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ARTS & CULTURE |

OVER THE EDGE NEWSPAPER. NOVEMBER 22, 2006

Live Theater at UNBC!
The UNBC Drama Club kicks off
with “Love? Love! Love?”

GARETH HOPKINS
CONTRIBUTER th

On Friday, November 24” at 7:30pm,
the lights in Lecture Theatre 7-212 will
dim and all eyes will be on the stage for
an exciting evening of live theatre!

The new UNBC Drama Club has
been working hard since the beginning
of October to prepare their first per-
formance of the year, entitled “Love?
Love! Love?” , which will consist of one-
act plays, monologues, and scenes from
movies that all follow the romantic rela-
tionships a person experiences through-
out their life, from birth to death.

Classic romantic scenes from plays
such as“Romeo and Juliet” will be played
alongside hilarious scenes from moy-
ies such as ‘Anchorman’, and “Legally
Blonde* i

A number of one-act plays, both old
and new, funny and dramatic, will also
be presented in this fun evening of ro-
mance, hilarity, and heart-aches.

Admission is by donation, so comeout
this Friday, November 24” at 7:30pm
in Room 7-212 for a great evening at the
theatre!

From Muppets to Music

\NDREW KURJATA

‘DITOR-IN-CHIEF

Most musicians don’t have “apprenticed
na Muppet music recording studio’ in
heir press kit, but then most musicians
arent David Hein. Hein was perform-
ang at the Kizmet Kafe on November 6
is part of his“North of Nowhere” tour
chat sees him taking a car from spon-
sors Rent-A-Wreck to locales across
North America, including Thunderbay,
Toronto, Kansas City, and New York,
the city in which he cut his songwrit-
ng chops writing and recording for Jim
Henson studios, Disney, and Sesame
Street. He also has a number of indus-
try accolades- he has won the Inter-
aational House Songwriting Contest
and received an honourable mention in
the Billboard World Song Contest. He
outs all this experience to good use in
his live show and on his debut album,

Y BRIAN HASTIE
HE LINK (CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY)

MONTREAL (CUP) -- Canadian
iterature is dying a very quick death, or
o asserts Robert Lecker, author of “Dr.
Delicious: Memoirs of a Life in CanLit’.

In this autobiography, Lecker de-
cribes his journey through the barren
ields of CanLit, making many discover-
es that lead him into accepting (or, more
ccurately, falling into) the role of book
oublisher in the late 1970s.

The bulk of the book follows his many
yps and downs, both in the profession-
I field and in his personal life, as he
stuggles to keep his head above water.
tudent, writer, book publisher, editor,
cacher, father, husband: all of these roles
werge together to give a more complete
ortrait of this native Montrealer,

Lecker walks a delicate line. The book

half autobiographical and half criti-
ism of CanLit criticism. At times he

engaging on multiple levels, articulat-

ig the many problems he's had in his

ersonal and professional lives, wearing
2veral hats at once and circumventing
vear-disaster in a few instances.

“North of Nowhere.’ -

He was alone at the Kizmet, explain-
ing that his bass player, drummer, and
replacement drummer have all had
babies in the last year. It is clear that his
songs are designed for an electrified rock
and roll band, but his songwriting is
such that it easily translates to an acous-
tic-and-vocal set-- think the Barenaked
Ladies meet the Trews. His talent shone
through most during his performance of
“Bigger, a song that he describes as being
about “me vs. New York city.’ New York
is a recurrent theme in his work, as are
first loves, lost loves, and the rock-and-
roll lifestyle. In this it is evident that he
is a student of classic pop, and this was
also clear in his covers: a country version
of Green Day's “Basket Case,’ a snippet
of Katrina and the Wave's “Walking on
Sunshine,’ and an excellent rendition
of Christina Aguleira's “Figher.’ Mix-
ing these up with his own music and
friendly audience banter makes Hein

one to watch.

~ Critiquing CanLit

The weakest aspect of the book,
though, is Lecker's tendency to lapse
into pages and pages of pure criticism
that would turn off.any number of read-
ers. His verbose manner is welcomed in
most cases, but there are occasional por-
tions that need to be re-read multiple
times to be understood fully. For a man
who quotes Shakespeare's “brevity is the
soul of wit,’ he sure likes to contradict
that dictum.

On the other hand, though, the mo-
ments where Lecker gets his act together
and manages to combine his insightful
thinking as well as his distinctive voice
are sublime, He forces the reader to pose
many of the same questions he himself
had to answer during his journey, deal-

ing with how we perceive the works that |

people have to read in a post-secondary
environment. Who are we, as Canad-
ians? Do we have a definitive identity, as
a nation? Do we even understand what
having an identity is?

The author makes many good points,
asks countless interesting questions and
the many anecdotes he shares with the
reader make this book a multi-faceted
experience that’s well worth diving into.

