Arts

When Karkwa won the 2010 Polaris Music Prize, an annual award for best Canadian album, they were “stunned,” said Louis-Jean Cormier, the band’s vocalist and guitarist.

“It was kind of funny — we were holding a cheque for 20 grand and didn’t understand anything. We were more stressed by the fact that we had to speak in English,” Cormier said.

He went on to explain that beating out more mainstream contenders, such as Broken Social Scene, was “a big surprise” yet also “a big honour.”

Somewhere
Directed by Sofia Coppola
Distributed by Focus Features

Sofia Coppola’s latest, Somewhere, begins with a long shot of a Ferrari racing around a track. The camera, unlike the car, remains motionless and the only sound heard throughout is the constant fading in and out of the cars motor.

Coppola manages to create a meaningful shot that serves as an introduction of what’s to come.

Four Lions
Directed by Chris Morris
Distributed by Drafthouse Films

Although passing itself off as a jihadist comedy, Four Lions has much more depth than your typical  “Achmed the Dead Terrorist” stand-up routine.

Directed by satirist Chris Morris, the film follows a group of four Muslim men in England who are planning a terrorist attack.

Ottawa band Brad Morden and the Magic Beans is the product of a fluid and intricate folk community in the capital city.  

A musical fundraiser put on by the Carleton University Dance Crew helped raise funds for cancer research March 1.

The fundraiser, called the Creative Cure, displayed local Ottawa talent as well as acts from Carleton students.

The event was organized by first-year journalism student Melissa Rumble and the Carleton University Dance Crew, which Rumble is a member of.

Rumble said she was inspired to make the event after her friend Danielle, a committed dancer, passed away last November from cancer at 34.