MONDOmagazine

Shrek the Third
Directed by Chris Miller, Raman Hui
Dreamworks Animation 2007

By Caesar Martini

Our favourite Scottish-ogre-voiced-by-a-Canadian returns in the third installment of the hugely popular Shrek series. Shrek the Third (STT) sees our hero coming to power as the ruler of Far, Far, Away, but come now — fancy wigs and knightings and pomp and circumstance? None of these things appeal to a belching, farting ogre. So Shrek sets out to find a replacement ruler for himself so that he can return to his beloved swamp with his beloved Fiona.

Shrek 2 is one of my favourite CGI films of all time, and the previews for STT looked very promising, so I had my hopes up. Unfortunately, though STT is far from a disaster (I’m looking at YOU, Spider Man 3), it misses the mark of greatness and manages only to be a serviceable installment.

The main problem is that it’s too similar to Shrek 2. Once again, we have Shrek not fitting in with the civilized world, and once again, we have him trying to return to his swamp with a chattering donkey and a kitty Zorro in tow. STT doesn’t show us anything particularly new, and re-tells a lot of the same jokes that we’ve already seen. I wish that they had spent some more time with the supporting characters (especially Puss, who is kind of my hero) and thought of something beyond the standard jokes and gags that I expected (or saw from the trailers).

All in all, it’s a good effort, and fans of the franchise should still go see it. It just failed to knock my socks off.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Directed by Gore Verbinski
Walt Disney Pictures, May 2007

By Caesar Martini

Yo-ho-ho, mateys, and avast, and, uh… batten the hatches, and other such piratical lingo. Here be the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and it’s going to be a MONSTER hit. I think I just saw the biggest moneymaker of the year.

At World’s End (AWE) continues the increasingly fantastic saga of Captain Jack and his associates. Left in a bit of a spot at the end of the second film (that is to say, dead and eaten), Jack Sparrow must be rescued from his hellish new existence in Davy Jones’ Locker. Once rescued, Jack and the nine pirate lords (yeah, apparently there are pirate lords or whatever) must band together and make one last stand against the royal fleet that’s bent on sinking every pirate ship on the seas. Making matters more difficult for our pirate heroes, the invincible Davy Jones himself is being forced to work against them.

Sound complicated? Well, that’s the simple part. Once you add in the numerous betrayals, secret plots, and, uh, angry goddess of the sea trapped in human form, THEN it gets a little tricky to keep track of. I also got the impression that some plot points were added in more for the convenience of moving things along than for actually making sense; once you stop to think about it, there are more than a couple of moments that leave you with more questions than answers.

However, though it can be a little head-spinning, AWE is a really enjoyable epic. It delves often into the fine line between genius and insanity that Jack Sparrow walks, and that’s enormously entertaining. AWE is filled with little references to the first two films and has an abundance of clever humour. The action and direction of the movie is awesome, with a ton of fun scenes that are great to watch, even when they verge on the cartoony.

I’m still of the opinion that the first movie in the trilogy was the best one, and I certainly think there’s room for improvement in AWE, but it’s just fun. If you go into it with the critical eye of a film nerd, then you’ll be able to pick it apart and destroy it, alongside your chances of enjoying yourself (unless that’s your thing). But if you just want to laugh, and be entertained, Pirates 3 delivers the goods. Sorry, I mean “booty.”

And really bad eggs.

By Elisha Denburg

This is a quick and affordable meal, sure to delight your guests. Dr. Smoothmoves came over last week for dinner and joked several times that he would start referring to my apartment as “tuna town.” We got to talking, and did you know he’s not really a doctor? Oh well. Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

tuna steaks (good quality, ideally sushi-grade)
a couple of cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
some sprigs of fresh rosemary
coarse kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
lemon wedges

Cooking:

Heat the oil in a heavy-duty frying pan over high heat, then add the rosemary and garlic and fry it for a couple of minutes, or until brown. Remove the rosemary and garlic from the pan.

Pat the tuna dry with a paper towel, season it with salt and pepper and fry it for 1 minute per side, or until it is just seared on the outside but still rare on the inside. If you have good quality tuna this is the desired doneness — anything more will kill the flavour and it will end up tasting like the canned stuff.

Squeeze some lemon juice over the tuna and serve with a green salad and warm baguette. Laugh at your guest’s jokes, no matter how uncomfortable they might make you feel.

By Elisha Denburg

Yes, this is what I eat when I’m alone. The secret to a good sauce is the salty tears.