CAMERON ORR AND KRISTY DA COSTA
NEWS EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER

What the Girlfriend Says

Finally, we are reviewing a girl movie!
This movie is another teen comedy, but
itis one of the better ones,  *

)

Brittney Snow stars as Kate - a shy,
young and naive girl who joins a new
high school. She is quickly introduced
to John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) who is
the athletic, hot, cocky kind of guy. John
is known for his bad reputation with
women since he lies to and cheats on all
of them.

Kate, along with three of John's ex girl-
friends, decides to teach John a lesson.
They don’t actually kill him, although
that would have made this movie even
funnier. Instead, they plan a bunch of
schemes to destroy him. Unfortunately,
Kate falls head over heals for John in the
process.

If you are looking for a comedy that
wont make you think, this one is defin-
itely a winner. It has quite a few funny
moments and does a great job of crush-
ing men who believe they are all that.

I give it three red thongs out of five.

What the Boyfriend Says

Oh great, we're reviewing a girly mov-
ie. I swear the only thing girly movies do
for this world is give Brittany Murphy
work, And that isnt a positive!

Orat

So John Tucker Must Die. What can
I say about John Tucker Must Die?
Predictable, shallow, confusing, and
forgettable. Wow, that was-easier than I
thought.

The whole conflict comes from John
Tucker dating multiple women at a time
and each one finds out about it. After
some cat fighting they decide to get even
with him. Each time they try they just
make him more popular.

Id like to point out that I favour John
Tucker over all the women in this movie
as a sympathetic protagonist. Tucker's
brother in the film points out near the
end that nearly all the women in the
school know about his reputation as a
womanizer yet they all still come crawl-
irig for him. So what is the movie telling
me? Tucker hasn't done anything wrong,
it is the women of the film who have let
themselves down.

So the film closes, everyone likes
Tucker again, the girl who was shy and
unpopular is now, well, the opposite
and we've filled the quota of stereotyped
sassy black women and dumb cheerlead-
ets.

1 “dear God, make it stop!” out of 5

Very Nice Movie Review

COREY WINTEMUTE
STAFF WRITER

If it were not for the overwhelming
barrage of homework I could make a
strong case for these last few weeks be-
ing the best of my life. Not only did I get
to witness the concert event of a lifetime
in B.A. Johnston, but this past Friday
I also got to see comedic genius Sacha
Baron Cohen work his magic in his
new film “Borat: Cultural Learnings
of America for Make Benefit Glori-
ous Nation of Kazakhstan.

This article could have just as easily
been a scathing argument against Fox
and their reducing Borat to 800 the-
atres from its original 2000. As you
might know Borat did not come to
Prince George on its opening week-
end because of this. Surprisingly no
one really wanted to go see “Santa
Clause 3” or “Flushed Away’, and
Borat closed its opening weekend at
the number one spot in the box office,

even while showing in about a quarter
of the locations. Luckily Fox would be
hard pressed to ignore the almighty dol-
lar and decided to expand Borat for its
second weekend.

As for the movie itself, it is absolutely
brilliant. If you are not familiar with the
character Borat, he is the fictional Ka-
zakh journalist played by British com-
edian Sacha Baron Cohen of HBO's
Da Ali G Show. Cohen, Jewish himself,
plays Borat as an anti-Semitic, anti-fem-
inist man from Kazakhstan, a nation
that he portrays as culturally backwards.
Cohen has his critics and has taken a
lot of heat for this character, but mainly
from people who do not get the joke.
Borat is a satire, and a brilliant one at
that. When he asks a car dealer how fast
he would have to hit a Gypsy in a Hum-
mer to ensure they are killed, and the
dealer actually takes him at face value
and gives him an answer, the joke is not
on Gypsy's or Kazakhstan, but rather
on the incredible ignorance inherent in
Western culture.

Borat has been sent to America by
the Kazakh government to, as the title
crudely states, learn about its culture.
He begins in New York with his pro-
ducer/fluffer Azamat (Ken Davitian).

Ph: (250) 564-4267

Berat soon discovers an American
woman so beautiful that he makes it his
goal to travel to California to wed her in
the traditional Kazakh way, that woman
is Pamela Anderson. The rest of the
movie plays out as a road movie as we
follow Borat and Azamat driving cross-
country in an old ice cream truck, mak-
ing some interesting stops in the Amer-
ican south along the way. I do not want
to give away too much but watch out
for the fight scene between Borat and
Azamat; you will probably laugh harder
than you have in your entire life.

There have been a few smart funny
movies that came out recently such as
“Thank You for. Smoking” that caused
me to have a few chuckles and think
“that is funny.’ Borat however, is in a
realm of funniness all its own: No more
than fifteen seconds goes by.in this mov-
ie before you are. once again laughing
uproariously and gasping for air. Borat is
easily the best movie that has been made
all year. Make sure to keep an eye out for
another of

Cohen's characters in theaters next
summer, Bruno, the journalist for Aus-
tria Gay TV.

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