Hey everybody, I saw fifteen movies this fest – how many did you catch? It has been a great time and I have a few thank-yous to give out before I start rattling off my bests and worsts. First and foremost, I would like to thank my fellow bloggers, Carsten Knox and Sue Carter Flinn, […]
Hillary Titley
Posted inArts + Music
I’d Like to Thank the Academy…
Hey everyone, I spent the morning at the Deluxe Toronto Awards Brunch. Nice morning, though, the actual brunch was a little curious: a stick of ham, cherry tomato, pineapple, and potato. Very odd. Anyways, highlights included meeting some of the people I have only seen from afar or know through their films. I had a […]
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Back up to three a day…
I only saw one movie yesterday, A Christmas Tale, but made up for it today with three films, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, One Week, and Waltz With Bashir. Yesterday was a kind of catch up day for all the things I have been neglecting amidst this orgy of movies, movies, movies, like school and […]
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Looking For Anne
Looking For AnneIrene Gammel(Key Porter)Irene Gammel’s Looking for Anne isn’t so much a biography of Montgomery’s life but an outline of her process during the time she wrote Anne of Green Gables. Gammel portrays Montgomery as a serious and ambitious writer but asserts it was profound loneliness and emotional isolation that drove Montgomery in her […]
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Before Green Gables
Before Green GablesBudge Wilson(Viking)Anne Shirley is the unquestioned champion of her own life in Budge Wilson’s Before Green Gables, the Montgomery-estate approved prequel to Anne of Green Gables. Wilson tells a tragic story of abandonment, misuse and abuse in Anne’s early childhood but never once allows her to give in to her circumstances as she […]
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The Hardest Thing About Blogging…
Another three-movie day. I can’t complain. Stone of Destiny was enjoyable, if only for the accents and the 50’s period costumes, for which I am a sucker. About four Scottish students who attempt to steal Scotland’s Stone of Destiny out from under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abby, it rigidly follows a caper-movie formula – […]
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The Production of Reality
Had coffee today with fellow blogger Carsten and Coast film critic Mark Palermo. We sat and commiserated on the trials and tribulations of being a media person at the fest, which, if anyone was listening in, must have sounded like a quorum meeting of Halifax’s biggest cry-babies; boo-hoo, the media screenings often start late; wah-wah, […]
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Pitches man!
This afternoon I took in the Inspired Scripts Pitch Match at the Delta Halifax where four writers, after months of training in the ways and means of pitching, are given five minutes to flaunt their screenplay wares. In this case, Rhonda Buckley, Scott Simpson, Walter Forsyth, and Chris Cuthbertson hawked three comedies and one thriller […]
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Just recovered from Saturday…
I concur with Sue that Clark Johnson’s ACTRA Studio talk did not disappoint. Mr. Johnson covered the span of his lifetime. This guy has had enough experiences and stories for two lifetimes. He was a frustrated college and pro-football player in Canada and the U.S. before working as a special effects guy on David Cornenberg’s […]
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Calling All ‘Wire’ Fans…
The ACTRA Studio discussion, originally scheduled to be with Leslie Nielsen, is now featuring Clark (The Wire) Johnson. Mr. Johnson is an actor and a director, working on shows such as Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Shield, and the Colin Farrell flick, S.W.A.T, but, most famously, has worked on HBO’s The Wire in both […]
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Slow Start
Whew! A busy Friday is almost over and done with, save for dinner and another movie at 9:30, the double-header of Lucky Blue and Were the World Mine. Both, judging from the write-ups in the Guide, are more coming-of-age stories, which I am getting tired of quickly. My first two flicks of the fest told […]
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Stray Thoughts
Hey everyone, I am back, safe-and-sound, from the opening night party on Argyle Street. I am simultaneously receiving a foot-rub, drinking a big, detoxifying mug of Fujian green tea and slouching in front of the trusty iBook in clothes that no longer bind me. (I still have markings from the tight pants I wore out.) […]