Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

When thrown head-first into the comic-book world of Bryan O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim, it's natural to feel a little apprehensive. Are those graphics going to come up for every sound effect? Is Pilgrim (Michael Cera) ever going to grown a backbone ? But then a certain charm kicks in, whether it's through Pilgrim's horribly funny one-liners, the dialogue between his bandmates, or a particular brand of magic realism which allows the first of seven evil exes to propose a duel to the death via email.

What ensues is a simple story of boy-meets-girl, boy makes a fool of himself but still convinces girl to come see his awful band play, and subsequently has to defeat her seven evil exes in Arcade fight scenes that would put the makers of Pokemon to shame.

It's rare to find an indie film with such great special effects, let alone one which speaks in precisely the same language as its target audience. By the time we're done watching Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) walking through a door in the night sky, all that apprehension has gone.

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Calgary, Alberta

Yesterday I ran around the city a bit, trying to see as much as possible for as little as possible... It was hard. The walk from Sean's place in Renfrew was long but scenic. Cold and crisp, Calgary did turn out to be mostly suburb, with a pretty concentrated centre with all your usual tourist hangouts just south of the Bow river where a lot of money can be spent very easily. Like $14 for going up Calgary Tower, $9 for a student ticket to the Glenbow Museum, and all those malls! They're all interconnected, so you could probably walk from shop to shop most of the way across the city without having to see sunlight. This is probably the idea behind the Plus Fifteen, too- a heated walkway above the streets so the Calgarians don't have to freeze in winter. The Glenbow offered your normal mix of traditional art, weird modern stuff, rooms full of the extensive and glorious history of Alberta, all 150 years of it,...

You Say It Best...

(originally published by The Student ) Watch any western, any black-and-white adventure film, any rags-to-riches adaptation, and you'll realise we've seen this all before. The guy gets the girl, the evil tyrant falls and the True King rises, be it Middle Earth or the Mid-West. We've seen these scenes repeated across time and space, and we know how it goes. Without the speech, the scene still goes the same way. New film The Artist proves this, without saying a word. Aside from the picture-perfect cast and a dog which will reach cult celebrity status any day now, the film addresses the transition between '20s movies and '30s talkies, and a sparse use of sound which offers a challenge to the film-makers. In one scene, uncharacteristically static, a pair of old friends meet and greet, swap stories, laugh- the details, irrelevant, are replaced by an emotive score and some close camera-work, all of which makes us feel no less connected to the...

Grains of Hope

There's an advent tradition here in Provence that was entirely unknown to me until a few days ago when I picked up a leaflet in town about Saint Barbe and Le Blé de l'Espérance . Today, the 4th of December, is Saint Barbe's day, and many Provencial people will have bought wheat seeds from street vendors to plant in her honour. Sainte Barbe was around in Lebanon in the 3rd century, and according to various highly respected sources accessible via Google, was either locked in a tower to keep her away from troublesome leanings towards Christianity, or locked herself in there to get out of marrying some Prince. Either way, she managed to sneak a priest in, who gave her a good baptising, saved her soul, and really annoyed her dad. You know how it goes with these saints: once they've sworn their faith aloud, they get a get-out-of-death-free pass, though sometimes this isn't such a blessing. Every time they re-swear their faith, God...

Jenni Ajderian

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