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.

B.A. Johnston musters about unexpected transmission repairs, blood-encrusted Greyhound riding criminals and infuriating chirping squirrels.

Look no further than our own campus for the cure. Giving social change a new voice in Kingston this weekend is the Dub Poets Collective, a Toronto-based poets’ initiative, whose festival Reloading
the Can[n]on will be the main feature of various campus hotspots this weekend.

New CBC series, Triple Sensation, gives young and talented performers the chance to win a $150,000 scholarship to a performing arts school of their choice.

What compels an artist to create? A brilliant idea? Belief that the public can relate to their experience? Perhaps it’s an ungodly yearning to record an ill-timed Celine Dion tune. Whatever the muse for Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, let’s hope that it’s securely contained somewhere.

What happens when you celebrate the centenary of playwright Henrik Ibsen’s death? Scholars publish
commemorative volumes, a few Norwegians get drunk and Theatre Kingston puts on Ibsen’s The
Master Builder.

It’s 1984. A documentary filmmaker is interviewing Nigel Tufnel, the guitarist from a popular
British heavy metal band. He notices something odd about the dials on the band’s guitar amps
and requests an explanation from Nigel, who smiles and responds “Oh, these ones go to 11 … it’s one
louder, innit?” And with that simple exchange, a comedy legend was born.

The folk songstress and Queen’s graduate is in downtown Halifax, picking up a friend from the airport. If she sounds distracted, she warns, it’s because she is.

Sometimes still life provides the best depiction of movement and often the range of human expression is best shown by an inanimate painting or photo. This irony comes to the fore at the Union Gallery in Kate Shocrylas and Melanie Laurenco’s exhibit The Spaces Between.

The Queen’s drama department has produced an uncommon success. With their latest fall major, the drama department has chosen to delve into the extensive text of Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan. Brecht began writing the play in the 1920s, but didn’t complete the final script until 1941. Loaded with premonition, philosophical inquiry, and occasional verbosity, Brecht’s script demands an epic setting— a requirement that is blatantly ignored in this production.

Since his descent on Toronto in 2002, Jon Rae Fletcher and his band, The River, have converted heaps of wayward souls to their infectious, raucous brand of rock ’n roll. In the process, they have established themselves as one of the premier live ensembles in the country.

In the performances of Barbara Adler and Brendan McLeod, poetry meets music in a dark alley and laughs. The poets and performers brought their comic, yet moving styles to the dimly lit Sleepless Goat
on Monday night as part of their tour through Canada, the U.S. and the UK.
It’s a route they’ve followed many times before as poets and members of their folk-rock spoken word band, The Fugitives. Balancing compelling performance with crafted content, Adler and McLeod have each made their mark in the Canadian and international spoken word scenes one gig, one poetry slam and one festival at a time.