For a great time, you’ll need:
1 large fillet of rainbow trout
2 tbsp pure Canadian maple syrup
½ tsp each: sweet paprika, mustard powder, hot cayenne powder, salt and pepper

And also:
200g dried penne pasta
1 small bundle asparagus, ends broken off, then diced
1 small red onion, peeled and minced
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
¼ cup (4 tbsp) soft, unripened goat’s cheese
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
juice of one lemon
large handful of chopped fresh coriander
dry vermouth or white wine
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil and butter

Preheat oven to 400°F. Cover a baking sheet with tinfoil and place fish skin side down. Mix syrup with dry spices and spoon over fish, reserving a little. Bake for 15 minutes or until fish is cooked through, but still moist and flaky. You might want to turn the broiler on for the last couple of minutes to get some nice browning on the top of the fish. Spoon more sticky sauce from baking sheet and/or reserved mixture onto fish. Set aside to cool.

While your fish is in the oven, boil some water for your pasta and heat up a skillet for your sauce. Splash a little olive oil and a spoonful of butter into the skillet. Add salt and pepper, then the onions. When the onions start to get a little soft, add garlic and asparagus. Cook until garlic is very fragrant (about one minute) then add mustard, vinegar, and lemon juice. Cook for a couple more minutes, then pour in vermouth or white wine, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom with a wooden spoon. Let sauce reduce for a minute or two, then turn off the heat and add most of the goat cheese and coriander. Toss the mixture with your strained cooked pasta and place on a plate.

Place cooked trout fillet over the pasta and garnish with more crumbled goat cheese, chopped coriander and a little drizzle of olive oil.

Throw out entire meal and cry yourself to sleep.

Looking back on Season 2 of Supernatural

By Alexander B. Huls

MAJOR SPOILER WARNINGS! LIKE, SERIOUSLY MAJOR!

The Winchester boys have been through a lot this year. The death of their father, the threat of Sam going dark-side, the prospect of Dean having to possibly kill him, sexual tension fulfilled and unfulfilled, the destruction and restoration of the Chevy Impala, being wanted by the FBI, going to jail, the violent unfolding of the Yellow-Eyed-Demon’s (YED) master plan, being possessed, Dean losing himself to his inner demons, dying, and, of course, the litany of demons they’ve had to fight off throughout the season.

What’s this all amount to? Season Two of Supernatural leaping bounds over Season One.

With a season premiere that was as intense and compelling as a finale, Season Two began with a bang and never let up. Episode by episode the show demonstrated that its creators had become more assured as they clearly settled into a creative rhythm and figured out what makes the show great. As a result, episodes have become much more compelling and narratively taut, and Dean and Sam have developed as much more interesting, complex characters. The season also featured a growing ensemble of steady support characters around them (Jo, Bobby, etc.), as well as more sophisticated guest characters who have moved beyond simple and stereotypical damsels and gentlemen in distress.

What Supernatural most notably has learned to do well is ensure that the high-concept gimmick of weekly demon-hunting does not solely dominate the show’s course, but instead frequently serves as a dramatic background through which to explore more dramatic plot elements, or focus on the character development of the Winchesters. In particular, the greatest part of this season has been that the creators have really shown us that the Winchester boys are true heroes, the kind who sacrifice themselves for others and each other. Yet, they are also the kind of heroes with very human flaws that threaten to hinder their quest, but which they ultimately overcome to save the day. Finally, of course, the supernatural elements — for the most part — were more interesting and exciting this year, and there’s admittedly something nice about starting to learn the show’s mythology and determining, as an audience member, how the boys should proceed. Need to keep a demon out? Why, draw a line with salt, of course! A spirit is on the loose? Burn the bones!

Despite the greatness of this season, that doesn’t mean I didn’t have some minor grievances. While there were the occasional weaker episodes (“Playthings” and “Folsom Prison Blues,” for example), my biggest complaint is that as much as I enjoyed many of the episodes that followed “Born Under A Bad Sign,” I did find myself growing restless due to the fact that they were mostly stand-alone episodes, skirting around the greater YED mythological arc of the series. Because the first half of the season was effectively linked entirely with the YED storyline (the aftermath of Daddy Winchester’s death, and the gradual revelation of what he whispered to Dean before dying), I began to expect the storyline to progress further. However, in the second half of the season this barely occurred. By the time the first part of the finale began, I felt I really needed the pre-episode recap to remind me about the YED story arc since we hadn’t really had a lot of forward movement in that area, except for a few passing reminders of the “You’ll have to kill me if I go dark-side” Sam/Dean conflict.

