The Newspaper March 10

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Students cast their ballot for who will govern the student body in the UTSU elections, which run from March 8-10. March 10, 2011 University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly Vol. XXXIII N0. 1 the newspaper HERE’S LOOKIN’ AT YOU, “FORD NATION” BELOW BODI BOLD Allan Lanteigne, a 49-year-old accounting clerk in the U of T Financial Services Department, was killed late last week in his home at the corner of Ossing- ton and Manchester Ave. While the circumstances of his death remained unclear when the newspaper went to print, police say his body showed “obvious signs of trauma.” Lanteigne was last seen leav- ing work on Wednesday after- noon. When he did not show up for work the next day, one of his friends went to check up on him at home and, after no one answered the door, alerted the police around 3 p.m. U of T accountant murdered GEOFF VENDEVILLE Police seek the public’s help in solving homicide MARTÍN WALDMAN The latest in a series of com- plaints brought forward to the UTSU Chief Returning Officer (CRO) is raising new ques- tions about the procedure of this year’s UTSU elections. On Tuesday night, Michael Scott, Continued on page 3 a U of T undergraduate student and candidate for the UTSU board of directors, filed a for- mal complaint to CRO Daniel Lo regarding this year’s ballot for president. The ballot featured the name of the only eligible candidate, Danielle Sandhu, along with two boxes for voters to choose Candidate points to violation as symptomatic of larger issues behind UTSU elections UTSU election complaints abound GEOFF VENDEVILLE Looking at a map of last year’s municipal election results ward by ward, it seems the borders of “Ford Country,” as the may- or’s political base is commonly known, extend only so far as the outer limits of the pre-amalga- mation City of Toronto. How- ever, in a detailed study of the election results, Zack Taylor, in his last year of a PhD at U of T, reaches a subtler conclusion: Continued on page 2 “Ford was not shut out of down- town and Smitherman was not shut out of the suburbs – both had significant support in both the core and the suburbs.” Rob Ford won 29% of the vote in the old City of Toronto, while more than half of George Smither- man’s support came from the suburbs. While Taylor agrees there is a clear discrepancy between the suburban and urban vote, he claims the media’s depic- tion of the election results as U of T PhD student reexamines urban-suburban split in last municipal election Mapping “Ford Nation” pink wards and blue wards is misleading. “It presents a false image that Smitherman had al- most no support in the suburbs and that everyone in the former City of Toronto is a bicycle rid- ing, latte drinking pinko, when in fact almost 30% of those peo- ple voted for Ford.” Taylor also dispels any doubt that centrist Joe Pantalone’s bid splintered the anti-Ford vote, costing Smitherman the elec- GEOFF VENDEVILLE MICHAEL SCOTT from marked “Yes” and “No.” Scott believes this contravenes the UTSU’s own election regu- lations which state that the bal- lot must contain the votes of “In Favour,” “Against,” or “Abstain” for the candidate. Scott believes that putting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the ballot is a suit- able replacement for ‘in favour’ or ‘against,’ but that removing the choice to abstain changes the voting dynamic. “The ab- stain choice is very important because it allows students and members of UTSU to construc- tively state that they are dissat- isfied with an elections process that only delivers them one can- didate. Without it there is no constructive outlet, and the net result is that many people will either spoil their ballot or won’t show up to vote.” When asked to comment on the matter, Chief Returning Officer Daniel Lo referred the Continued on page 3

description

the newspaper issue published March 10

Transcript of The Newspaper March 10

Page 1: The Newspaper March 10

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Students cast their ballot for who will govern the student body in the UTSU elections, which run from March 8-10.

March 10, 2011University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly Vol. XXXIII N0. 1

the newspaper

HERE’S LOOKIN’ AT YOU,“FORD NATION”

BELOW

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Allan Lanteigne, a 49-year-old accounting clerk in the U of T Financial Services Department, was killed late last week in his home at the corner of Ossing-ton and Manchester Ave. While the circumstances of his death remained unclear when the newspaper went to print, police

say his body showed “obvious signs of trauma.”

Lanteigne was last seen leav-ing work on Wednesday after-noon. When he did not show up for work the next day, one of his friends went to check up on him at home and, after no one answered the door, alerted the police around 3 p.m.

