| Movie Review | By Ryan Belbin | Feb 10, 2012 | 1  |
Post-grad life is scary as hell, even for wizards
If you only know one thing about The Woman in Black, aside from the fact that it’s a Gothic thriller that somehow involves a woman in black, it’s that the film is Harry Potter star Danie...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Jan 11, 2012 | 0 |
The Decemberists | Long Live the King
Folk-roots group say goodbye (for now) with stripped-down EP
When American folk ensemble The Decemberists released their sixth album, The King is Dead, last January, the title was almost prophetic: following the tour for the disc, at the height of the...
| Music Review | By Evan Brennan | Jan 11, 2012 | 0 |
Jane's Addiction | The Great Escape Artist
The terrific, unforgettable, rock band with the quirky sense of humour...
2011's The Great Escape Artist is a marked return for Jane's Addiction... again. Having seen this before (Strays, 2003) it's easy to be a little apprehensive. It'd be easy to think these guy...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Dec 22, 2011 | 3 |
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Good things can be overrated too.
It’s that time of year again, the time when Oscar buzz starts and films trying to get in on the conversation pop up in cinemas around the world. Little-engines-that-could from the art hous...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Dec 22, 2011 | 1 |
Jim Payne and Fergus O’Byrne | A Lovely Time of Year
Traditional Newfoundland Christmas music from the kitchens and living ...
Mummering is something of a sacred tradition in Newfoundland and Labrador: dressing up in outlandish costumes, visiting neighbours, singing Christmas carols, and having a hearty celebration ...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Dec 19, 2011 | 0 |
Sean Panting | Man of the Year
Veteran rocker colours inside the lines instead of turning it up to 11
Long before he became Jake Doyle’s lawyer, Sean Panting was a guitar-wielding staple on the local music scene. As a solo singer-songwriter and one of the major forces behind alternative ro...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Dec 13, 2011 | 1 |
Frog/pig love has never felt so right.
It’s been a long time since The Muppets were relevant. Like, a long time. One of my earliest memories is Kermit the Frog introducing John Denver as the guest host of a Muppet Show episode ...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Dec 9, 2011 | 0 |
Sherry Ryan’s Sister of Mine is a record to fall asleep to at the ca...
Sherry Ryan’s Sister of Mine is a record to fall asleep to at the cabin. The eleven songs on Ryan’s third album, clocking in at a fairly short half hour, have an old-timey gospel-country...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Dec 7, 2011 | 1 |
The Dardanelles | The Eastern Light
St. John’s folk group prove that jigs and reels never go out of styl...
In a province where the best kinds of parties were traditionally held in kitchens, caught up in a group of musicians, a new album made up largely of jigs and reels begs the question of why. ...
| Music Review | By Ben Rigby | Dec 7, 2011 | 0 |
A great album for a dark winter
There's a kind of new-aginess and cheesy fantasy-world theme to this album that I feel compelled to overlook in favour of focusing on the brilliant musical space I found inside Kate Bush's n...
| Music Review | By Keith Collier | Dec 2, 2011 | 0 |
John Cossar |Another Bridge to Burn
Catchy tunes, reinforced by tasteful use of a variety of accompanying ...
His voice is sometimes reminiscent of Bob Dylan, or it would be if Bob Dylan enunciated and stayed on key. Sometimes he reminds me more of Ron Hynes. Mostly though, John Cossar sounds like a...
| Book Review | By Emily Connelly | Nov 29, 2011 | 0 |
A book about a community, the end of the world, and the complex relati...
Wild Abandon, by Joe Dunthorne, operates on the very simple premise that the world will come to an end. Not in the "we're going to fall into the sun in 4.5 billion years" kind of way. In a c...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Nov 29, 2011 | 0 |
The definitive mediocre film of 2011.
Clint Eastwood is an overrated director. People don’t like to hear that, but it’s a fact and it’s been proven by his body of work. Sure, he has some films that hit, but when he give...
| Music Review | By Matthew Ryder | Nov 9, 2011 | 0 |
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Noel Gallagher’s Reasonably-High Flying Birds would have been a bett...
There was a time when I was pretty big fan of Oasis. I mean, I guess I still am really. Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? are both exceptional albums, Be Here Now w...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Nov 7, 2011 | 0 |
It’s nothing if not true to its name.
Johnny Depp is the most bankable star in Hollywood. He plays every role with quirks, and people love him for it no matter how good, bad, or unnecessary (I’m looking at you, Pirates 4) the ...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Oct 24, 2011 | 1 |
This “Thing” is terrible.