That being said, it’s hard to be really upset when many of these stand-alone episodes were some of the best episodes the show has had so far. “Born Under A Bad Sign” was a great episode made exceptional by Jared Padalecki’s viciously intense performance. Even though “Roadkill” featured echoes of The Sixth Sense, the great casting (and performance) of Tricia Helfer, as well as the poignancy of her character’s twist, made this episode stand out. Even though I wasn’t huge on the predictability of the werewolf storyline, “Heart” was a memorable episode not only because Sam finally got some well-deserved lovin’, but because of its gut-wrenching and haunting end, reminding us all of the incredible sacrifices the boys make by living the life they do and the human tragedy it sometimes leaves in their wake. This theme became perhaps most clear in the episode I don’t think any self-respecting Supernatural fan could not have loved: “What Is and What Should Never Be.” I’m not sure what was more heartbreaking: Dean seeing his mother again, the realization that all the people they saved in their reality died in this one, Dean and Sam were strangers to each other, or Dean sacrificing the illusion of a happy life for that of a demon hunter (i.e. working for the greater good).Finally, there was the two-part “All Hell Breaks Loose” finale, which certainly lived up to its name. We finally found out the YED’s master plan, with a few titillating twists along the way. There were several fatalities, and with that we saw how far Dean really was willing to go to save his little brother. Daddy Winchester made an awesome appearance. Revenge was had. Deals were made, secret truths were exposed, and most of all — for a while — it seemed like the world really was going to hell (literally!). When the YED’s plan was revealed, and we learned that hell-doors existed, and what he wanted to do… well, frankly, I was genuinely frightened as to what was going to happen. It was an exciting, satisfying ending to an excellent season.

Now some fans have expressed their feelings that the finale was slightly anti-climactic, both in how the threat of hell-on-earth ended as quickly as it began, and more specifically how the YED was actually killed, thereby ending the Winchester brothers’ two-season-long quest. However, even though the YED storyline has run its course, there is certainly more than enough to sustain the season (hopefully seasons) to come. We now have Sam’s mission to nullify Dean’s deal with the crossroads demon. Sam’s abilities still remain and the YED questioning Dean how certain he is that he what he brought back was 100% Sam, reeks of foreshadowing. Who’s to say another demon might not take an interest in Sam’s powers? On that note, 100-200 demons escaped from the hell-door, and the Winchester boys must now deal with them (“We’ve got work to do”) — there may very well be a demon amongst them who is bad as the YED, if not worse. FBI Agent Henricksen is, of course, still after the boys. Finally, don’t forget that when the YED showed Sam his mother’s death, Sam’s mom recognized the YED, raising puzzling questions as to how that might be possible.

While it’s a little sad to see the major storyline of the YED resolved, the creators have planted enough dramatic seeds to create numerous interesting scenarios to more than sustain next season and beyond. Frankly, I think it was a smart move. As thematically reassuring as it can be to have one über story-arc throughout a show’s run, it can end up perpetually teasing viewers with the promise of resolution, but not the fulfillment of it. This way the creators have ensured that the show will stay fresh, exciting, and a little unpredictable. I think this is the reason some of us felt slightly anti-climactic about the finale. None of us thought the YED story-line would be wrapped up this soon in the show’s run. Even though at first I was a little disappointed, I came to realize how great it was to be caught off-guard. Then I thought: Man, I can’t wait till next season to see what happens now. And isn’t that ultimately the exact feeling a season and its finale should leave you with?

By By Curtis Westman

Korean business market grinds to a halt

Blizzard announced last weekend that the wet dream of over a million zealous RTS gamers is about to be vindicated with the advent of the sequel to one of the most popular franchises in the history of PC gaming — Starcraft 2. Rumours over the past months that the sequel would either never arrive or would be another World of Warcraft MMO clone in the Starcraft universe have accordingly been forgotten, as gameplay footage from Blizzard’s Worldwide International gaming convention show what is essentially Starcraft on steroids.

For three days after the announcement, Korean business suffered huge losses as workers failed to show up for work, catatonic in front of their computers, awestruck at the news.

And why wouldn’t they be? This is huge news for gaming. This is like the release of Duke Nukem Forever. On schedule AND living up to its hype. This is like the second coming of Christ — nobody ever thought it would happen and here it is after only God knows how many years. Centuries from now, archaeologists are going to dig up big stone tablets detailing the coming of Starcraft the 2nd, and are going to think it refers to some magnanimous king that liberated slaves and miraculously brought Protoss together with Terrans — Zerg and cats living together; mass hysteria!

They’re going to think we were such nerds.