U of T accountant murdered

GeOFF VendeVille

Police seek the public’s help in solving homicide

MarTÍn WaldMan

The latest in a series of com-plaints brought forward to the UTSU Chief Returning Offi cer (CRO) is raising new ques-tions about the procedure of this year’s UTSU elections. On Tuesday night, Michael Scott,

Continued on page 3

a U of T undergraduate student and candidate for the UTSU board of directors, fi led a for-mal complaint to CRO Daniel Lo regarding this year’s ballot for president.

The ballot featured the name of the only eligible candidate, Danielle Sandhu, along with two boxes for voters to choose

Candidate points to violation as symptomatic of larger issues behind UTSU elections

UTSU election complaints abound

GeOFF VendeVille

Looking at a map of last year’s municipal election results ward by ward, it seems the borders of “Ford Country,” as the may-or’s political base is commonly known, extend only so far as the outer limits of the pre-amalga-mation City of Toronto. How-ever, in a detailed study of the election results, Zack Taylor, in his last year of a PhD at U of T, reaches a subtler conclusion: Continued on page 2

“Ford was not shut out of down-town and Smitherman was not shut out of the suburbs – both had signifi cant support in both the core and the suburbs.” Rob Ford won 29% of the vote in the old City of Toronto, while more than half of George Smither-man’s support came from the suburbs.

While Taylor agrees there is a clear discrepancy between the suburban and urban vote, he claims the media’s depic-tion of the election results as

U of T PhD student reexamines urban-suburban split in last municipal election

Mapping “Ford Nation”

pink wards and blue wards is misleading. “It presents a false image that Smitherman had al-most no support in the suburbs and that everyone in the former City of Toronto is a bicycle rid-ing, latte drinking pinko, when in fact almost 30% of those peo-ple voted for Ford.”

Taylor also dispels any doubt that centrist Joe Pantalone’s bid splintered the anti-Ford vote, costing Smitherman the elec-

GeOFF VendeVille

HERE’S LOOKIN’ AT YOU,“FORD NATION”

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from marked “Yes” and “No.” Scott believes this contravenes the UTSU’s own election regu-lations which state that the bal-lot must contain the votes of “In Favour,” “Against,” or “Abstain” for the candidate.

Scott believes that putting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the ballot is a suit-able replacement for ‘in favour’ or ‘against,’ but that removing the choice to abstain changes the voting dynamic. “The ab-stain choice is very important because it allows students and members of UTSU to construc-tively state that they are dissat-isfi ed with an elections process that only delivers them one can-didate. Without it there is no constructive outlet, and the net result is that many people will either spoil their ballot or won’t show up to vote.”

When asked to comment on the matter, Chief Returning Offi cer Daniel Lo referred the

Continued on page 3

Page 2: The Newspaper March 10

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Arts EditorSuzie Balabuch

2 March 10, 2011

the newspaperEditor-in-Chief

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HART HOUSE HAIR PLACE tion. Although they appealed to like-minded people, even if Pantalone had dropped out of the race and all his votes had gone to Smitherman – thanks to what Taylor calls the “any-one-but-Ford factor” – Smith-erman would have only won the election by a margin of 0.2%.

The “most remarkable aspect” of the last municipal election, Taylor argues, “was the leap in turn out – an increase of about 29% over the previous three elections.”

But the reason why turn out was exceptionally high remains an open question: “Why is turn out 20-30% higher this time? I don’t think we know the answer. It could be that the recession mobilized people, memories of the garbage strike, stuff like that. Since nobody has polled these questions, we can’t fi nd out from individual people what

Continued from page 1

Ford country

their motivations were.”Professor of Canadian poli-

tics at U of T Nelson Wiseman disputes Taylor’s analysis of the 2010 election, maintaining that the election refl ected a very stark division between the city and suburbs. “There were two num-bers cited in the study. One said that Ford got 29% in the city, suggesting that isn’t that bad. But, really, 29% is actually quite low when you got 50% overall. The second said Smitherman got half of his vote from outside the City of Toronto. Well, if you look at the old City of Toronto, it makes up 700,000-800,000 people, the whole city makes up 2.5m, so it’s a very small per-centage.”

What is clear is that Ford’s vic-tory came as a great surprise to many Torontonians, especially those living downtown. “When you read Christopher Hume’s

columns [in the Toronto Star] after the election,” Taylor says, “you can tell he was sort of shell shocked, because in his comfort-able perch in Riverdale he’s not really exposed to the currents of the way people are talking and thinking in the old Metro sub-urbs. And a lot of downtowners felt that way.” Nelson Wiseman, too, admits Ford’s election was very unexpected: “It was so im-probable having Ford as mayor. I fi nd municipal politics more exciting now than I ever have in my life.”

