Arts students mourn the loss of their beloved dean No, he’s not dead, just out of office permanently By Jay Schreiber, Arts Editor n March 1, the students of Douglas College returned to school from a long 17- day break during the 2010 Olympic Games. To some, Monday morning was back to work as usual, but members of the arts department came back to learn that their dean, Dr. David G. Duke had cleaned out his office and returned to VCC (his previous stomping grounds) to teach music theory and history. “T don’t think the Dean should have left the school mid-semester,” said Kaylar Chan, a first-year music student. “He should have waited until the end of the school year so that it isn’t inconvenient for everyone else.” Having only held the position of Dean for two and a half years, it seems odd that Dr. Duke would up and leave suddenly. Several students have expressed the feeling of having their captain jump ship, whereas others make this out to be like coming home to find out your wife has moved out. Currently, Kathy Denton (dean of humanities and social sciences) is acting in Duke’s place while the LLPA department goes on a dean hunt to fill the position for good hopefully by next September. David Duke, or as many students refer to him “The Duke,” has been an educator for over 35 years. He has taught at the University of British Columbia, Red Deer College in Alberta and in 1984 became academic coordinator of Vancouver Community College’s music program. David Duke has also made a successful career in the field of music as a composer, violinist and music critic for The Vancouver Sun. Coming to Douglas College three years ago, Duke faced good and bad times as dean during some of the programs worst budget cuts. The programs, however, survived and many of the cuts were replaced or reinstated by the next semester. Much of the LLPA wing is feeling uneasy about not having a figurehead, but everything will continue as usual. I guess that it’s going to be tough for the arts students to cope—how do you fight “the man” when there’s nobody even sitting in the office? Silver screens are ruled by screams Horror film production is on the rise in 2010 _ Angela Espinoza © n Friday, February 26, The Oe: a remake of the George A. Romero classic from 1973, hit theatres everywhere. The public’s first look at the film came from trailers that appeared to be recycled from basic horror flicks. However, the beauty of such a misleading trailer is that the film is golden in terms of a modern day horror movie— possibly because Romero was involved with the project, who’s to say? We’ ve only just entered March and already about 20 horror films have been released worldwide. Some of this year’s more prominent movies include Daybreakers, Legion, and The Wolfman. While Legion was cinematic blasphemy and The Wolfman had us howling with laughter, Daybreakers was a surprise critical success. How anyone in this day and age with the tripe that is Twilight, Underworld, and so on, has come up with a decent vampire movie is-beyond me. Not to say that Daybreakers didn’t have its faults, such as the elngated scenes of tragic _“ violence, which were more over-the- top than ithe dramatic effect|it was clearly going for. Even still, it’s one of the best vanipire-oriented hortor films I’ vesseen in years. weseenjn ye I’m rather impressed with the amount of horror movies that may potentially be released this year, even if about half of them are remakes and sequels. Remakes range from Poltergeist to Mother’s Day, and Piranha 3-D, although I have to say I’m most excited about A Nightmare on Elm Street. Of course I’m going to miss Robert Englund, who portrayed Freddy Krueger for all eight of the original films, but there are still high hopes for Jackie Earle Haley: the man who single-handedly made every Watchmenan mess their pants for his portrayal of Walter Kovacs, a.k.a, Rorschach. Even though remakes tend to i be hit and miss, it’s the sequels we should be worried about. Included on thatdist for this year are Predators, The Crazies Resident Evil: Afterlife, Scream 4, and 30 Days of Night: Dark Days—back to the crappy vampire movies, I see. As with the remakes, there’s one sequel I’m looking forward to this year: Saw VII. Even if the films do get potentially worse as the series goes on, some of us have become attached to the evolving storyline, and even more of us really love those insane deathtraps. Amidst the remakes and the sequels, it’s the more-or-less “original” works we’ve come to put our faith in. One of these films is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead, a play-within-a-film about a comedic interpretation of Hamlet that goes horrifically wrong. Another interesting horror film coming out is the “vampire-western” Priest; not to be easily swooned, but the genre sounds enticing. Then there’s Dahmer Vs. Gacy... yes, it’s just how it sounds. The plot revolves around real- life serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy holding a contest to see who the better serial killer is. I’ma horror junkie with an addiction to gore, but this just sounds horrible, especially since it’s also a comedy. Right now it’s in the direct-to-video circuit, but that could always change. So aside from that last nightmarish piece of garbage, this year’s horror films may actually have some potential; that is if they don’t have monkeys running the filming process. That has become customary with modern-day horror movies.