Virtual Console Picks

The Wii’s Virtual Console feature lets us play older games from a multitude of systems on a single machine — similar to X-Box Live or, well, I would say the PS Network, but I feel dirty making that comparison — and every week there are more additions. I figured that I might as well explain the games this week so maybe people know what to avoid. After all, we don’t all have subscriptions to Nintendo Power. Oh, god, please kill me. I’m such a geek

This week’s offerings:

Donkey Kong Country 2: Okay, so this one time Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of the Mario and Zelda franchises) said that the Donkey Kong Country series was proof that American gamers would buy any piece of trash as long as it looked half decent. Apparently he was right. American audiences really lapped up the trilogy. To its credit, it has a lot of fun bits, and isn’t a bad side-scroller all told. It’s a bit slow, I admit, but the atmosphere is pure bananas (get it!?) which more than makes up for that.

Blazing Lazers: I’m a little biased with this game because I was one of the few North Americans who owned a Turbo Grafx 16, and loved the hell out of it. Blazing Lazers is a great shooter with a lot of charm. The music is fun and exciting and the power-ups are all pretty decent in their own right. Just because they misspelled lasers doesn’t mean it’s a poor game. It just means they’re poor spellers.

Streets of Rage 2: This series is beat-’em-up gold. With a friend playing co-op, Streets of Rage 2 is some of the most fun gaming I’ve had in a long time, simply because of its hectic nature and the fact that you’re beating the hell out of everyone. Nothing is more satisfying than picking up a discarded iron pipe and knocking the sense out of some fat guy with it. And sometimes, Owen, since friendly fire is forced, and you can accidentally beat the hell out of your partner as well. Oops.

28 Weeks Later
Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Fox Atomic, 2007

By Benjamin (will club you if you interrupt his sleep) Ball

28 Weeks Later begins in a quiet manner with a group of folk holed up in a cabin in England, apparently subsisting on canned food. A small boy shows up and they begrudgingly let the little fellow in. From there (and mind you this is merely five minutes in), shit predictably hits the fan. Now, those of you that saw the previous film will remember that these are not the classic slow moving (because of muscle entropy and rigor mortis) zombies of old (though I do love them so). No, these are the new modern era of pissed right off and sprinting zombies: the suckers that turn others to the “eat people” cause faster than a safe sex lecture or Sharon Stone.

The film then moves forward to the present, in which there is a small area of Britain that the US military is trying to repopulate (*cough* potential allusion to current military world events *cough*). From there, we all know that it’s just a matter of time before the Rage virus spreads again. Basically, we get more sweet zombie action, and when it happens it is awesome. It’s just a crazy mixture of zombies, response to zombies, resilience of said zombies, and crazy zombie sex (aspects of the previous statement may be untrue).

One of the things that the 28 Days movies have done is to take a previously somewhat barebones genre and made it very stylistically appealing. The camera work is great, the soundtrack is freaking awesome (mid to late in the movie there are several major explosions: Tell me that the music they play doesn’t tweak you a little bit, and I will eat a penny of your choosing), and the character development is both relevant and interesting. One of the things the previous movie did well was create villains within the “infected”. This instalment continues that trend to eerie results.

And, as a final point, I found it legitimately scary. I am far less comfortable using subways, parks, crowded areas, or any other place where a lot of people are now then I was a week ago. People with red on there face are not funny, and British people are potential zombies. I’m sorry, but they are. I hope you check it out, if only because I don’t want to be the only fellow (or gal) sleeping with a blunt object under his (or her) pillow.

Composed with much affection

By Adam Bourret

I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately, which is surprising. It has been ten years since we broke up, a solid decade of dimly recalling the good times we had, struggling to picture your angelic face, and not being haunted by your memory. Oh Stephanie, how I long to relive those happy days and often think of what I could have done differently. I don’t know if we’d still be together, but I totally could have fucked you and got that over with. Damn my boyish chastity!

Do you remember all the plans we made together? I often picture you spotting me in a crowd, running towards me and grasping me in your arms. You would beg me to take you back so that all our youthful dreams could come true. If this happened I would say “yeah, about that…” and then claim that I was “really busy.”

For the record, I did make one legitimate attempt to kill your stepfather like I promised. Three or four years after we parted, I spotted him walking down Geneva St. on his way to the mall. I considered running him over with my car, sweet justice, considering he often “joked” that he had a similar fate in store for me. But I faltered. If I went through with it he might not have had time to see who was driving the car and thus appreciate the irony. I thought about maybe glancing him with the car and yelling something like “now who’s running whom over with whose car, Mr. Lalonde?” But the phrasing seemed awkward. So I made up my mind that the best action was inaction. I decided not to inform him of the dangers of smoking and eating trans-fat. Take that your step-dad’s lung and arteries! I can only hope that his massive heart attack won’t be traced back to me. But it was worth it for you, my love, kind of. I’m afraid I’ve been less effective in fulfilling our second goal, which, as you recall, was to open a subspace portal that would transform our school into a mystical hell-dimension. If you’ve driven past it recently you’ll notice it’s still there. So, my bad. But honestly, getting the job done proved even more difficult than trying to please you sexually. My magical skills did progress to a certain point, but the portal is still just a bit beyond me. You may or may not be impressed to learn that I have mastered the tarot cards you gave me. I only give readings once in a while, because they are generally unhelpful and fill people with anxiety. I imagine that if you saw me in action, deftly shuffling and divining possible futures, you would be very impressed, even aroused. Unfortunately I am now totally gay.