A draft of Zack Taylor’s 2010 Toronto Election Atlas can be downloaded from the U of T Magazine website. He will be presenting his research at the Canadian Political Science As-sociation’s annual conference at Wilfrid Laurier University, May 16-18 2011.

Page 3: The Newspaper March 10

3March 10, 2011 the inside

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newspaper to the official deci-sion with regards to the com-plaint, which stated that “the C.R.O. has investigated and determined the current ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ ballot options have been found to be an acceptable al-ternative to the ‘In Favour’ or ‘Against’ or ‘Abstain’ ballot op-tions based on precedence.”

Michael Scott is not convinced by this reasoning, and believes it show an unfair slant in the UTSU elections process.

“Systemically there are some issues that make it difficult for people who wish to challenge the incumbents to even run,” Scott said, noting that prospec-tive candidates are required to collect 200 signatures to be eligible for a UTSU election, compared to 100 signatures to run in a federal election, or 25 to run in a provincial election. “The democratic process is bet-tered by having more choice and more people running, not by

Continued from page 1Elections

Lanteigne has been described as a “kind,” “gentle,” and “gen-erous” man. Detective Sergeant Daniel Neilson, who is leading the investigation, told the Na-tional Post on Sunday: “We’re talking to a lot of people and that’s what we have to do in this case. We can’t find any en-emies, he’s a hardworking man, worked at the University of To-ronto, and worked in the cater-ing business. He’s not known to police, so the challenge is trying to determine the motive.” Neil-son could not release any more information since the investiga-tion is still ongoing. Lanteigne’s colleagues in the Department of Financial Services were un-available to comment.

Police are asking anyone who may have seen Mr. Lanteigne on Wednesday, March 2, or anyone with any other relevant information to contact Det. Sgt. Nielsen at 416-808-7398 or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS (8477).

Continued from page 1Homicide

having arbitrary restrictions to test the meddle of candidates.”

Scott says he will be appealing the decision regarding his com-plaint, adding that he “really does not think the CRO should be ruling on a decision that he made.”

To this most recent complaint about ballots, one could add several others in the preceding week, including accusations of “aggressive campaigning,” cam-paigning within six metres of a library, overlapping posters, and for “not including an envi-ronmental protection and recy-cling phrase on a leaflet.”

Election time is a typical out-let for finger-pointing and minor complaints, but more substan-tive concerns with the overall structure and nature of campus elections are an important topic to be addressed by all those in-volved in the near future.

Page 4: The Newspaper March 10

4 March 10, 2011the inside

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Trinity College Art Show If These Walls honours the old with the new

If these walls could talk

suzie balabuch

Though it is a small population in comparison to other academ-ic communities, visual arts tal-ent abounds at the University of Toronto. The opportunity to see the artistic output of U of T’s best young artists is some-times hindered by the ambigu-ous themes of many student art shows.

Nobody knows this better than Trinity College Art Show curators Elisa Pelaia and Shan-non Garden-Smith. “We would put a call out, students would respond by giving us submis-sions, and while we liked the work, we found that there was like no cohesion between any of the pieces. It was just like a gen-eral show with works done by students. Even if we tried to put a theme on the show, we found that no one could really follow it, because it’s all work that’s al-ready created.”

At this year’s Trinity College Art Show, If These Walls, Pelaia and Garden Smith are looking to shake things up. Having al-ready worked together on the previous two years’ shows, Pe-laia and Garden-Smith decided to completely change their fo-cus. Instead of agonizing about what collective theme they could come up with in order to bring some order to the collection, they decided to complement the historic site wherein the show takes place every year.

Pelaia says, “Every year the Trinity College Art Show is housed in Seeley Hall….We knew were were going to have the hall for this year’s show, and we were just thinking, ‘What is

something that we can like re-ally take it out the box and do something different?”

Traditionally, U of T’s Trin-ity College is known for its ties to International Relations and Political Science, as well as for its stunning architecture. Pelaia and Garden-Smith chose to ad-dress both.

“Since Trinity is this really old building, and this really large institution with old traditions, we wanted to do something that’s just the polar opposite of that. We wanted a juxtaposition between what Trinity is and what it’s known for, and the art that’s going to be displayed, and basically how art can be used to modernize an older institu-tion.”

