The 1% don’t exactly get what’s coming to them in the sharp corporate thriller, Arbitrage. A smartly cast Richard Gere plays hedge funder Robert Miller, who’s on the precipice of selling his illegally over-inflated company to a rival when a car accident leaves his mistress dead and threatens everything he’s lied and cheated for. Covering […]
Jacob Boon
Posted inArts + Music
Taken 2
A whole Albanian village just hates Liam Neeson so much in the sadly routine Taken 2. Returning to the role of a loving father with a certain set of skills (re: murdering people), Neeson is joined in this go-around by his family on a business trip to Istanbul. As you might expect, things go badly. […]
Posted inArts + Music
Winnie
One of the most complex, noteworthy women of the Twentieth Century gets a biopic unfitting of a made-for-TV movie in the disastrous Winnie. Purporting to examine the life and times of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (Jennifer Hudson), the scattered film instead flits from scene to scene with little purpose. Winnie grows up a tomboy in a small […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tom Martin: The fighter
If you wanted the job back then, you had to fight for it. Police applicants in the ’70s were brought down to the department’s gymnasium and placed in a boxing ring with the largest opponent that could be found. The top brass would stand along the upper balcony, watching. “You went toe-to-toe,” says Tom Martin. […]
Posted inArts + Music
Holy rollers
Do you like it fast and loud? Feel as if the Halifax music scene has been missing something of late? Well pray no more because The Holy Snappers have arrived, and the newly formed rock and roll trio is looking to fill a hard-hitting niche amongst local bands. “I don’t think there’s a whole lot […]
Posted inArts + Music
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate
The prettiest pictures can still be dragged down by context, and such is the case in the gorgeous but muddled martial arts spectacle, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate. The first wuxia, or Chinese martial arts film shot in Imax and 3-D, Dragon Gate finds dozens of characters (including evil eunuchs, flute-playing killers and Jet Li) […]
Posted inArts + Music
Looper
Joe was just a low-level assassin for the future mob, a “looper” who waits at a specific place to shotgun some unlucky fellow sent back through time. That is until the target that shows up is his future self. A staggering chase begins with the mob trying to kill Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Joe trying to […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hotel Transylvania
As brain dead and lethargic as a zombie, here comes the 3D CGI monstrosity Hotel Transylvania. Adam Sandler plays Adam Sandler doing a Dracula voice, who opens a remote hotel for mythical beasties in order to hide his beloved vampire daughter (Selena Gomez) away from the scary humans that killed her mother. A plan which […]
Posted inArts + Music
Won’t Back Down
Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as one of those magic white people who can overcome seemingly impossible societal problems through sheer force of will in the stale, manipulative Won’t Back Down. Convincing all around her with plucky quirks and a flirtatious smile, Gyllenhaal attempts to overhaul her daughter’s low-income public school and revolutionize the education system. Joining […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hopscotch to it
The spotlight is set to shine once again on the urban arts with the return of hip-hop festival Hopscotch this weekend. Now entering its third year, the fest will be expanding its musical offerings to include that electronic dance music that everyone is talking about. “The electronic music addition is certainly different,” says communications chair […]
Posted inArts + Music
Pitch Perfect
There’s scant few off notes in the harmoniously enjoyable singing comedy, Pitch Perfect. Anna Kendrick stars as the cool college freshman who mixes together mash-ups and dreams of escaping to California to work in the music industry. But after her dorm shower singing is overheard, she’s begged to join the school’s ragtag acapella team in […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Master
Who do you serve in life, and to what cost? Questions posed by the brilliant, enigmatic The Master. Joaquin Phoenix stars, contorting himself into a crackling sneer of a man. A sailor post-WW2 whose violent outbursts and PTSD cause him to drift from job to job. He’s eventually taken under the wing of a charismatic […]