Horror remakes are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. I don’t believe a movie should be panned just because it doesn’t live up to the original that it’s remaking, and there should be s...
| Music Review | By Keith Collier | Oct 19, 2011 | 0 |
Ian Foster | The Evening Light
These aren’t so much the kind of songs that get stuck in your head a...
Ian Foster has been a staple of the St. John’s music scene for many years. For just about as long, St. John’s has been a staple of the Ian Foster music scene. Foster’s relationship wit...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Oct 17, 2011 | 0 |
Canadian songwriter goes from coffeehouse to concert hall
Husky-voiced singer songwriter Dan Mangan earned a Polaris Prize nomination for his first major label release, Nice, Nice, Very Nice, last year. Whereas that album focussed on the intricacie...
| Music Review | By Gavin Simms | Oct 14, 2011 | 0 |
Ashes and Fire isn't going to be Mr. Adams' best work. But it's him, r...
Ashes and Fire isn't going to be Mr. Adams' best work. But it's him, right now. Those were my thoughts before hearing this and they're my thoughts after hearing it twenty times or more. ...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Oct 13, 2011 | 1 |
The Once | Row Upon Row of the People They Know
Catch a hold of this one now the once
If you can play a few chords and know the words to “The Islander” (“I’m a Newfoundlander, born and bred, and I’ll be one ’til I die . . .”) then you can get a gig in St. John...
| Book Review | By Dave Reynolds | Oct 11, 2011 | 0 |
Jon Ronson | The Psychopath Test
An insightful account of the madness industry
My first exposure to Jon Ronson's work was the film adaptation of The Men Who Stare at Goats, which featured prominent actors George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. Th...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Oct 7, 2011 | 0 |
A heavy subject, handled expertly.
Going into 50/50, two words played repeatedly in the back of my head. Funny People. Funny People. Funny People. Funny People. Funny People. Like some sort of inescapabl...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Oct 7, 2011 | 0 |
St. John’s dance-pop that you can take home with you
Meg Warren and her band of electro-pop troubadours are as fun as a Friday night, without the Saturday hangover. Repartee have been on the St. John’s music scene for a few years now, but...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Sep 22, 2011 | 1 |
It’s actually good. Seriously. It is.
I’m a fan of mixed martial arts, and have been for a long time. I can tell you what it was like to watch Royce Gracie on VHS with my dad when we didn’t know what he was even doing, only ...
| Review | By Emily Wilson | Sep 19, 2011 | 1 |
So many details of life in the Arctic go in to the book, many more tha...
Reading White Heat immerses you in the ice-covered, bone-chilling Arctic landscape of Ellesmere Island. When you first meet Edie Kiglatuk, she’s out on a high-Arctic guiding trip thinking ...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Sep 8, 2011 | 1 |
Appreciate the vision, even if the film stumbles.
By the time Apollo 18 was over, I had a whole mess of thoughts going on in my head. Even now, days later, I write this from a place of confusion because I’m still not totally sure if I lik...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Sep 6, 2011 | 0 |
St. John’s folk group dig deep to their roots and let the sunlight p...
If you haven’t been introduced to St. John’s ensemble the Wiles yet, now’s a good time to get to know them. Songwriters Katie Baggs and Jared Klok alternate on vocals (in addition to a...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Aug 30, 2011 | 0 |
Barry Canning | Light of a Setting Sun
Local singer-songwriter’s country-influenced album has a bright outl...
The sunset paints a pretty enough picture on the horizon, but you wouldn’t expect to find much warmth in the last lingering lights of daylight. Light of a Setting Sun, the most recent offe...
| Book Review | By Dave Reynolds | Aug 29, 2011 | 0 |
A work that should capture the attention of punkers and scientists ali...
Many of us might recognize Greg Graffin as the frontman for the legendary punk band Bad Religion, but few of us immediately think of his academic standing. Without question, Graffin's fame r...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Aug 25, 2011 | 0 |
Much like the pizza places that offer such a deal, you get what you pa...
If you’ve seen the preview for 30 Minutes or Less and thought it would be raunchy and pretty funny, you’re in the right headspace. There’s not much else to say in terms of identifyi...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Aug 19, 2011 | 0 |
Sweaty, jazzy rock ’n’ roll, from the unforgiving streets of St. J...