Although Pelaia acknowl-edges that the sheer number of submissions is less than in past years, the overall strength of the “site-specifi c installations” will not disappoint. “Instead of the artists giving us the work, and us doing something with it, the artists are very much playing a role in how they want their work to be. It’s a much more collab-orative experience over all.”

All in all, Pelaia wants If These Walls to be a connect-ing experience. “This year, we want people to pay attention to the relationship between the art and the hall, and we really want the audience to interact with the space as well as with the instal-lations.”

If These Walls is running from March 10-12 at Trinity College’s Seeley Hall. The open-ing reception on Thursday, March 10th runs from 7-10 pm. For more information, visit www.trinity.utoronto.ca

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Page 5: The Newspaper March 10

Yellow Face puts a smile on audience face

eVanna FOlKenFOlK

Just as a joke can slice tension right out the rooms of heated lov-ers and sparring spouses, so humor can exorcise it out of a society. As Vonnegut before him, and Chekhov before Vonnegut, famed playwright David Henry Hwang uses his co-medic genius to reveal – and at times revel in – one of the most po-litically, psychologically and philo-sophically potent issues involving humankind. Racial discrimination, and the concept of race itself, are brought into question in this re-markable play about the meaning of nationality, community, and identity.

Invoking as many forms of racial prejudice as he can muster in one play, Hwang uses his lighthearted-ness and humor like brushstrokes on a canvas, painting what is in-deed a grave subject with kind of charm and wit impossible to resist. As the name of the play suggests, Hwang’s deprecating play was in-spired by the existence of “yellow facing” in which Caucasian actors are hired into Asian roles in order to appeal to a higher demographic and, more indicatively, due to the absence of adequate Asian actors, as suggested in the play itself. From Bruce Lee being passed up to play the role of an Asian Kung-Fu mas-ter in the movie Kung Fu in favor

with such instances of racial dis-crimination.

Hwang uses this idea as a foun-dation for his exploration of race and its relationship with identity and belonging. As every character twists and withers in and out of racial stereotypes, racial identities, and even races themselves, the en-tire questions of race becomes just that – a question. What does race mean and what characteristics is it inherent to? What manner of ra-cial acknowledgment is appropri-ate and necessary, and when does it become prejudice? How fl uid is race between cultures and within them? It is a play that presents many questions and provides few answers, perhaps in order to cham-pion the very notion of tolerance in its refusal to come to clear conclu-sions.

As Hwang weaves his way around this questions, he manage seam-lessly to blend the autobiographi-cal with the dramatic, interlacing farce and fi ction around the gravity of the victimization experienced by many Chinese Americans in the last few decades, and the many before. He uses the irrefutability of history to bring it light, and then turns the solemnity of this information in on itself until its absurdity comes spill-ing out like guts. His invitation is a provocation not just to think about these issues, but to question their very existence as issues.of a white actor, to the casting of a Caucasian Jonathan Pryce in Miss Saigon, American cinema is ripe

5March 10, 2011 the inside

Pop group 2AM Club is touring Canadian powerhouse Down With Webster, playing in Toronto on March 12th at Massey Hall. The band, made up of lead singer Marc Griffi n, emcee Tyler Cordy, guitar-ist Matt Reagan, keyboardist Dave Dalton, drummer Ian O’Neill, and bass guitarist Matt Warshauer, is fresh off of a college tour across the States and is thrilled to be back in the city they all love. Marc Griffi n recently spoke with the newspaper, discussing inspirations, philoso-phy, and college days.

How did you come up with the band name?2AM Club is actually a bar in the small town of Mill Valley, Califor-nia, where I’m from. It was just the local watering hole where we would stay and drink after we would re-cord demos. I was actually just in there, with my girlfriend at the time, and I was like "Do you have any ideas for what we should call ourselves?" and she was like, "You

2AMshould just call yourselves 'The 2AM Club', 'cause you're always in the 2AM club." And, the rest is his-tory.

What are some of the biggest infl uences on your music?Everyone in the band is infl uenced by something different, but as a whole, as a collective, we're just infl uenced by really great pop mu-sic. Whether it be Motown, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, the Supremes, or whether it's Kanye West, or Justin Timberlake, or the Killers. It's those pop acts that re-ally stand out, where you're just like "Man, they're writing great songs, and there's nothing you can do about it." I think that's what we aspire to be.

