So here we are. It’s the year’s first ANDY. Only this time I’m behind the scenes, and I’m a bit nervous. I really hope you like the issue. In the future, I’m sure the layout will be nicer, the writing more expressive, and the criticism more humorous and true. But for now, we have this. What is this, anyway?
I think ANDY can be so many things. There’s the old standbys: interviews with artists, shrewd pop-culture analysis, and entertainment writing that is actually entertaining, like Bahar’s hilarious and expressive “Bahar’s Book Bag”.
We need all that stuff, but there’s something else ANDY can be. I think we have a great opportunity, being in Hamilton, to see the arts being an active part of this city’s growth. To see what I mean, check out Alex Epp’s thoughtful “Provoking Thoughts”.
Within the last 30 years, Hamilton has been trying to dust itself off after the decline of the industry that built it. You may have seen t-shirts around saying “Art is the New Steel”, and while the slogan might be unintentionally dismissive to the people who have lost their jobs, the shirts have a message: that when there’s nothing left, you have to make something yourself. And part of what people are making is art.
James Street North is the go-to example. In the 90’s, the street was written off by city councilors who said that shops would never return to the area. Now it’s the site of the city’s biggest arts street festival of the year, Supercrawl.
We have the chance to see why art mattrs in the growth of a community, and hopefully ANDY can be a part of documenting it.
Fraser Caldwell
Sports Editor
Somewhere in that adolescent transition between The Land Before Time and Trainspotting, I discovered the Rock’em Sock’em series.
It was the summer of ‘98 and I was at the peak of my interest in Canada’s national game, and my Dad – eager to feed the puck frenzy – had picked up a used copy of Don Cherry’s 1996 effort at a local firesale.
The jacket was frayed and scarred from use, but Cherry’s grinning mug and his trusty pooch were still visible. The tape itself was a wreck. One particular Mario Lemieux scoring play was so obscured by grain and tracking bands that it took a TSN special years later to make me realize its brilliance.
But despite the despicable quality of the thing, I was struck. Cherry’s compilation had everything that a young sports fan needed. The dekes, the hits, the saves and even the friendly health and safety advice handed out with that trademark gruff paternalism. It all resonated with me.
And for many years that early identification was enough to keep my faith with Grapes. When I met him at the age of 15 – at a meaningless midseason Hamilton Kilty-B’s game – I stammered through an autograph request like any other pubescent Canuck. Cherry was still an immortal for me.
But there’s only so long that one can ignore the man’s flaws, so loudly blared as they are on national television. Eventually the continuous bigotry and old-guard stubbornness contaminate even the most high-minded of messages.
My personal process of disillusionment with Cherry had been ongoing for several years, and I’ve long since stopped reading Coach’s Corner as gospel. But on Saturday night, Grapes embarked on a rant that truly put the final nail in a coffin I’d been steadily sealing.
That night, Cherry took his customary seat beside Canada’s favourite yes-man with his verbal guns fully cocked. In his teleprompter sights was Leafs General Manager Brian Burke and a supposedly insidious recruiting policy that neglected Toronto’s teeming local talent pool in favour of the hated Yank.
And for nearly five minutes he fired away, spewing a perversely patriotic and unnecessarily aggressive rant devoid of logic and held up by only a single meaningless number: Zero. The number of Ontario-born players currently lacing up their skates for the Blue and White.
You see, Don has found the source of the Buds’ longstanding and well-documented struggles. It’s not the green goaltending tandem that shies away from a puck as if it bore leprosy. It’s not the defensive unit with the attention span of a seven year-old at Halloween.
In fact, the cancerous element at the heart of Toronto’s continual struggles is their lack of talent from their home province. Why does this inherently matter? Well, because as Don loudly points out, everyone else has someone around who calls Ontario home.
After all, even the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins – located dead in the centre of the United States’ blue-blooded hockey belt – had seven Ontarians on their active roster while they raced to the title.
Cherry goes further, and leans on the staid tenets of the tried-and-true “Home Cooking Theory.” Because as Grapes and a legion of fellow amateur psychiatrists the world over argue, players are more driven to perform in their home markets.
With Granny and the rest of the tribe in the stands, an athlete supposedly feels more obligated to perform and his or her efforts are bolstered by the increased pressure and scrutiny.
Lastly, Cherry postulates that the Maple Leafs under Burke are cruelly robbing Ontario’s hoard of aspiring hockey players of crucial local role models. How are the province’s young puck-herders supposed to strain toward greatness when their beloved Buds are conspiring to keep them from donning the Blue and White?
Let me address all three of these grievances with a little more argumentation than I offered upon first witnessing Cherry’s diatribe (when my only recourse was a broken-record chorus of the term ‘horsesh**t’).
In rebuttal of the first, numerically derived complaint let me offer a few figures of my own. Yahoo’s Greg Wyshynski, in a Puck Daddy blog post regarding the rant on Monday provided a plus/minus rating for each NHL team in which an Ontario-born player was an addition and an American one was a subtraction.
