eric Melvin and Erik Sandin got together as NOFX in Los Angeles! The group is still touring and putting out albums (their last album, Coaster, was released in 2009). June 21st marked the second of two consecutively packed shows that the veteran punk group gave at the Metropolis - two nights of good old So-Cal punk rock.
NOFX have been one of those groups I’ve enjoyed since high school but haven’t been able to admit to liking (long story!. I’ve had the opportunity to see some of those other bands before, but now it was their turn. I got to the Metropolis midway through the second of the two opening bands’ set. They were pretty good, I must add, and I regret not having arrived earlier. One thing was for sure, the crowd was anxious and hyper; I guess alcohol will do that to you. Luckily, it only took the sound crew a few minutes to set the stage and do the regular pre-show check-ups. A funny note: while the preparations on stage were underway, they were playing hip-hop songs, which upset a few people around me quite a bit! They even played, “Welcome to Jamrock’’ by Damian Marley as the intro song for the group! It did quiet the crowd who was chanting the group’s name loudly, but not for long. Once the initial surprise passed they restarted.
When they got onstage as a huge cheer from the crowd greeted them. From the onset, you could see the guys were in a good mood and were not afraid to deliver low-blow jokes at each other. That attitude remained for the rest of the show; no one would get spared - not even the crowd. They also announced that they were not going to play the same songs that they played the previous night, which made the crowd unhappy. But they didn’t stick to that. They played 23 songs total and Fat Mike even mentioned that, since they had been partying in the city since Sunday, he might not remember all the lyrics to their songs. Hilarious! Music-wise, they delivered 90 minutes of punk rock that turned the floor of the Metropolis into a stormy sea of people pushing and shoving and getting thrown in the air. They did manage to play a balanced set of songs from all of their albums. I would have liked to hear my favourite song but it didn’t happen. Numerous bits highlighted the performance: comedic parts and girls throwing bras on stage, for example. Eric Melvin and Fat Mike actually wore one for most of the show; the latter got his after requesting a black bra, which was thrown to him a few seconds later.
I must say, the guys did not disappoint. Even if it was the second night, they gave the fans their money's worth and more. We even got the chance to see the guys perform a sketch at the end of the encore. A jaw dropping can-can style sketch in which no religion, ethnic background, sexual orientation or opinion were not made fun of, all with a theme of ‘’everyone is racist’’. One of the most amusing and hilarious shows I’ve seen in a while. The little teen inside was very happy.
-Alex Menjivar hosts The Letter B on Saturdays from Midnight-1am
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