Do you have a band "philoso-phy", or motto that you apply to your career and music?We just wanna be happy, you know? We're like young men, but I think we've been around long enough to know that not all that comes from success, it comes from inside. I think together, with the music that we write, and with everything we do, we want to try to fulfi ll our-selves. I think if we do that then we give ourselves the greatest op-portunity to make our fans feel the

same way.

You've toured all over the States, including a lot of col-lege campuses. What was that experience like?It was like sweaty, doing base-ments, attics, lawns, foreign locos, you know, it was weird, but it was amazing. That's kind of how we've been sharpening our skills and learning how to really rock a crowd. Now, when we play, bigger tours or proper venues, people can still feel that energy that kinda came from just going wild as college kids.

What did you think the fi rst time you heard Down With Web-ster?I'm into it, you know? I see what Down With Webster does as more similar to the kind of music we

used to make, actually, at a certain point. I like the way that they have a blending of styles, which is some-thing we do also. They have the hip hop vibe, but also melodic hooks and singing. The way they rock the crowd, the way the crowd gets into it, that's the best thing. We're really excited to be on tour with them, and share the stage with another band that brings a raw energy that people respond to.

Have you ever been to Toronto before?We've been to the T-dot one time, and it was the best. The thing I love about Toronto, is I'm from San Francisco, but my homebase is now New York City. Toronto is a real hybrid of San Francisco and New York. It has that real, youthful, ar-tistic vibe to it, like the East Village

does, but then at the same time, it's clean and pretty in the way San Francisco is.

As a band, what do you want to achieve in music?We want to write the best songs possible, and try to change the world a little bit, and just be hap-py people, and be people who are proud of what they're accomplish-ing. Really, at the end of the day, we have great aspirations of success, but we try not to get too caught up in that.

Check out 2AM Club’s Mys-pace page at www.myspace.com/2amclub. For show informa-tion, visit www.masseyhall-toron-to.com/Tickets.

suzie balabuch

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David Hwang’s Yellow Face explores discrimination with a comedic touch at Hart House Theatre

Page 6: The Newspaper March 10

Sketch comedy troupe Reverse Oreo makes a triumphant return to the Sketchfest stage

The way the Oreo crumbles suzie balabuch

“I was trying to call us Morgan Freeman, because it’s been one of my dreams to call a sketch troupe Morgan Freeman, just to see it on the bill. Imagine, ‘And now, Morgan Freeman!’, and it’s like ‘What do you mean?’” This is how the super funny sketch comedian Olivia Coburn describes how Reverse Oreo, the award-winning Toronto-based sketch group, was almost named after the famous thes-pian.

Made up of Olivia Coburn, Adam McNamara, and Jonathan Langdon, the troupe named af-ter “a play on skin colour”, took the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival by storm last year. Win-ners of the Steam Whistle Brew-ing Producers’ Pick Award, the hilarious trio is back for more this Friday, March 11 at Second City for the Best of the Fest En-core Show.

After revealing that she learned of their exciting win on Facebook, Coburn said, “It feels fantastic. It’s just extremely re-warding. It kinda leaves me a little speechless. And it’s also just amazing to be part of the line-up that’s at the Best of the Fest.”

The tight-knit troupe first met at U of T Scarborough, where Coburn first started out her aca-demic journey as, of all things, a Biological Anthropology major. Her life changed when she was bitten by the drama bug.

“I tried acting once in high school, I never took school for it, and then I just thought, ‘Well, I had a lot of fun doing it, so I’m just going to go for it.’ I ended up taking some drama courses, really liked it, and switched my major to Drama and Biological Anthropology. I just kind of fell into my passion.”

It was in UTSC’s sketch com-edy troupe that Coburn, Mc-Namara, and Langdon first got together and formed Reverse Oreo. Although she was ‘the girl’ in her previous troupe, Co-burn praises her troupe mates for not imposing ‘the girl’ status on her.

“I’m really lucky that I found two guys like Jonathan and Adam who are extremely sup-portive, they don’t just write me in as ‘the girlfriend.’ They really let me go with it.”

Describing her career in sketch comedy as a “huge confi-dence-builder”, Coburn is hap-py to report a more general in-clusion of females in the world of sketch comedy. “I was at

Second City Conservatory, and there were actually more girls in my class than guys. That was really wonderful to see.”