Musical miscreant Mark Bragg sets out to make smooth jazz as bawdy, absurd, and rocking as he can on his new album. Your Kiss is the third release by the St. John’s musician, an LP that is...
| Music Review | By Hans Rollmann | Aug 17, 2011 | 0 |
Local singer-songwriter releases debut EP
Doyens of the St. John’s music scene will be familiar with the upbeat and inspired folk-rock stylings of Selina Boland, who’s been performing in local clubs since 2005. Those who've miss...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Aug 17, 2011 | 0 |
Eastern Conference Champions | Speak-Ahh
Right ingredients, wrong amounts – edible, but not delectable
With an unproduced drawl not unlike a fusion of Wintersleep’s Paul Murphy and Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Joshua Ostrander takes the helm of Pennsylvania garage-rock trio Eastern Conference...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Aug 12, 2011 | 0 |
Aussie indie band builds walls that are loud and fast, but the real tr...
As far as mainstream music lovers in this hemisphere are concerned, Australian indie duo An Horse are still an insider’s secret. If Zooey Deschanel gave herself a pixie haircut, she’d be...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Aug 11, 2011 | 0 |
There are worse ways to spend a couple of hours.
The body-switch comedy is BACK! Okay, not really. Actually I could probably spend the next 600 words explaining all the reasons it was never “here” to begin with. But I digress. No...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Aug 4, 2011 | 6 |
Russell Crowe & Alan Doyle | The Crowe/Doyle Songbook, Vol. III
Collaborative effort evolves from side-project to serious endeavour
It’s easy to take the collaborative friendship of Great Big Sea frontman Alan Doyle and Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe for granted, particularly with the former’s role as a minstrel i...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Jul 29, 2011 | 4 |
Captain America: The First Avenger
1943 science was apparently a lot more evolved than history lets on.
One would think setting a hero in the most epic conflict in history would be a recipe for success. In fact, the draw of a hero like Captain America probably comes from being set in a conflic...
| Book Review | By Mike Heffernan | Jul 27, 2011 | 0 |
A Case Study of Failure
Who Killed Ty Conn is both biography and true crime narrative. As part of their research for a documentary on child abuse, Linden MacIntyre and Theresa Burke, producers with CBC’s The Fi...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Jul 21, 2011 | 0 |
Death Cab For Cutie | Codes and Keys
Indie pop vets as quirky and hard to read as ever, but sprinkled with ...
With a title like Codes and Keys, you’d expect Death Cab for Cutie’s newest album, their seventh, to be a conscious attempt to unlock something. What that “something” is varies throu...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Jul 15, 2011 | 0 |
It’s summer, and Matt Nathanson relaxes with an album that goes down...
Pull up a seat at a musical buffet. Smooth jazz is the salad appetizer, and the grizzled meat is rock n’ roll, with a side of pasta à la folk. The foreign food that you only half like but...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Jul 14, 2011 | 1 |
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
It’s better than the last one, but that might not say much.
I had a real issue to overcome as I entered the theatre to check out Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Two issues really. One: I don’t mind a big, dumb action movie from time-to-time when...
| Music Review | By Keith Collier | Jul 8, 2011 | 0 |
The Domestics | State and Arrow
Kind of like you’re discovering a cool band from the 60s or 70s that...
The opening chords conjure images of the classic western movie, Clint Eastwood squinting in the sun, the imminent showdown. That reverb-drenched guitar is the beginning of “Train”, the f...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Jun 30, 2011 | 1 |
Kate Bush | Director’s Cut (Collector’s Edition)
Brit songstress gets weirder and worldlier, but not necessarily better
In 1967, the Beatles pushed the boundaries of rock n’ roll with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and since then the English have been forerunners in avant-garde music. Kate Bush re...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Jun 29, 2011 | 1 |
I hated it.
I like to have clever taglines for my reviews, something that you might draw you to read on. I hated Super 8 so much that I was literally at a loss to say anything clever about it. That’s ...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Jun 23, 2011 | 1 |
Electronic folk duo play the music biz game but make their own rules
With an album title like Ego – for those non-Freudians out there, that’s the metaphorical chunk of the human psyche that rectifies primal urges and moral consciousnesses – Toronto duo ...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Jun 14, 2011 | 0 |
A good movie on its own, but a great comic book film.
Comic movies have a hard time being taken seriously. They make huge money at the box office almost without fail (except you Elektra, you failed big time), but most people not already interes...
| Book Review | By Anne Barnes | Jun 10, 2011 | 0 |
If there are still folks out there who believe nothing notable ever ha...
Gerard Collins’ collection of short stories, Moonlight Sketches, introduces the fictional small town of Darwin, located somewhere beyond the overpass in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Si...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | Jun 9, 2011 | 2 |
Ambience for the insomniac
In the liner notes to his tenth studio album, Destroyed, electro-hipster Moby writes that the record “makes the most sense late at night in an empty city when everyone else has gone to sle...
| Music Review | By Keith Collier | Jun 6, 2011 | 0 |
'Musicians like Matthew Byrne should remind us that tourist brochure d...