The most successful teams in the NHL at the time of writing were the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks, the leaders of the Eastern and Western Conference standings respectively. Both squads find themselves in the minus column, with the Rangers boasting a minus two (six Ontarians versus eight Americans) and the Canucks a minus one (five Ontarians versus six Americans).
How about a team actually located in the province? The Ottawa Senators, the Leafs perennial opponents in the “Battle of Ontario” are also a minus squad (five Ontarians versus six Americans).
Wonder why? Because general managers are aware of a very basic biological fact: talent on the rink is not the sole genetic property of residents of Ontario. Some very promising hockey players hail from across a large body of water known as the Atlantic Ocean. Others even call the United States (gasp!) home.
What about the assertion that I’ve derisively billed as the “Home Cooking Theory?” I find this whole concept a little confusing on a basic psychological level. One’s friends and family are – by any conventional definition – the people most likely to be supportive of one’s endeavours.
Excluding those players with lingering Daddy issues, why should an athlete be particularly motivated to perform by the presence of those who already adore him or her for earning millions of dollars to play a game for a living?
Doesn’t it make somewhat more sense that playing in a place where members of the national media practically outnumber the sell-out crowd might provide a more propulsive source of pressure? How can a person plying their trade in a place that bills itself as hockey’s Mecca require more motivation?
Now to Cherry’s last complaint, the idea that Burke and his organization are somehow failing their community by virtue of not parading an Ontario resident around the ice. This concept makes a fundamental assumption that I cannot accept.
That basic tenet is that a person in Burke’s position has an inherent obligation to the area in which he serves to provide inspiration for its residents in the form of locally bred role models. Being a lifelong fan of the Blue and White (and incidentally, masochist) and longtime hockey player, I have to argue otherwise.
I had two primary hockey idols as a young and aspiring goalkeeper, only one of whom was a Maple Leaf and neither of whom was Ontarian by birth. The first was the acrobatic Felix Potvin, who, while he donned the Blue and White for several seasons, was as French by extraction as the road signs in his native Chicoutimi.
The second was an American (gasp!) who had the good sense to never cross the border and quite naturally won a Stanley Cup. That man was Mike Richter, whose inspirational force in my case derived from his Yale education and the dogged playing style that saw him succeed despite his size.
Never did it cross my mind to idolize a player simply because I could walk down the block and shake his father’s hand, or play shinny on a Sunday with his younger brother. Because that’s not how idols are chosen.
We look up to those we choose to on the basis of individualized criteria, ones that aren’t geographically or ethnically driven. We do so because something in them resonates with us.
That’s why I simply cannot idolize Don Cherry any longer.
Myles Herod
Entertainment Editor
I awoke hours after they were announced, my cellphone illuminated with missed messages reflecting ire and disheartenment. Oscar nominations had arrived, not merely soft, but more akin to vapour – a fleeting, if not sickly sweet scent - whisked breezily from memory as soon as it wafted by.
Call it sour grapes, but my acerbic stance comes valid. Surely one can shift through the nine competing Best Pictures nominations and assess them as prominently listless entries. Compared to last years rough and tumble field of Inception, The Social Network, Winter’s Bone and 127 Hours - this year’s hopefuls lobby like a campaign on behalf of America, promulgating greatness in the face of past adversity.
Case in point: The Help, a whitewash reimagining of African American maids during the volatile civil rights movement. Was it popular? Yep. Was it lightweight? Most definitely. Did it subtly reinforce racial stereotypes while pulling the wool over moviegoer’s eyes? Oh, hell yes!
In fact, it’s almost as shameless as a 9/11 fantasy that ties together a fatherless child, a golden key and a mute geriatric who answers with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ inscribed on his palms. Wait. That was nominated, too? Oh my God.
Sentiment is where Hollywood’s heart lays, and while the previous two pander, they remain relative long shots over the swagger and schmaltz of Moneyball and The Descendants – the latter a clear frontrunner.
Pitt and Clooney’s chops universally typify quality. Sadly, their pictures, oh so mediocre, seduced voters in the same vein as the Emperors New Clothes – riding their wave of clout to short attention spans and gutless film critics alike. I will emphasize again – these films will not be remembered. Not next year nor ten years from now.
In contrast, a bone must be thrown to The Tree of Life, a surprise Best Picture nominee, sporting not only a wonderfully superior Brad Pitt performance but also a vision that remains wildly opaque to even the most seasoned viewer. It makes one question if voters even watched it. Was it just thrown in to shake things up? One to appease the art house sect? Whatever the case, fucking eh.
Like any year, actors are obtusely shut out in favour of sympathy votes or outside influence. Chalk it up to the current air of American politics and the GOP race, because it’s the only theory I have behind the heinous exclusion of Drive, or the presumed lock of Albert Brook’s for his sinister supporting work. I still get goose bumps thinking about his scene of soothing a dying friend upon viciously slitting his wrist. Mmmhmm, villainy at its finest.
2011 is apparently the year politics made Hollywood their whipping boy for gore and sex – frank, uncomfortable sex. Michael Fassbender’s brave work in Shame, also a presumed shoe-in, was sorely absence. His substitute? Damian Bichir in A Better Life. Yeah, no one else has heard of him either. Seems that Fassbender’s authenticity as a sex starved, chronic masturbator hit too close for some. You know, the same guys that consistently nominate actresses whenever they play a prostitute. Can you smell my cynicism for this hypocrisy?
