Dear Osgoode, My brief time as Editor-in-Chief has come to pass, and with it, our goodbye to Volume 96. In this office, I’ve consciously tried to act more a messenger for the words of others than as a writer at large, but if you’ll indulge this brief episode of hubris, I’d like to pen a more personal letter, so that we may make our farewells proper. I hope you liked the print—I thought it a...
A personal movie list is exactly the kind of writing no one asked for that’s been a hallmark of the Obiter Dicta. After a small dip into our archive, I was inspired by a past senior editor’s list featured in a 1999 edition of Issue 71. Considering that I’ve been writing for a captive audience about my favourites of the silver screen since I was in 1L (my compliments to the patient editors of...
› The old family Caprice, from days gone Photo Credit: Author’s Own all it by whatever moniker, the urbanist movement is strong among young people worldwide. I share many sympathies with it, of course: who doesn’t want better, more walkable spaces with readily accessible and convenient transit? I’m a frequent passenger of provincial commuter rails, coaches, and the good old TTC myself. I’m glad...
Photo Credit: Warner Bros-Seven Arts Sam Peckinpah is the sort of director that proves the trope of distinct creative genius as a product of erratic and troubled people. Perhaps some would be amazed that self-loathing and alcoholic idiosyncrasy could be such a strong conduit of filmic success—but if you know great artists, you know that eccentricity is raw material for much brilliance...
OSGOODE HALL, 1890 It kind of gets old when you walk into Osgoode the third time around. Seeing familiar faces of friends made and those anew of friends-in-waiting—that doesn’t get old though. Although senioritis can dampen the excitement of a new slate of classes (and one or two give bad enough omens for me to fear they’d end up being duds anyways), the novelty of starting a new year...
“We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later we all push up flowers.” Photo CredIt: LucasArts You have to be serious about a noir film. That kind of cynicism and brush up with hard-boiled reality isn’t pure escape. You might get a happy ending, sure—but then you might also hear whispers of “forget it, it’s Chinatown.” There’s a lot of prestige tied up in the genre, and there’s no...
Two Hollywood classics and a little reflection on life In the summer of ‘19, a few friends and I were making conversation on a patio—ice cold soda in tow. On impulse, one fellow recommended that we go shoot pool at a nearby dive. One thing led to another, and what followed was a summer of regular games and good times that’s become as sentimental as it gets. Two obsessions have lingered since then...
Being among strangers is an exploratory experience. To get to know a yet unmet friend is a turn-based game of social maneuvers; two or more codebreakers attempting to break a cypher that gives way to common interest. Often, no matter the person or place, to talk about movies is to resort to a robust master key. After that it’s only a matter of level of interest: self-proclaimed kinophile, passing...
It’s been quite a good year for the period epic. The silver screen was graced with many films that were not only realized with prestige production and mainstream release, but which have been met with a vindicating fanfare which shows that history continues to earn a place at cinemas. On the heels of Oppenheimer’s existential autobiography and Killers of The Flower Moon’s poignant tale of colonial...
Around a year ago, I developed a surprising taste for a specific band’s sound that I otherwise never thought I would have enjoyed. What’s all the more peculiar is that this particular band is still very much part of the super-genre I listen to: Rock ‘n roll. Rock is the bread and butter of my musical taste—or “dad rock” to be specific (even if disparaging). Even those outsiders to the genre would...
The legendary Johnny Cash album turns fifty-five in May of this year. Isn’t the live album something of an oddity? It makes one yearn for that incomparable experience of being serenaded by the shattering acoustics of an artist (or artists) on stage and in the flesh. On a record, however, the loud cheers, the back-and-forth chatter between audience and band, and that lively dynamism become...
An obscure court martial drama rears its DVD cover once more. People I meet rarely miss the chance to learn that I was a history major, and prospective historian, before I made Osgoode my home. It is only natural, then, that I might be billed as a creature of the period legal drama, and that the red “O” emblazoned on me was just the excuse my inner cinephile needed to catch up on the great legal...