Refreshing for its intelligence and modesty; exhausting because it’s thrilling, but difficult to follow his line of thought through his complicated answers to my questions; and perplexing because such a high level of self-examination and intelligence still didn’t prevent him from telling a NOW Magazine critic who didn’t like his latest album to “Eat a dick!”

When the characters finally do, the playwrights prove to be attentive students of human nature.The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine isn’t for everybody—some will find its fever-pitched physical comedy profoundly irritating, and once its frothy first half is over, you won’t exactly leave the theatre feeling secure about your immediate social circle. But as an exploration of the claustrophobia in any close relationship, whether between lovers, friends or roommates, The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine is far more pointed than its goofy flailing might suggest.

If you are or have ever been into punk, chances are pretty good you’ve come across Canadian punk legends Propagandhi.

Leatherface and his cannibalistic family, itself a glitzy remake of the original 1974 horror classic. Sicker, filthier and chock full of nasty, this film attempts to gross out its audience at every turn. Depending on how delicate your stomach is, it might succeed.

Canadian films have a tendency to be boxed into unpleasant categories.
Labeled as boring, low-budget or even depressing, the canon of Canadian cinema is just plain misunderstood.
Clarke Mackey, head of the film studies department at Queen’s, begs to differ with this misunderstanding.

If, when asked to recall the last time you remember rocking out to a xylophone, memories of the earliest days of your childhood come to mind: you are really missing out on a cool hobby, and you obviously weren’t at the show.

Looking at the paintings displayed in the Union Gallery’s current exhibit, “Sense of Place,” one is immediately struck by the aptness of the show’s name.
The paintings irresistibly draw the viewer into the immediacy and authenticity of the places the images evoke: it’s hard not to imagine oneself there, as the situations are both potent and accessible–whether it’s a long car ride, a quiet moment in a campus café or an impending storm, we’ve all been there

If things work out for Milosz Sikora of Knock Knock Ginger, more people might really, really get his band after their Kingston date, the release of their second EP, and their first gig outside of Ontario at the Halifax Pop Explosion festival.

Under the direction of Alex Dault, and with production from Liam Karry, Single Thread transfers Shakespeare’s Henry V into a familiar contemporary setting—1970s Quebec. Swords to guns, men to women, castles to skyscrapers, the 16th century to the 20th: there are endless attempts to convey Shakespeare in a more relevant light.

Brantford is to Nich Worby what barley is to beer.
The southwestern Ontario city seeps into the Queen’s singer-songwriter’s work in one way or another whether he likes it or not, and his recent album, Oh, How? is no different.
More than over a year in the making, Worby released Oh, How? in September. The eighttrack disc put out by the Ford Plant, a Brantford venue/gallery/label that has a special place in Worby’s heart.

“I knew that I couldn’t write about how red the robin’s breast was— and I’m not dissing poetry like
that, but for me, it was like, ‘I guess I’m not a writer because I can’t write about how beautiful the ice is when it freezes, but I can write about Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston breaking up.’”
And while countless robins may be feeling a little less red-breasted as a result, Krystle Mullin has done
well at doing her thing. The Queen’s graduate returns to The Grad Club on Friday night with the Toronto Poetry Slam Team, on their way to competing at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

There was a time when Canadian television was dominated by nature documentaries, educational films and light comic fare like the Royal Canadian Air Farce. Not anymore.

Before Magneta Lane’s show at Clark Hall Pub on Wednesday, singer and guitarist Lexi Valentine told me that she thinks playing in university towns is important because “they support bands like us.” Although dismally underattended thanks to the Queen’s Entertainment Agency’s brief poster promotion and, perhaps also for being scheduled mid-week, it was still a fun and engaging show.

It’s immediately evident that the Agnes Etherington Art Gallery’s exhibit of painter Daniel Fowler’s work is more than just an art show: It’s a lesson in history, and an interpretation of what it means to
be Canadian.
Fowler, a 19th-century impressionist painter, came to Canada from the UK in 1843.
His paintings depict pastoral scenes from Amherst Island, where he lived.

If there is any chronically slept-on local band, it has to be Slaves of Spanky, even if your only criteria
is seniority. Dropping rhymes since 1996 up in Tamworth, the Limestone City’s burger-chomping, velcro-shod, leg-lifting, trailer trash rap champions went to highschool with Ryan Malcolm and lived to tell the tale.

Mister Man is the-little-engine-that-could of art exhibitions. Though small—Mister Man includes only five pieces of art—the little engine was powerful, and so is the art in this exhibit. Curated by Michelle Veitch, an art history PhD candidate, the exhibition features contemporary Canadian sculptural representations of male identity from Agnes Etherington Art Centre’s permanent collection.

Richard Linklater’s latest release, A Scanner Darkly, is a slow, cruel and unusual punishment for its audience. Though its nuanced monologues and cryptic, surreal imagery try to suggest that it has something profound to communicate, it doesn’t—instead, the whole movie plays like a ruse, trying to trick the audience into believing they’ve deciphered some hidden meaning, and in the process, only highlighted the heavy-handed delivery of its message.