One last note on Shame: I have a distinct and dejected sense that Fassbender’s snub stems from the film’s rating rather than performance. Marked with an uncommercial NC-17 (equivalent to the once used X), its freedom to confront nudity and graphic subject matter without censorship scared the conservative academy to the bone. So what does this mean? In short, a vote for Shame would have propelled production for similar projects. But therein lies the power of Oscar – ignore it and the artistic risk becomes useless and too great.
A similar argument can be made for Cahrlize Theron in Young Adult. Comical, yet equally visceral, her foul-mouthed portrayal, alongside a handicapped Patton Oswald, subscribed to a reality of people unable to grow up. Dark and awkward, it just might be their finest performances, too. Again, though, too icky-poo.
Perhaps claims of political infiltration are a bit much. Certainly I don’t have psychical proof. What I do know though is this year’s nominations are littered with nostalgia, oozing with it, in fact. The charming, if not gimmicky silence of The Artist to the overwrought origin of cinema in Martin Scorcese’s Hugo – Hollywood has always been a sucker for narcissism.
Change has to come. Challenging films must be noticed. The Oscars oughta grow a pair because with each passing year I’m finding it harder and harder to distinguish the relevance between it and the MTV Movie Awards.
Jemma Wolfe,
Senior ANDY Editor
Friday Nov. 25 is a day McMaster will never forget. For the first time in our university’s history, our football team brought home the Vanier Cup after quite possibly the most exciting game the league has ever seen. It was so thrilling, so emotional and so euphoric that even I – an arts editor who has never played a sport in her life – was screaming and jumping around after Tyler Crapigna’s winning kick.
But perhaps sports and arts aren’t so unrelated. Perhaps it isn’t so bizarre for the arts to be interested in sports, and vice versa. No one can deny the fundamental relationship between music and games, for instance. From ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ and its intrinsic association to baseball to the iconic theme song for Hockey Night in Canada, music is an integral part of the sporting experience.
I can’t quite imagine a hockey game without ‘Kernkraft 400’ by Zombie Nation playing at some point, or AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ coming on during time-outs. Even the Superbowl’s half-time show has become a fabled platform for superstar bands to perform on, and is annually awaited with much anticipation.
I wonder what songs were running through the heads of Mac’s football team as they practiced at B.C. Place. What tunes did they blast in the locker room as they donned their equipment with nervous fingers? What lyrics raced through their head as they began overtime, on the precarious precipice of victory? Finally, what ecstatic song became the celebratory anthem of their after party?
Sports and song – a happy couple with a long history and a prosperous future. Congrats to our Mac men on their Vanier Cup win; you made one arts editor proud.
Myles Herod, Entertainment Editor
Some days, I wake up thinking that things can’t be all that bad in the entertainment industry. Then, I remember the state of Hollywood comedies. Trust me, it’s pitiful.
Most comedies – be it movies, TV shows, whatever – work for a handful of reasons. Some toy with our beliefs and values. Others throw something unexpected at the audience, shocking our senses. The rest take something familiar and exaggerate it to point of absurdity.
Particularly in the third category, comedies nowadays are gutless. They feed the audience exactly what they would expect while expending the absolute minimum of creative thinking.
No one really values intelligence anymore. Today’s entertainment is manufactured by suits and statistics.
Sadly, the mainstream mentality seems unaware of the stifling conservatism to which it has grown accustomed.
Just think how little nourishment a good new idea receives, and how devoid of ambition the horizon currently appears. Name any Adam Sandler film: Click, Just Go With It, Grown Ups, Bed Time Stories, etc. The titles alone suggest monotony.
Even worse was The Hangover II, a sequel so unnecessary, it dismally found itself rehashing the very same premise of its popular predecessor, only this time with a smoking monkey. Pathetic.
Consider 2007, when Michael Cera reined and ‘bromance’ comedies ruled. Was it better? Perhaps not, but the likes of I Love You Man and the superb Superbad are treasured memories compared to the trite of 2011.
Even Adam Sandler was strangely more versatile back then, too. Recall Funny People? Or dare I mention Punch Drunk Love, which arguably contains his best on-screen performance?
Along with the uptick of big-screen remakes, which are hardly worth anyone’s breath (unless there’s artistic merit to it), the ultimate default of cinematic comedy has been the ‘buddy’ picture. More specifically, the black, Asian and white buddy picture.
Am I the only one who would rather watch paint dry than see another bi-racial pairing of a popular standup comedian or action star with a white-bread ninny? It seems like every other month Hollywood blows its load on this tried cliché. Luckily, Jackie Chan is nowhere to be found. Possibly deported?
Now, I’m certainly not suggesting that every comedy needs to be Oscar-worthy. Far from it. I love the screwball shtick. In fact, Dumb & Dumber and Borat are some of my favorites.
The difference is, those at least had creativity and soul in their gags, instead of the hackneyed mediocrity that grows more and more prevalent with each passing year.