Adversity exists even in the hi-larious world of sketch comedy, as Coburn can attest. “There’s always going to be someone out there, that maybe intention-ally or unintentionally, will say something that kinda makes you a little insecure.”

It is her passion for the craft and her love for her team that

keeps this sketch comedian on the stage. “What you have to do is persevere, and keep going.The longer you’re out there, and the more opportunities that you say yes to, the more other peo-ple are going to say yes to you.”

For more information on Re-verse Oreo, visit their Facebook page. To get tickets to The Best of the Fest, visit www.second-city.com.

6 March 10, 2011

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Page 7: The Newspaper March 10

The rap

Definitely odd swagJess sTOKes

If you regularly listen to new hip-hop, you’ll most likely be all too familiar with the Los Angeles rap collective Odd Fu-ture. OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) has dominated the industry news in the past month, but after three mixtapes and nine solo albums, long-time fans are hatin’ on the tide of new followers. They are the new generation of main-stream west coast gangster rap, and while some people might resent that comment, the recent explosion of OFWGKTA on the Internet will cement that claim.

What distinguishes OFWGK-TA from other rap crews is that, up until now, they’ve managed to stay under the radar while producing solid tracks. Fur-thermore, many of their fans in-clude other hip-hop artists like Das Racist and Mos Def. Kanye has taken to openly publicizing

his admiration of their work on his twitter helping to propel the wave of recent publicity. The number of YouTube views of their song “Yonkers” doubled to almost 2 million following his tweet claiming the video as the current best of 2011.

Even the popular chillwave

artist Toro y Moi (aka Chazwick Bundick) dropped a remix of Ty-ler the Creators track “French” on March 1. The result? A psy-chedelic interpretation of the original song that’s both dis-tinctly chillwave and gangster rap. TYM manages to meld two

diametrically opposing genres together to create a fresh and intriguing sound. While I’m personally not on board with Tyler’s lyrics, I respect the risk the Bundick has taken and I’d say the final product is pretty damn solid given the challenge at hand.

With the upsurge of media attention currently surround-ing the crew, the sharks have been circling. But word is that major record labels have been approaching them for quite some time with no luck, sug-gesting another characteristic of Odd Future that separates them from other popular rap groups – they refuse to sell out. Although members are begin-ning to make deals, (re: Mel-lowHype’s recent signing with Fat Possum) most of the mem-bers have yet to make deals.

Given the size of their body of music and time since exposure I have to be honest that the ver-dict is still out on Odd Future for me, but I have to say the vid-eos and lyrics for “Yonkers” and “Earl” are nothing if not unique. Check out the new Funny or Die skit parodying record labeling meetings with them if you want to understand their swag.

7March 10, 2011 the arts

The film

For a thought piece, the new Matt Damon vehicle is nary so thoughtful

Could use some serious Adjustmentsdan chrisTensen

The Adjustment Bureau presents us with the latest in an ever-extending line of Philip K. Dick adaptations, however, if you come to the theatre expecting Blade Runner, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Matt Damon plays David Norris, a wunderkind congressman who is makes an unsuccessful bid for a New York senate seat thanks to a last-minute smear campaign, and meets a wedding-crashing modern dancer, Elise (Emily Blunt), in the event centre men’s room on elec-tion night.

However, on the first day of his new job, he comes upon a series of fedora-wearing suits performing a mysterious head-scanning pro-cedure upon one of his coworkers, and they explain themselves to be from a secret organization called the Adjustment Bureau, and threat-en to lobotomize him if he reveals their presence.

They claim to be a group that has existed since the dawn of human-ity, who through seemingly super-natural mechanisms effect small course-corrections that impact the outcome of events, taking credit for the highest points of (western) human history (the peak of the Ro-man civilization, the Renaissance), and attributing the greatest failures

(the Dark Ages, the Great Depres-sion, the Holocaust) to times when they stepped away, allowing man to proceed unfettered.

Furthermore, the course-correc-tions are made according to a mys-terious plan to which all bureau members have guides, and which experiences ongoing revisions and updates from an ever-unseen figure known as “The Chairman.”

The rest of the film concerns Nor-ris’ attempts to thwart the Bureau’s

plans to keep him from Elise, who they attest he only met as a result of a failed adjustment, and a relation-ship with whom will keep him from fulfilling his Chairman-planned role as a prominent political leader.