So, if it’s all the same to you, my once-love, is it okay if I just scrap the hell-dimension plan? I mean, the kids in the school now aren’t the ones who made fun of us back then. I even ran into Keith Tatum at the supermarket the other day, he’s a pretty nice guy. Megan Garth even added me to her Facebook. She has three children, that’s kind of like a hell-dimension. And that girl who stole your sweater works at the big call centre downtown. Honestly, I think she’d prefer to be gored to death by our demon brethren.

One more thing, I was throwing out my lava lamp the other day and guess what was under it? Remembered the eensy little matter of our Suicide Pact? Yeah, according to this paper, since I have failed to become a practicing warlock (I guess), my life is forfeit. Actually it was forfeit on my twenty-fifth birthday, a good four or five months ago. According to the pact, only your love can release me from this fatal bond. But since you’re not here, I’m going to go ahead and chuck this sucker out. I mean, I was fifteen, and you were seventeen, you kind of talked me into it. Also, provided you held up your end of the bargain, you have been dead for two and a half years. Had I found the note sooner, I totally would have brought it up on Classmates.com. It says here in the pact that “I will always love you, you are the cause of all my wikidness (sic) and insanity.” It turns out that I also had obsessive compulsive disorder and now I take these little pills that make me feel better. But I guess I’ll still always love you. Loving you is the easiest thing in the world, considering you are elsewhere / married / dead and make no demands on me.

Some fires burn forever, some don’t stand the test of time. Some fires are not actually fires, but crude drawings of fires that you cling to your chest, pretending they will warm you because please God I’m weird enough already don’t let me be gay too.

I will tell our story, my love.

Because people find it funny at parties.

Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan followed by Fond of Tigers
at The Music Gallery
May 18th, 2007

By Sal Hassanpour

There’s a concert festival in Toronto that goes on in May and it is called VTO. The idea is that, much like the island in Lost, The Music Gallery (in cooperation with Rough Idea) suck musicians on their way to Victoriaville, Quebec’s Festival de Musique Actuelle (arguably Canada’s pre-eminent avant-garde music fest) into Toronto for a layover performance. Unlike Lost, the artists are not left stranded to be attacked by polar bears and intelligent smog. Well, maybe Toronto’s smog clouds are old enough to have become sentient, but I digress.

The second of three nights in this mini-fest featured a gamelan (I’ve learned the word means “ensemble”) that has been operating in Toronto for decades now and has a rep for playing the “degung” style that emerged from the Sunda part of Java during Dutch colonization, and Fond of Tigers, a septet of avant-rockers that were hotly-tipped in the local press when I was out in Vancouver late last summer.

I was pretty excited to hear both groups, particularly after reading one of David Toop’s books – the most well-written, easy-to-read intro to experimental music texts you can pick up. The book has an interesting section on the gamelan’s impact on Western 20th Century music. Basically, I was hyped to get my experimental on.

Truth is, the night was a mild disappointment.

First off, a gamelan is comprised of highly complex polyrhythms, extended passages and dialogue between players. Every style of gamelan – and there are hundreds – has its own unique set of conventions (and you thought indie music had too many sub-genres). So, when the Evergreen Club Contemporary sets out to “perform a set of planned and spontaneous improvisations” in lieu of their bread-and-butter commissioned work, well, frankly it does not pan out that well.

While it was cool to hear the trombone and the hurdy-gurdy make wailing noises in counterpoint to the minimal and random vibrations emanating from the percussionists, the three movements outlasted their running times. Passages from transverse wood flutes or an instrument resembling a lap steel guitar did their best to sustain interest, but frankly, uninspired improvisation is just that, no matter how many gongs and wooden xylophones you bring to the table.

Fond of Tigers have gotten away with being labelled an avant-jazz band somehow, but really, they’re a more loose post-rock band, albeit one that is familiar and experienced with jazz conventions like call and response and vamping. So while it was impressive to see seven musicians each playing different melodies slowly build a cohesive wall of noise, rhizome-ing out like the tendrils of a root system digging through the earth yet all the while in tune to whoever was carrying the piece forward – either JP Carter’s trumpet-plus-FX combo or Jesse Zubot on violin and later, Stephen Lyons on guitar – the band managed to sustain their set without delivering anything more mind-blowing than Do Make Say Think (post-rock) covering John Zorn (free-jazz/noise).

