Richard Laviolette moved to Guelph from Tara, a small town in Bruce County, with the intention of becoming a teacher. He studied history at the University of Guelph before dropping out to dedicate all his time to music. Laviolette claims that dropping out of school was a “natural transition” for him.

Fucked Up are like that neighbourhood kid everyone always knew was talented but never thought would make it. Hailing from Toronto, Fucked Up announced their arrival in 2001 with a series of intense live shows. After a few lineup changes, Fucked Up quickly recorded a demo tape and then dropped the No Pasaran seven-inch in 2002. A steady barrage of singles followed, including Police in 2003 and Looking for Gold, one of the most sought after modern punk releases, in 2004. It was clear that Fucked Up had the goods, but would they ever get it together and put out a full length?

Apostle of Hustle begin their takeover of The Grad Club tomorrow night and continue with gigs on the following two Saturdays. The band will play two sets each night, and they’re doing the same thing each Friday night at The Rivoli in Toronto.

With the Golden Globes airing last week and the Oscar nominations announced today, we’ve entered that strange time of year known as award season, when celebrities are given trophies they don’t deserve and mediocrity seems to triumph over greatness. Yet it’s impossible to extinguish the faint hope that this will be the year for a deserving movie to be recognized. With that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to throw in my two cents on the cinema of 2006 in that classic critical format: the top 10 list.

This Friday night, if you’re caught up in the tedium of ticket purchasing at the Capitol 7 Theatre, take a moment to observe the environment around you. If you can see past the dozens of preteen girls lined up to see Justin Timberlake’s abs in Alpha Dog and the weary Bond aficionados on their twelfth dose of Casino Royale, you’ll notice a slightly different crowd.

Perspective is the buzzword at SHIFT, the current exhibit at the Union Gallery featuring BFA ’07
students Nathalie Lawrence, Jessica McCann and Talie Shalmon. McCann’s work focuses on public space—she is particularly interested in “re-examination of urban space, where I grew up in Toronto.” Her paintings “Alley Rain” and “Scribbles and a Chevy” depict subdued and grey city scenes, complete with graffiti on building walls.

A hopeful spectator might enter Into the Woods looking for something similar to Wicked, the musical based on Gregory Maguire’s cynical satire of The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West.

Over one weekend, students from all faculties and programs create a five-minute film, from brainstorming script ideas to editing their footage together.

Reviewing a documentary focussed on the country girl-group the Dixie Chicks, I proved to be no exception to the rule. Not a particularly rabid fan of the mainstream country music scene, nor of seemingly self-important, navel-gazing documentaries, my skepticism was great. However, as it turned out, that skepticism was completely unwarranted. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing is an absorbing and intelligent social commentary that uses the Dixie Chicks as a case study in documenting the state of American society.

Then + Then Again is a difficult exhibit to take in upon entering the exhibition space at the Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre.
The collection is an archive of Kingston-based artist and Queen’s University art professor Clive Robertson’s work since the mid-60’s, making it, perhaps, more suited for a museum space than
a gallery.

Chaotic in its energy, vivid in its colours, and overwhelming in its visual breadth, Jeremy Mulder’s
Wants and Needs is an optical feast—a visceral and reactive exhibit with a kaleidoscopic perception.

There must be something in the water in Mexico these days, aside from whatever it is that gives tourists dysentery. Three of the past year’s most interesting films were directed by Mexican artists: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s devastating ensemble drama Babel, Guillermo del Toro’s frightening adult fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth and Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men.

In all chance meetings, the relationships that follow are equally subject to odd twists of fate. In the case of Derek Zwiep, Dave Richardson and Steve McCann, it was a hazy, winding chain of events that culminated in the creation of Queen’s very own quasi-joke band, The Cowboys.

The Toronto-based musician recently released an album of his past work under the pseudonym Polmo Polpo, reinterpreted in a different style as Sandro Perri. Sandro Perri plays Polmo Polpo was released on Constellation Records last September, and showcases his past electronic meanderings in a new, acoustic light.

The gritty, black and white opening of Casino Royale, the first James Bond movie in four years and the debut of Daniel Craig as Bond, makes it clear that this is not the 007 to which we are accustomed.

With their upcoming January production, Queen’s Musical Theatre has chosen to delve into that mystical world of fairy tales with Into the Woods. Featuring characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Cinderella, it’s as if the musical just walked out of your childhood nostalgia—while doing some growing up along the way.

Sometimes two plus two equals three–or rather, nine plus four plus one plus one equals 11. It doesn’t make logical sense, but in this world, sometimes the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts.

After a smashing noise followed by a spray of bullets, flashing lights and a woman mowing down innocents while screaming “I love you so much,” it seemed reasonable to expect the walls to melt. Surreal and hilarious, the Plastic People Theatre Company’s Domestic is a cogent, utterly unique piece of dark comedy.

“My hobby outside of music is to read about the world and try to understand the world, try to figure
out what’s going on,” says Luke Doucet.