Ballads is Matthew Byrne’s debut solo album, although he is no stranger to traditional music, coming from arguably one of the most musical families in Newfoundland. Byrne has collected 10 ...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Jun 2, 2011 | 0 |
Posing the question: how many times can you make the same movie and st...
Most of us have experienced a hangover. They aren’t the best. You lay in bed, wondering why you did this to yourself and piecing together the previous night, trying to muster the energy to...
| Music Review | By Jessica Doria-Brown | Jun 1, 2011 | 5 |
k.d. Lang and the Siss Boom Bang | Sing it Loud
The album is a constant push and pull, but it’s all so smooth
Sometimes, a collection of music falls into your lap and you make a decision to really open your ears to it. Though by no means a k.d. Lang die-hard, I did just that with Sing it Loud. ...
| Music Review | By Ryan Belbin | May 30, 2011 | 0 |
Ben Harper | Give til it's gone
Ballads, soul, & hard rock: all in a day’s work
Ben Harper is a musician’s musician with his eyes on the prize. Equally important, he’s dipped his fingers in that many musical pots, collaborated with than many different musicians, and...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | May 19, 2011 | 2 |
Norway and space: apparently pretty much the same place.
I’ll be the first to admit two things going into this review: I am unabashedly committed to any film that Marvel Studios puts out because I grew up when they had everything from card games...
| Music Review | By Megan Coles | May 17, 2011 | 0 |
Priscilla Ahn | When You Grow Up
For those who take sweet over salt
Priscilla Ahn's album When You Grow Up could have easily been titled Lullabies For Baby Hipsters if not for stepping on Heather O'Neills streetwise toes. The twenty-seven year-old Korean-Am...
| TV on DVD Review | By Heidi Wicks | May 13, 2011 | 4 |
Vintage Beverly Hills, 90210 – foreva!
Pretty soon the gang from the Peach Pit might re-locate from the bold ...
As I gaze out at the Gulf of Mexico and the Sea of Full Breasted Geriatric Men on Redington Beach, Florida, I am reminded of the old Beverly Hills, 90210 program. From the Golden Girls' muum...
| Music Review | By Shannon Webb-Campbell | May 12, 2011 | 0 |
Jenn Grant's gonna getcha, she'll getcha good.
Honeymoon Punch is a heartfelt ode to Halifax. “Oh My Heart,” is a sweet serenade of movie star looks and new love. Grant's all confidence and sweet hooks. “How I Met You,” could ...
| Book Review | By Keith Collier | May 11, 2011 | 0 |
Giant’s Dream: A healing journey through Nitassinan
'Although it begins as a simple travel narrative, this book quickly be...
In February 2009, Giant (Michel) Andrew, inspired by a dream of his deceased grandfather, set out to travel by foot from Sheshatshiu to Natuashish to raise money and awareness for diabetes, ...
| Music Review | By Hans Rollmann | May 6, 2011 | 0 |
Beastie Boys | Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
Da b'ys are back!
It was 1986 when the Beastie Boys first sledge-hammered their way onto the charts with their debut hiphop album Licensed to Ill, the first ever rap album to hit #1 on Billboard (they had, of...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | May 5, 2011 | 0 |
Bigger. Louder. Faster. Furious…er?
It’s not really rocket science what you’re getting into when you sit down to watch Vin Diesel and Paul Walker drive fast cars and hang out with beautiful women. Actually, that sentence p...
| Music Review | By Shannon Cymbaly | May 4, 2011 | 1 |
Alison Krauss & Union Station | Paper Airplane
Krauss pilots her delicate Paper Airplane through familiar territory a...
Alison is back with Union Station and Robert Plant is thankfully Gone, Gone, Gone (sorry but every time I hear that song I want to tear my hair out). Comprising of both originals and covers ...
| TV on DVD Review | By Marc Hollett | Apr 26, 2011 | 0 |
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
This isn’t a morality contest... It's good TV on DVD
North American critics and viewers have called It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia “Seinfeld on crack.” The show follows the exploits of “the gang” – Charlie (Charlie Day), Mac ...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Apr 20, 2011 | 1 |
Buckets of gore say more than you'd think sometimes.
It’s been a decade since the Ghostface Killer was last seen hacking up co-eds. For some, it’s been a long decade without him. For others, if he was never seen again it would have been to...
| Book Review | By Anne Barnes | Apr 15, 2011 | 0 |
A visually compelling read about the political career of our former pr...
