Of the many things that separate Dave Lawrence and Paul Spence from their big-screen alter egos, one of the most obvious is patience. In the 2002 film Fubar, the duo introduced the world to Terry (Lawrence) and Dean (Spence), a pair of halfwit headbangers not exactly known for making careful, intelligent decisions. Speaking in thick […]
Matt Semansky
Posted inNews + Opinion
The downtown Dartmouth shuffle
A series of real estate moves by private and public organizations will alter the downtown Dartmouth business landscape in the next year. What remains to be seen is whether these changes are more akin to a game of musical chairs or, to use a grimmer melodic analogy, Bob Marley’s “Exodus.” The reshuffling has already begun. […]
Posted inArts + Music
Solving Case 39
It’s telling that the least implausible thing about Case 39 is the idea that a 10-year-old girl could be a demon. This is a film that presents Renee Zellweger as a tough but tender social worker Emily, a child services organization that allows Emily to temporarily adopt one of her clients and a cop who […]
Posted inArts + Music
Secretariat wins by a nose
A list of Secretariat’s flaws would stretch all the way around a racetrack but, mimicking its equine subject, the movie outruns most of them through sheer force of will. The story of the horse that became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years in 1973—and its scrappy owner Penny Tweedy (Diane Lane)—is larded with […]
Posted inArts + Music
Nothing left of My Soul to Take
A quarter-century after inventing Freddy Krueger and 14 years after Scream, his ironic take on the slasher genre he helped create, writer-director Wes Craven is back to carve up some more teenagers. My Soul To Take concerns a serial killer with multiple personalities who vows to slaughter the seven kids born on the night of […]
Posted inArts + Music
Getting Buried
Director Rodrigo Cortés milks every drop of claustrophobic panic from the buried-alive scenario in this suspense film about private-contract truck driver Paul (Ryan Reynolds), who awakens in an underground coffin in Iraq with little more than a cellphone and a Zippo lighter at his disposal. Held ransom by insurgents, Paul tries to negotiate with both […]
Posted inArts + Music
Let Me In, America
This American remake is louder and less subtle than the 2008 Swedish original, Let the Right One In—but only just. Transferring the action to wintry New Mexico, writer-director Matt Reeves makes a few sensible tweaks but remains faithful to the story of a bullied tween boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) finding the ultimate protector in a vampire […]
Posted inArts + Music
Fubar II has feelings
Sequels either take their foundation story in new directions or serve up more of what worked the first time. This is the second kind. Michael Dowse’s encore to his 2002 mock-doc about hoser metalheads Terry (Dave Lawrence) and Dean (Paul J. Spence) follows the duo to the cash-spewing oil sands of Fort McMurray. Any lessons […]
Posted inArts + Music
Surf on screen
Surfers are never satisfied,” says Halifax filmmaker Eva Madden-Hagen. “Every time they go out they try something else and push themselves.” Madden-Hagen has spent much of her time in the last several years documenting the heights to which surfers in Nova Scotia will push themselves. Her 2007 drama Eastern Shore starred Beth Amiro, co-owner of […]
Posted inArts + Music
You Again stays true to its title
If nothing else, this You Again can’t be accused of false advertising. It’s all right there in the title, two words that will float through audience members’ heads each of the many times this would-be comedy delivers a reheated gag or cliche originally served in another, better movie. Marni (Kristen Bell) is mortified to learn […]
Posted inArts + Music
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole clipped at the wings
Zack Snyder (Watchmen, 300) takes a holiday in animated fantasyland and packs too much of his trademark intensity in his luggage. The movie begins with the kidnapping of two young brothers by an evil owl posse bent on world (or at least treetop) domination. Nice brother Soren wants to escape and prevent the owl apocalypse, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work takes the mask off the fame monster
This documentary opens on an extreme close-up of its subject’s face, skin pale and stretched tighter than a snare drum. Yet the movie isn’t out to show us the woman behind the showbiz mask, showing instead that the woman is the mask—that the “real” Joan Rivers is the cackling, crass comedienne onstage. The film follows […]
