A biopic of Paul Raymond—once the richest man in England—a guy who combined the talents of Flo Ziegfeld and Larry Flynt, building an empire on nude showgirls and skin magazines. Helmed by the provocative Winterbottom (responsible for 9 Songs and 24 Hour Party People) and starring Steve Coogan as Raymond, the film plays more conventional […]
Carsten Knox
Posted inArts + Music
Behind the Candelabra
Though it opened in cinemas in Europe, Hollywood’s fear of marketing a “gay” movie meant Soderbergh’s film was first delivered to a cable TV audience on HBO. A biopic of famed Las Vegas entertainer Liberace—Lee to his friends—the temptation to make him and his lifestyle seem fabulous must have been huge. Soderbergh resists. Not to […]
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Critics’ picks 2013: DVDs
Jacob Boon’s Top 10 Films You Should See Anyway They’re not all winners, but here are some picks from the man who has seen almost everything this year. They aren’t bad, they’re good-bad. Spring Breakers Directed by Harmony Korine (VVS) Harmony Korine’s candy-coated sexploitation assault would have been a cultural touchstone even if 2013 wasn’t […]
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Out there Outlier
Chris Sullivan and his colleagues took 15 years to finish his animated epic Consuming Spirits. Of the painstakingly deliberate process required to make it, he says, “It’s actually a little more pleasant than it looks, but not as pleasant as many things.” His ambivalent assessment applies to the film as well, a queasy and dense […]
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I Give It A Year
It’s a bad time for mainstream romantic comedies. People are so sick of the stale formula, even Hollywood isn’t making them much anymore. The twist in this tale? It starts where most of them end, at the wedding. Upwardly mobile Brits Nat (Rose Byrne) and Josh (Rafe Spall) have only been dating for a few […]
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Byzanium
Jordan directed the lycanthropic fable The Company of Wolves and the Anne Rice adaptation Interview With A Vampire, so this film of the Moira Buffini play is right in his sweet spot. It’s a heavily plotted yarn about an undead mother and daughter (Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan) who subsist on the avails of prostitution […]
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The Iceman
Richard Leonard Kuklinski was a real life contract killer in New York in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, with a wife and two daughters in suburban New Jersey who knew nothing about his being a hit man. The movie version gives Michael Shannon a chance to do his best simmering slab, killing bad men for […]
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Welcome To The Punch
A stylish, entertaining British thriller, hitting all the genre marks without going much beyond. Two big things it’s got going for it: The first is the look—director Creevy sexes up London at night for his tale of a cop (James McAvoy, somewhat miscast as dark and intense) desperate to stop a career criminal (the effortlessly […]
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The Coast’s Fall Preview 2013: Events, literary & comedy
Hal-Con 2013 November 8-10 World Trade & Convention Centre, 1800 Argyle Street day pass $30, weekend pass $70 hal-con.com Did you know that in early drafts of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Lando Calrissian dies in an exploding Millennium Falcon, taken out by the destruction of the second Death Star? If you […]
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Fall preview 2013
Make it a fall of YES with events, festivals, exhibits, concerts, productions and showcases in music, theatre, dance, comedy, literature, visual arts, film. You don’t have to choose, you just need a good command of Google calendars and a willingness to become your best culturally-enriched self. We believe in you. CLICK HERE for your full […]
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Shadow Dancer
Colette (Andrea Riseborough) was born into a family tied to the IRA. It’s 1993 and she’s caught carrying a bomb onto the London Underground. Mac (Clive Owen), the British intelligence’s man in Northern Ireland, gives Colette one chance to avoid life in prison away from her young son: report to the Brits on what her […]
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Monster energy
Jay Dahl says the idea for There Are Monsters came from a very simple exchange. He was strolling past someone on the sidewalk, and the guy gave him a strange look. Really strange. “I got this chill,” says Dahl, who started to think about how maybe some people can seem like… something else. Dahl ran […]
