AMBER ji ‘Ric HARDS
STAFF WRITER

What is the Movie — EPIC
MOVIE

Who is in it- Jennifer Cool-
idge, Carmen Electra.

Let me be the first to say that
this year is going to be made for
funny movies. Coming out this
year is Shrek 3, Simpson’s movie
and Blades of Glory. They sound
pretty damn funny and I can’t
wait. Although most of the funny
movies come out during the sum-
mer, they should start earlier. You
know how people need a good
~ laugh here and there. I know be-
ing a poor student it helps having a
good laugh so I don’t get stressed
_ out that much. The start was of the

funny movies was this Friday. Not
only did I go see one of the funni-
est movies of all time (yeah, the
Scary Movie series don’t count),
- but I got to realize that they
should continue making films that

aueeL CRETE

Friday Night at the

a

Theaters |

have parodies in them. Those are
the best. My crew and I counted
all the films and I probably have
to go watch it again to see more of
the film. This Friday night, I went
to go see EPIC MOVIE. It was
so funny I cried, I laughed and I
cheered for the good guys. I love
these kinds of movies where I can
count how many parodies are in it.
This time, I counted 33. I might
have missed one or two, but still
that isn’t too bad. I am also going
to assume that you don’t count the
parodies and just enjoy the film
but you know, its funny to know
that you are loser. Without giving
the whole movie away, the movie
was based on four orphans trying
to find their family which in the
end, they found each other. I think
out of all the parodies, my favour-
ite was Flavor Flav and all the
ladies. He was singing and it was
so horrible you had to laugh in
disgust. The only thing that made
me pretty upset about these kinds
of movies, I knew four people out
of the whole cast. I knew Jennifer
Coolidge, Carmen Electra and the
dude that plays Kumar in “Harlod
and Kumar Goes to White Castle”.
Besides that, the cast was mostly
unknown. If you would like to
challenge me and go see it and tell
me who else is in it, be my guest.
Another clip that was my favour-
ite was MTV Cribs. Usually in
that show, the show off how many
TVs they have in the house. This
guy even had one in the toilet and
on a girl’s head so when she is
cleaning his shoes, he can watch
it. Go see it and laugh! I give this
movie 3 % out of 5 horrible movie
parodies.

NWwW.Campusresearch.ca

Corey WINTEMUTE

StaFF WRITER

Often when an artist

goes from being in a successful

and much loved band into a solo

career the results are disappoint-
ing.

Paul and John never put out
anything that matched the Bea-
tles genius, Stephen Malkmus
has never recreated the magic of
Pavement, and until recently Julie
Doiron was never able to equal
her beginnings in legendary Can-
adian indie-rock band Ericis Trip.
This is of course just one man’s
opinion as she was honored with
a Juno award for her album Julie
Doiron and the Wooden Stars.
My opinion of her has changed

OVER THE EDGE __ February 9, 2007

with the release of her first solo
album in two years. titled “Woke
Myself Up.”

This artistic rebirth is in large
part due to who came in to help
her record this album, former Er-
ic’s Trip band mates Rick White,
Mark Gaudet, and Chris Thomp-
son. Rick White handles produc-
tion duties while a smattering of
tracks have the entire band playing
together. Eric’s Trip was a power-
house of Canadian indie rock
and was the first Canadian band
to sign to Sub Pop records. They
broke up in 1996 and although
they have reunited a few times
for the odd live performance they
have never really been in the stu-
dio. Sure there is Elevator featur-
ing Rick White and Mark Gaudet
but it is just not the same as Ericis
Trip. That is why this album car-
ries a certain nostalgic feeling for
me.I had listened to Julie Doironis
previous solo outings and I would
not say particularly disliked them,
however they did nothing to cap-
tivate me and the music did not
stay with me. With this new al-
bum I was captivated right from
the opening track, mainly because
of the familiar drum roll of Mark
Gaudet, one of rock musicis great-
est and drummers. The difference
here is that instead of being the

RaGneae background vocals like
she was on so many Ericis Trip
songs, Julie is front row centre
and it is a role that she takes on
flawlessly.

I do not mean to sound like
this album is nothing more than a
full on Ericis Trip reunion. Only
a few of the songs actually have
the whole band playing together,
and those are the more up-tempo
irockyi songs. The way the album
is put together worked in such a
way as to keep me captivated dur-
ing the more melancholy numbers
in between the rockers, which I
would have skipped past on her
previous albums. It is very for-
tunate it turned out this way or I
would never have realized what a
great songwriter Julie Doiron is.
Her songs are so intimately per-
sonal that you almost feel awk-
ward listening to them in front of
someone else.

I came upon this album by
chance and I am so glad I did be-
cause it has been on repeat at my
house for the last few days now. It
has opened my eyes to one of the
great talents of Canadian music
and has inspired me to dig out not
just my Ericis Trip albums but
Julie Doironis previous solo al-
bums as well.

Corey WINTEMUTE
STAFF WRITER

When I read the press release
for the album iNever Wanted to be
Anyonei I expected a fairly decent
listening experience. It was gush-
ing with praise comparing them to
acts such as Neil Young, Gordon
Lightfoot and the Guess Who. I
thought to myself, iwow this must
be pretty good!i I even scoured
the internet to see what people
had to say of this band and found
such quotes as icould destroy the
most prolific of songwritersi- Jack

Freelance, and icould make Neil

Young think about moving backi-
24 Hours. Well, after listening to

| the album with my girlfriend and

showing her those two quotes
her reaction was simply, ihow is

| this possible?i

I hope that these people were
not listening to the same album

that I was because what I heard

was some of the most generic and
bland rock I have heard in a long
time. To put it quite bluntly this
band seems like some sort of hor-
rible myspace project gone awry.
I should have probably known
by their lame stage names such
as Super Robertson, and Two
Sticks Hobbs. The album even
included a little insert that told
how Super got into must because
of a ilove of groovei. Well hippy,
maybe you should go icrunch out
on a groovei somewhere else and
not in a studio.

The opening track had me

thinking to myself iwell its not
really too bad I guess, but each
track just got progressively worse
and worse until the final track
iMaideni which is on another
level of suckitude. Itis a coming
together of a variety of factors that
makes the album hard to listen to.
For one the lead guitarist seems
to only know one generic blues
riff that he decides he has to bust
out on every single track on the
album. The production values on
the album are actually quite good
but the way the songs are writ-
ten and arranged cancels that out.
It seems like every song is just a
slight rehash of the previous one
with some different inane lyrics
sang over top. One stand out is the
track iBay City Kittyi, basically if
you went up to someone who had
no background in Jazz and said
iplay some jazzi this song would
pretty much be the result. Lyric-
ally the album is laughable.

I admit my review might be
a little harsh, but it just pains me
a little when a band that does not
really have much talent is able to
get signed by a record label and
get precious studio time when
there are many other bands that
deserve it a great deal more. Im
sure the guys from 21 Tandem
Repeats are very nice people and
I wish them great success in what-
ever they do with their lives, I just
hope they find something other to
do than make music.