Photojournalist Paul Daly, who incidentally, worked for The Independent in its former incarnation, and The Telegram editorial page editor Russell Wangersky have teamed up to chronicle the po...
| TV on DVD Review | By Heidi Wicks | Apr 14, 2011 | 0 |
'We all wish we could hurl backwards sometimes, to the days where men ...
As proud as we all are of the women’s rights, technological advances, and increasingly clever advertising gimmicks – secretly I think we all wish we could hurl backwards sometimes, to th...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Apr 8, 2011 | 1 |
Think of it as a poor man’s Inception. I don’t know if that will h...
When deciding what movie to take in this week, I was in the dark on Source Code until I read a brief synopsis of it online. It seemed interesting, certainly interesting enough to donate an h...
| Music Review | By Shannon Webb-Campbell | Apr 1, 2011 | 0 |
Guest reviewer Shannon Webb-Campbell gives us her take on R.E.M.'s lat...
If R.E.M aren't iconic enough, add Patti Smith, Eddie Vedder and Peaches to the liner notes. Opening track Discoverer is the album's quintessential rock anthem. Charismatic ringleader Mic...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Mar 25, 2011 | 0 |
The only thing worse than L.A. freeway traffic is having aliens blow u...
Aliens coming to Earth is something that, whether you’ll openly admit it or not, you’ve probably thought about at some point. If you honestly haven’t, you can scratch off “Hollywood ...
| Music Review | By Hans Rollmann | Mar 22, 2011 | 0 |
What a Time! A Forty Year Celebration by Ryan's Fancy
A review of the history-packed new double-CD from 'the band that launc...
For those of us who grew up stomping to The Navigators, cheering to Fine Crowd or moshing to At Ships End, it’s hard to imagine a time when Newfoundland bars were devoid of, well, Newfound...
| TV on DVD Review | By Heidi Wicks | Mar 17, 2011 | 0 |
'The show's tone captures the disillusioned, skeptical nature of many ...
Amidst a sea of pastry-wrapped wieners and fancy cocktails, the eclectic, rogue crew who work with Party Down Catering Company dream of critical acclaim and big paycheques, as they begrudgin...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Mar 10, 2011 | 0 |
The Farrelly Brothers are back, for better or worse
Make no mistake, studios know where to dump the comedies of guys who were in their prime 15 years ago. As Adam Sandler still inexplicably cashes in at the box office, here come the Farre...
| TV on DVD Review | By Heidi Wicks | Mar 7, 2011 | 3 |
Heidi Wicks describes some lovable losers to look for in this HBO seri...
In this series, Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) has released a buzz-worthy debut novel, with a book deal for his sophomore effort. Except instead of letting his genius spill from his big b...
| Music Review | By Hans Rollmann | Mar 3, 2011 | 1 |
Hans Rollmann thinks you should get yourself a copy of Seeds, plant it...
Okay, I’ll admit it. Hey Rosetta! may be the current shining stars of the Newfoundland music scene (with an array of MusicNL awards, East Coast Music Awards, Polaris nomination and other a...
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Feb 24, 2011 | 1 |
In spite of the title, you can probably just go without it
Like most people, I was a fan of Adam Sandler in the mid-90s. He was goofy and funny, and his movies were the perfect mix of low-brow humour and heart. The thing is, that was going on twenty...
| Music Review | By Megan Coles | Feb 23, 2011 | 1 |
How Destroyer's new album is so good it can destroy your playlist vari...
Destroyer's new album Kaput was released this past January to much indie music lover fanfare. The album in question does not disappoint as Dan Bejar's intimate lyrics feel like a genuine adm...
| TV on DVD Review | By Heidi Wicks | Feb 21, 2011 | 2 |
Heidi Wicks gives us the goods on HBO's hidden gem 'Rome'
*Note: If you’re totally in the dark with Roman history, this review contains SPOILERS!* Heads roll, limbs fly and blood spurts in ancient Rome, at the height of the Roman Empire’s ri...
| Book Review | By Bruce Bourque | Feb 21, 2011 | 0 |
Bruce Bourque gives us his two cents' worth on what delights are to be...
There was a copy of Michael Crummey’s Galore with my name on it under the Christmas tree. When the rush died down, I got into it. I’d read and enjoyed his River Thieves and The Wreckage....
| Movie Review | By Matthew Ryder | Feb 20, 2011 | 0 |
Firth and Rush make for a fascinating look at a journey to the throne ...
When I think of a film deserving of an Academy Award, I think of a remarkable accomplishment in cinema. Something that is eminently watchable in all aspects, from the individual at top billi...