OK, so that’s pretty mind-blowing. It’s certainly not a complete dismissal, either, only that the band have been pegged as something a little bit more off the beaten path, a little more “out” than they ended up sounding, which is not their fault. It also comes down to the fact that I will never claim to dislike a live performance that has two drum kits firing away at the same time. The older members of the crowd seemed bewildered as the band finished their encore. One wondered, assuming they were all seasoned experimental/improvisational gig-goers, how they coped with something as rockist as Fond of Tigers. Ultimately, those perceived reactions spoke for the entire night, which was an exercise in mixing sounds, intentions and abilities that were, as often as not, mismatched.

Serial killers, gaydars, nuclear holocausts, tropical sex, musical poo, pop stars in Canada, grand auto destruction, and illegal immigrants. Now that’s a party!

By Alexander B. Huls

SPOILER WARNINGS!

In honour of the end of the TV season, I thought I would turn my gaze backward and recall some of my favourite moments that have been absorbed by these humble eyeballs of mine. Keep in mind that these are my favourites, but not necessarily what I think were the best, though the two need not be always mutually exclusive.

For the first half of this two-part article, I focused solely on my favorite moments from the earlier parts of the shows’ season. So stay tuned, because next week I’ll dive into the seasons’ latter half, including some shocking twists and endings!

Dexter: “No blood.”

It ultimately amounts to a simple moment in the greater context of the show, but it was Dexter’s narrated admiration of the work on the first victim of the Ice Truck Killer that made me realize the show I was watching was something entirely new and different: so many cops and CSIers react to bodies with horror or cold professionalism. It was a completely new experience to hear a character say: “Why hadn’t I thought of that? No blood. What a beautiful idea.” With those words, the best TV show of the year had arrived.

The Office: Dwight doesn’t pass the Gaydar

It’s almost impossible to pick just one great Office moment but this was, without a doubt, the hardest I’ve laughed all year. While it certainly wasn’t the most elaborate prank Jim has pulled on Dwight, it still ranks up there as one of the best. It’s such a brilliantly played and perfectly developed piece of comedy. It was watching the mischievous joy of Dwight receiving the supposed “Gaydar” machine turn to smug satisfaction when he tries it out on Oscar and the Gaydar (really a metal detector) “works,” only to turn into wide-eyed horror as the machine beeps as it falls upon him shortly after. I was laughing so hard I only barely heard Dwight murmur in utter fear: “Oh no.” Five minutes later, I was still laughing.

Jericho: Robert Hawkins marks the map

After a nuclear bomb goes off in nearby Denver, the inhabitants of Jericho, as well as the shows viewers, are left wondering who set it off and for what reason. Viewers didn’t (initially) get answers to those questions, but instead they got something more shocking. In the second episode entitled “Black Jack,” Robert Hawkins places push pins in a map of the United States to indicate where the bomb went off. He starts with Denver. Then he places another, and another, until we’ve seen him put pins in five major cities. We see him pick up three more pins, but don’t see where he places them. The shock of the moment comes both from realizing how bad things are in the world of Jericho, but also the size of the cajones of the show’s creators in a post 9/11 world to create a fictional setting in which eight major American cities have been destroyed by nuclear bombs. Clearly these guys were serious, unlike certain other shows (cough, 24, cough).

Lost: Sawyer and Kate get it on

You know how when two people have such undeniable sexual tension, but never act on it, it sometimes it makes you just want to yell: “Get a room and get it over with already!” No? Just me? Doesn’t matter, it seems like Sawyer and Kate apparently heard me. (Except that they did it in a cage. Naughty.) After almost three seasons of the Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle, and enough sexual tension to make even Liberace blush, the deadlock was finally broken. While one can squabble over who Kate should be with, it was refreshing to at least see her finally make a decision. Granted, it was revealed that she really only had sex with Sawyer because she thought he was going to die, so now we are back to having a triangle. But on a show where audiences are perpetually left frustrated and tense as to what the heck is going on, it was great to finally get some cathartic release in seeing at least something happen. In this case, it was the cathartic release of enjoying Kate and Sawyer bumping uglies. And the fact that both of them are damn sexy doesn’t hurt either.

