Marriage has become, on many levels, a point of discussion as an institution, topic of debate, ideology and event in life. It sparks many questions and definitions of both the personal and political variety.

Since her first solo appearance at a Weird Al tribute night where she disarmed the crowd with a tender reworking of “Smells Like Nirvana,” Laura Barrett has been busy charming the Toronto music scene with eccentric originals. Barrett has struck the right dissonant chord. Her independent EP “Earth Sciences” sold out and in 2006 she received a nod from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada when her song “Deception Island Optimists” was nominated for the ECHO, an award for emerging Canadians artists, alongside artists of such Canadian indie rock calibre as Final Fantasy and Wolf Parade.

Like the pies the central figure bakes in the film, Waitress is sweet—but by the end, the saccharine storyline leaves viewers with a sugar crash.
The film’s central character, Jenna, played by Keri Russell, is a young woman working as a waitress and pie-baker with her two best friends in a diner where her mom worked. She has inherited her mother’s gift for concocting unusual pies.

‘Artist in Profile’ is a new series featuring artists in different media from the University and the community. If you’re interested in having your work featured, email journal_ae@ams.queensu.ca.

Have you ever been invited to a party just to get there and find out that the real reason you were asked was so you would bring your cooler best friend? No? Well, me neither. However, it does happen to people less fortunate looking …

It’s not often that talk around the neighbourhood turns into action in the shape of a sweet summer festival. But for Greg Tilson, the dream became a reality in the form of the Skeleton Park Music Festival—with a little help from his friends.

Walk into the Union Gallery right now and you will stumble into a cache of possessions that feel like they could belong to either a stranger or yourself. The quotidian becomes art in the exhibit Objects of Significance.

So this is it—the last time I’ll ever be able to vent my opinions about movies in the Journal. In celebration of this momentous occasion, I’ve compiled a list of what I consider the five best films that have been released during my time at Queen’s. If you’re in fourth year, then hopefully this will be an interesting compilation of cinematic wonders released in the last few years—and if you’re in any other year, then just deal with it.

Of all the concert bills to make you re-think your spending tendencies and grudgingly decide to stay at home, wallowing in self-pity while watching a late-night broadcast of Tomb Raider, a campus battle of the bands wins with ease. Stereotypes run amuck when contemplating the sabotage of a perfectly fine weekday night: bad music, musicians in an identity crisis, entourages screaming idiotically and more bad music.

Volume 19 of the Undergraduate Review manages to avoid literary fragmentation and the lack of focus by incorporating poems that complement each other, but still offer a variety of different perspectives.

Changes to Kingston’s musical climate in the last few years seem to have had an impact on the campus music scene, although fluctuations in the campus band circuit are subject to different factors. As many venues off campus close, pare down their concert schedule or shift genres, the campus band scene has become a victim of attrition.

The Queen’s Feminist Review effectively interprets the essentially feminine experience of searching to put all aspects of self into one coherent persona.

Lock your doors, board up your windows and head for the cellar, because The Creepshow are rolling into Kingston with their frenetic, horror-filled, zombie-fuelled brand of psychobilly.

A Dream Play is technically stunning, with a dynamic cast in the wake of grounded emotional content, says The Journal’s Brandon Thao.

In 1962, the glorious and quintessentially classic story about the Battle of Thermopylae was told in the Ben-Hur-styled epic The 300 Spartans. Forty-five years later, that same story of antiquity has been given a not-so-subtle shot of steroids in Zach Snyder’s 300. Rather than being shot on location halfway around the globe, 300 was simply shot in a single green room in Montreal, following the lead of Robert Rodriguez’ Sin City.

For their winter production, Queen’s Musical Theatre chose to delve into the Berlin stories of Fred Ebb and John Kander’s infamous Cabaret. From smoky parlours to lively dance numbers, Cabaret has it all—and QMT is ready to indulge. “I think Cabaret has a lot of relevance—the original was in 1966—and 40 years later it still holds meaning in society,” said Kat Sandler, ArtSci ’08, and director of Cabaret.

Emerging from her post-rock days improvising with Beans and her time spent merging new wave and country in The Buttless Chaps, Vancouverite Ida Nilsen founded another project to play the music she was writing. Settling into a subtle, modern folk vibe, Nilsen’s current band, Great Aunt Ida, takes its place not in a rocking chair, but on stage. What Nilsen has to share on Great Aunt Ida’s latest album, How They Fly, is a set of convincing, earnest stories expressed through simple, strange lyrics and understated arrangements of bass, guitar, piano, drums and trumpet.

Only a couple of years ago, music fans in Kingston had to expertly budget both their time and money in order to balance their concert calendars.
But lately it seems easier on the wallet and the datebook to get to just about every show in town.
Even The Grad Club, a local live music staple, is scaling back the number of shows it books in a year.

Another year, another successful Kingston Canadian Film Festival. Here are reviews of some of the highlights from this year’s festival.

With the year’s third and final instalment of the Vogt Studio Series, the student-run program has
abandoned any pretense of clarity for the perplexingly bizarre. With three pieces ranging from a Samuel Beckett reproduction to a studentconceived sound spectacle, Vogt C is worth the trip for the sheer novelty of the experience.