ARTSS&ENTERTAINMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iain WoRicce, Kid at Heart

 

 

= —

 

Papier bie. Auice tones:

"started. Yes, my friends, when it comes to :

jotting down my personal rants, heart-

breaks, poetry, or any other Semasculltat
ing gibberish, I prefer to put it somewhere
where it will last forever: the Internet. _
Enter Livejournal (LJ), the favoured online
diary of a whiney emo kids and vain com-
pliment seekers from all over the world!

_ The concept is simple: Livejournal
allows you to post entries, attach pictures,
leave web links, and so much more. While
it may just sound like a lame attempt to
repackage blogs into a more personalized
package, Livejournal actually predates the

_ blog rage. The main difference? Livejournal
makes it incredibly easy to make yout little
section of the Internet look presentable
with idiot-proof aesthetic themes, easy
photo adding, and an FAQ for the HTML
challenged.

Besides housing untold numbers of
users from all over the world, L] has many
added features to sweeten the deal. First,
there are communities where any member
can post to converse about anything from
Canadian politics to BDSM, romantic films
to famous criminals. The categories cer-
tainly do range from the predictable to the
esoteric and weird. Secondly, with relatively
decent search tools, LJ allows you to track
down people with similar interests as you
and say hello. Lastly, what makes L] far
superior to what I call “analog journals,” is
the fact that other people can read it. Thus
allowing you to coyly say in your entries
that you don’t want people to read these
things, knowing that they will; or to post
pictures of yourself complaining about
how ugly you are to desperately seek com-
pliments. You shallow jerk..

LJ is easy, fun, and full of cool people.
Those people are hard to find in a sea of
perverts, art snobs, and attention whores,
but in the end it is worth it. Besides, I use
it so it must be decent. Bet you can’t find
me! Please try and find me...I’m lonely.

 

 

Bigmouth Strikes Again:
Dala needs a maid

Kevin Lalonde, OP Columnist

 

I like cute girls. I especially like cute girls who sing, I hate cute
girls who sing badly, however, because then I feel guilty for still
hitting on them. Thus, it goes to follow that cute girls who sing
well are the pinnacles of awesomeness.

I’m not saying that Dala, a lovely duo from out East, are the
bee’s knees by any means. Yes, I just said bee’s knees. I am saying
that Sheila and Amanda of Dala have pretty voices though. Very
pretty. Plus, as far as I can tell from the liner notes of their recent
release, entitled Angels ¢> Thieves, they’re awfully pretty.

You would think that this immediately makes them totally rad
bananas. Well, yes and no. Listening to the opening track of the
album, which is called “20 Something” (which may or may not be
the number of hair dye colours the two girls attempted through-
out the course of the album’s recording,) I immediately think of
the less memorable girl-fronted mid 90s pop that characterized
mainstream radio when I was in my teens.

By track two, “Drive Through Summer,” I’m confronted with

memories of Sarah Harmer and Sarah McLachlan, minus the
instrumental variety of Hatmer and...well no, Sarah McLachlan
is just about right on.

And so the album goes, largely unmemorable, however filled
with talented vocal harmonies and skilful guitar progressions.
When I say skilful, I mean they’re not bad. That’s just about it.

I have to pause and explain. While I love pop music, I have a
hard time analyzing this kind of stuff. To me, quite often, it
seems boring, uneventful, and not really all that enjoyable. This
kind of girly-easy-listening-type pop (adult contemporary, or so
I’m told—Norah Jones and the like—while relatively pleasant, is
easily ignorable. I can hear it at Starbucks for ten minutes and not
have a grating desire to leave the building like when I hear Lisa
Loeb (remember Lisa Loeb? Didn’t think so,) or to tear some-
one’s head off and pour my piping hot double caramel latte down
their neck like when I hear Nickelback. I just needed to make that
distinction. Thank you.

Now, then, on to the good stuff. Recently Dala performed at
the Bluebird North Singer Songwriter festival here in Vancouver
with Joel Plaskett and some other coolies. Go check out Chart
Attack if you want to hear more about it. I wasn’t at the show
mind you, but I hear that they didn’t play any covers. Which is a
bummer, because the best tracks, or the ones I enjoy the most
anyway, are covers. Not particularly awesome covers mind you,
but they’re fun.

For example, “A Man Needs a Maid” by Neil Young. Lilting,
wilting, almost even desolate. Very bare. While not an amazing
track, to be perfectly honest, it’s really quite pleasant. As with
“Love Song” by the Cure. Slow and thoughtful piano accompa-
nies a competent, depressing (as it should be) vocal rendition of a
classic white-makeup-and-black-leather ballad. It’s just too bad
311 got to it first.

You know, in retrospect, P’ve learned something, It’s a failing
that I have to overcome if I’m to be a real music writer. Frankly, I
just can’t be mean to cute girls. That’s not to say Angels & Thieves
would be any less pleasantly ignorable if the band was obese or
something of that nature, because that’s just not fair. This is a
solid album if you love Liz Phair. If you don’t like Liz Phair, well,
tough. Honestly, don’t complain, because it really isn’t bad.

 

Smith & Reeve at the Movies:

The Pink Panther

Steph Smith and Iain W. Reeve, The Real Killers

Steve Martin stars in a from-scratch remake of the original classic that

Spawned the classic comedy franchise. Martin plays Inspector Clousean, a
bumbling detective put on the trail of a murderer and thief of the great

Pink Panther diamond!

Reeve: 5.

While many will criticize the thumbs up, thumbs down system of
film review as being an outdated, detail lacking relic of the 80s, I
stand by it. It does, however, make it difficult to orient a film that
I felt was neither amazing nor dismal. The Pink Panther is a clean,
light-hearted comedy that manages to go into some somewhat
uncommon comedic territory. It remains, however, quite pre-
dictable overall.

Peter Sellers is a high-echelon comedic God. Steve Martin is a
low-level comedic demi-God, not bad. I have enjoyed Steve
Martin in the past, butik had no hope of holding up to the
precedent set by the Tate great Sellers. He is funny, the accent is
grinding at times and not really all that French, but in the end, he
is funny, charming, and well committed to the part. The side cast

is decent, including Kevin Kline in a respectable turn as the Chief
Inspector, and, the man of a million films, Jean Reno as
Clouseau’s partner. Beyonce is typically unbearable as a *gasp*
pop star, and has her contractually obligated singing sequence in
one of the film’s more ham-fisted scenes.

The comedy fills a hole that has been missing for some time,
the sort of “clean slapstick” of the golden age of Mel Brooks
and Naked Gun. Nowadays, to get truly funny absurdist slapstick -
you also have to be subjected to all the poo-poo, ka-ka, pee-pee
jokes you can handle, a-la American Pie, 40 Year Old Virgin, ot any-
thing with Rob Schneider. Not that those films are inherently bad,
but they get a little old. This one manages to have some quirky
jokes mixed in with some more predictable ones and thus, while
not measuring up-to the classic film, is a decent way to spend an
evening if you want a laugh. Narrow thumbs up.

Smith:
I'll begin this by saying that I was never a fan of The Pink Panther.
The films bored me rather spectacularly, and the cartoon made

Continued on Pg 13