There is no attempt made to art-fully disguise the philosophical and religious overtones with reference to free will and determinism, as well those of control from a higher power, to the point where they are made embarrassingly obvious.

Moreover, the film does little more than put the aforementioned notions before us, as the lack of reality and grace with which the premise is presented occludes the possibility of a broader interpreta-tion of these issues – answers to the questions raised – being recovered from the film.

However, in spite of its rela-tive absence of artistic elegance, I feel I must forgive the film, as it does not let the lack of cohesion in

Matt Damon’s performance is typically Matt Damon-y-Dan Christensen, the newspaper

the deployment of its story keep it from creating some fun visuals and memorable moments.

The Bureau members are able to transport themselves across any distance using public doors (and their magical hats), making for some innovative chase sequences, and the mystery combined with bu-reaucratic majesty with which they proceed keeps the film exciting.

Having said this, it is bizarre that Norris accepts the existence of the Bureau so flatly, considering it’s never given much of a convincing explanation. On this front, the film may have benefitted from a little more by way of secrets and suspi-cion from Norris’ perspective.

Matt Damon’s performance is typically Matt Damon-y, not sur-prising nor inspiring in this out-ing, and though the utterly typical romance component is not given much of the running time, it re-mains charming, thanks mostly to the lively and enchanting Emily Blunt.

This is no daring philosophi-cal treatise, nor is it groundbreak-ing cinematic work, but if you can overlook its flaws, as I recommend you do, you’ll come away with a few scenes that will stick with you more than three quarters of the movies you’ll see this year.

Page 8: The Newspaper March 10

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Across1. That woman4. Pairs8. Rule11. Chopping tool12. Moved through with diffi culty14. The Barber of Seville, eg.16. Chart17. Rank18. Salary19. Riot21. Elderly23. Lead, as a fi lm26. Era, or 60 Across27. Snug or loose30. Industrious insect31. Lubricates33. Red vegetable36. Not no37. Seven day period38. Women’s shoulder bag39. Sail support40. Coloured42. Wrath45. Simba or Mufasa46. Vast expanse of water49. Beats51. Rim52. Pet ped53. Attempt54. Concealed56. Revere58. Chip brand60. Age, or 26 Across61. Boundary64. Courageous69. Slick71. Sharp72. Work out73. Defi nite article74. Tee75. Ogled76. “Game, ___, Match”

Down1. Pork2. Probe

3. Essays4. Double one5. Battle6. Strange7. Behold8. Lower appendage9. “We ___ not amused.”10. “T’___ the night before...”13. Tow behind14. Be in debt15. Bachelor apartment, casually20. “To ___ or not...”22. Obtain23. 24 hour span24. Scaredy cat25. Binds26. Inquire27. At a distance28. Possessive pronoun29. Foot digit32. Tennis try again34. Revealed35. Soggy soil39. Males40. Accomplished41. Meditative exercise42. Appropriate43. “Neither... ___...”44. Director Ritchie45. Took charge46. Souls47. Aural infection48. Amazement50. Bashful55. Common contraction57. I, as an object58. Novel studies, for short59. Consumed61. Once around the track62. Frozen water63. Coffee cup65. Raw mineral66. Hudson or St. James67. Fib68. Finish70. Still

“ the campus comment ”the newspaper asked: who is your personal heroine and why?

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FRANCESCA, 4th year, English, Book & media studies “Not one person specifi cally, but women as a whole. Even though we continue to struggle, every genera-tion has contributed to the women’s movement and empowerment of women in different and important ways.”

PROF. MIRIAM DIAMOND, ENV236 “Ursula Franklin, Professor Emerita from U of T. A metallurgical engineer, a quaker, pacifi st and an inspiration to not only so many women, but to all who care about a sustainable, peaceful and humane society.”

GAYLE, 2nd year, Psych “All survivors of sexual assault and violence. Espe-cially Jane Doe who has been a very vocal activist in addressing the legal battle that sexual assault victims are facing.”

STEVE, Residence Don“My mom, because she’s the one person who will al-ways stick with you.”

COREY, 4th, Sociology & Equity “Audre Lorde, for her ability to speak out on various issues, such as sexism, racism and homophobia and not being afraid of criticism.”

DEBBIE, 4th year, Sociology & English “All the women who work for the university. The pro-fessors and the whole faculty do such a great job and make me feel like I can aspire to be an academic.”