Scrubs: “Everything Comes Down to Poo”

Was it perfect? Certainly not. It definitely wasn’t of Buffy’s “Once More, With Feeling” caliber, but it is still infectiously adorable and just plain fun, which is exactly what you would expect if Scrubs did a musical episode. After all, they are no strangers to hilariously amazing musical interludes. Even though there a lot of great moments in the episode, I think the musical number that most wins my heart (with “Guy Love” a VERY close second) is “Everything Comes Down to Poo.” Now generally I find toilet humor infantile and moronic, but there is just something about the way Zach Braff and Donald Faison sing a fantastically rhymed song about fecal matter with such joyous zeal and abandon that makes it hard not to love it. Unfortunately, I found the song incredibly catchy. Word of advice: unconsciously singing a poo song in the middle of a first date will not get you a second one.

How I Met Your Mother: Robin Sparkles

The Robin Sparkles affair in How I Met Your Mother was further proof of why the show is not just your average sitcom, and why it is definitely one of the better ones currently on the air. Having Robin turn out to be a former 90’s pop star in Canada (in the mold of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson), instead of the porn star that her friend suspected, was a hilarious twist. Taking things one step further and creating an actual over-the-top 80’s video parody featuring robots, sequin jackets, bad acting, a cameo by Trudeau, and humorous jabs at Canada (“the 80s didn’t come to Canada till like ‘93″)? Comic gold!

(On a side note, for an even better spoof of an 80’s video, check this out)

Supernatural: Dean smashes his car

After spending an entire first season with Dean as the cool-headed guy who always laughed in the face of danger, enjoyed hunting demons, looked up to his father, and cared only about protecting his brother, season two began changing all that. The change was never clearer than after Dean and Sam’s father died (in exchange for Dean’s life), when Dean began spiraling out of control. He was lost without his father, and began doubting his purpose and life. Dean’s conflict built to a crescendo when, after having carefully restored his much-loved Chevy Impala after the first season’s crash finale, he suddenly looses it and begins hitting the car violently. To see a character we’ve always known to be the steady rock of the show not only lose his composure, but let it out on his most cherished possession, made for one of the most intense moments of the year.

Heroes: Hiro teleports to New York City

This was the moment where Heroes finally hooked me. When I first began watching the show, I felt it was too self-important and serious for its own good. Don’t even get me started on the opening monologues (now thankfully gone) that were saturated with imagined significance. Enter: Hiro. With all the other characters deeply entrenched in the melodrama of their own changing existence, in came Hiro with an almost child-like infectious and dogmatic belief and hope in the infinite possibility of his own destiny, originating from a very adult dissatisfaction with the current direction of his life. Who among us haven’t sometimes wished there was something greater in store for us? So when Hiro first teleports to New York City, his ecstatic cry of pleasure (“Hello, New York!”) at realizing he is in fact something greater, can’t help but make even the most cynical person’s heart swell a few sizes larger.

Fancy Action Now

May 17th – June 17th, 2007
Magic Pony Shop & Gallery

By Kerry Zentner

It is only fitting that I observed one of the most colourful sunsets I have ever seen while walking through Trinity-Bellwoods Park on my way to the Team Macho show opening at Magic Pony Gallery. The way that the pinks and oranges bled into the cooler colours of the clouds, which finally let go by way of barnacle-like ridges into the whites of the sky, gave the impression of a rainbow running along the length of the horizon, disappearing on one side into the forest and into the cityscape on the other. Indeed, here it seemed like I was already inside a Team Macho painting, so it’s no wonder that Toronto has spawned this vibrant art collective.

As far as art collectives go, Team Macho crops up somewhere between The Royal Art Lodge and Paper Rad: not quite as cryptic as the former, and not quite as psychedelic as the latter, but claiming their own strong ground in the middle. Composed of five former art-school misfits from Sheridan and OCAD (where I believe a few of them are now TAs), Team Macho has managed to fuse a number of disparate styles, media, and personal interests under one umbrella. Living and working together in the same house, they’ve managed to produce large quantities of art and have amassed a loyal group of enthusiasts. Their physical exteriors (as reported by the flyer for their show, their book cover, indeed their own art) are coiffed, predominantly bespectacled, highly mustachioed, and often obscured by a sweater. Of course, that is to say little of their internal existence. Is it just as mustachioed as their external one? I went to this event in hopes of gleaning some shard of illumination into the phenomenon of their art.

The hype for this show was quite high. Of the friends I call on to accompany me, ALL of them are already planning to go. Yet even with that awareness in mind, I was not prepared for the sheer volume of clientele. I don’t think I have ever previously seen Magic Pony as full as it is on this night. Art school kids, a designation to which I belong, spill forth from the poor overstuffed shop’s little glass mouth and into the cooler, though more fetid grounds of garbage night on Queen St. Cardboard cutout mobiles of Team Macho’s five beaming heads dangle in the window display, surrounded by hundreds of luminously painted ping-pong balls (an homage to their favourite sport). After a period of adjustment, my friends and I weave our way in through the living parade of colours that seem to flaunt themselves at every Magic Pony event. The chaotic vibrancy of the crowd also mirrors the aesthetic of the art, and for at least one moment, this Technicolor conglomeration of urbanites, with their various oddities, including a binocular-shaped juice box, is reminiscent of an episode of the British TV comedy Nathan Barley, though with a far more likeable demeanor. (For the initiated: I half expected to observe a ‘Geek Pie’ hairdo.) Such is the art world. I finally fight my way through and make it to the art.

If consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative, then it would seem that inconsistency is also a refuge of the highly imaginative. The art adorns the walls with as much deliberate incongruity as the subject matter it contains. Nearly every piece is utterly different from the ones surrounding it, where small pieces of lined scrap paper are roommates to large resin-covered woodblock paintings. Some of the art has even ended up on the ceiling, and the overall effect is devastating to the optical system, not to mention the feng shui. But then, that is the precise ingenuity behind the show. Team Macho seem to have taken the more formidable art-school crimes (namely, having multiple graphical styles in concert and not sticking to a preferred medium, forget about subject matter and composition) and turned them to their advantage by way of employing them in excess. They are so consistent in their inconsistencies that they have formed a wholly new and uniform creature out of them, a web-work that traps your subconscious at its least-organized.

The art is a vortex to a master dimension where each and every creature is spawned from an entirely different species of existence. No consistent natural laws prevail. A lumberjack drinks from a pinkly glowing robot boot while nearby a helicopter sits aside a large cooked chicken with a halo of light around its head. Above this, the sky turns into a lake, bleeding upwards into a canoe upon which sits a man and an owl whose antlers are filled with a dozen laser-shooting light bulbs firing off in all directions, hitting an enormous penguin bust in the back of the head. Amazingly, this collage of elements makes up less than an eighth of the entire image.

Not all the pieces are this frenzied. In one, a distinguished man at a table sits nervously colouring in the black spaces of a giant crossword puzzle. In another, a tennis player readies to swing for his ball, seemingly normal until you notice that according to his shadow, he is several feet in the air. These are generally the work of fewer members of Team Macho. The pieces that will define the five of them as a collective are the ones in which they’ve each gotten their hands dirty, and these are the most expressive ones, and given to horrendous and inconceivable chaos, as if a black hole had itself been torn, releasing all its multifarious novelties upon the world. Team Macho has succeeded in making static imagery for the ADD generation. It never quite feels cohesive to me, but there is a method to the madness. Or in this case, the madness rather seems to be the method, and vice versa.

I come out of my art coma and back into the shifting tonalities of the gallery space. Steve and Kristin, the super-friendly proprietors, are being suctioned around by various competing social factions and I get only three words in edgewise, “Hey, Steve. I…” before he’s whisked into posing for some local paparazzo. The Space channel is filming in one corner and camera flashes are going off intermittently. I don’t even attempt to speak to Team Macho itself. My own artistic collaborators and I leave, feeling mildly affronted cranially by all the activity, and ready to turn off our minds.

When I return a few days later to get a better look at some of the art and pick up a copy of the book, the gallery is nearly empty and seems an entirely healthier creature. By this time, nearly all the artwork has been sold. Steve mentions that I missed the unveiling and demolition of the cake which they had fashioned for the event, the cake itself being an ingredient of the central painting on the far wall, reading, “Team Macho Rulez”. Though I recognize such self-adulation as a joke, I have to wonder how far one can take that joke (when you have a cardboard cutout of your own head as introduction to your art) before it becomes actual egotism. It’s all in good fun though, and that’s the Team Macho vibe. In a way, the joke sort of was being played on us, from the collective’s inception. It all began with the Atrocity Bible, a book conceived solely to house their most degenerate imagery. In talking about their origins, Team Macho have said, “it started out with a focus on drawing the stuff we knew could never pass for actual drawing, and then as we moved into it more seriously…we got better at it.”

Team Macho teaches us that, whatever tension exists between seemingly disparate components, we can still work together to support an interesting and active artistic community in Toronto. After my friends and I left that night, we didn’t end up going home to our beds, we sat around and drew. Because that’s what it’s about.

*Yawn*

Sorry about that. I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I have not slept in days. My recent insomnia has been caused by a recent high school reunion. It wasn’t my high school reunion, but it was nice to catch up with the cheerleaders and gymnasts. Many of them have become yummy mummies; others have remained as I remember them — soaked in beer, on all fours in a public park. Every school had those, God bless them. Bless those like-minded spirits, here to have a good time and gobble every inch of my power pack. Read the rest of this entry »