Matt Semansky

Sports and movies share many common characteristics. Both inspire intense devotion and hatred among their legions of fans. Both receive obsessive press attention. Both are examples of excess, with Tom Cruise and Manny Ramirez being just two of many options for wasting $20 million in Los Angeles. The sporting world is littered with offbeat and […]

Fifteen-year-old Brit b-girl Mia is a volatile cocktail of emotional vulnerability, emerging sexuality and simmering aggression, a restless, impulsive creature as likely to gently caress a horse as administer a vicious head-butt. As played by Katie Jarvis, she’s also one of the most mesmerizing cinematic characters you’ll ever meet. Director Andrea Arnold’s hand-held camera submerges […]

With a small number of theatres offering up virtually identical menus, Haligonians can rightfully feel like they get the shaft when it comes to first-run movie options. There’s even less variety in the summer, when loud, expensive blockbusters tend to gobble up all the available screens. The glass-half-full way to look at the situation, though, […]

A top-flight cast of British actors, including Ray Winstone, Ian McShane and Tom Wilkinson, is wasted in this dull, aimless tale about a man who may or may not seek violent revenge on his wife’s lover. Although his tough-guy friends think the answer’s obvious, cuckold Colin (Winstone) can’t decide whether to deliver the ultimate punishment […]

Don’t be fooled by the title or the premise—The Trotsky is neither a political screed nor a broad farce, despite the fact that it concerns a Montreal teenager who thinks he’s the reincarnation of communist hero Leon Trotsky. With help from star Jay Baruchel and a cast of fine Canadian actors, writer-director Jacob Tierney has […]

Jacob Tierney’s The Trotsky comes across as the product of a filmmaker with a singular vision. It’s a movie based on a bizarre conceit and a quirky character, sprinkled with off-kilter humour and fuelled by oddball energy. Tierney could probably reapply these ingredients to several different plot recipes and build a career as Canada’s answer […]

This insightful documentary reminds viewers that, even in the supposedly post-racial era of Obama, there remain pockets of America that have barely acknowledged the groundbreaking civil rights advances of the mid-20th century. The film chronicles the lead-up to Charleston, Mississippi’s first-ever integrated prom, which took place in the tiny town in 2008. Charleston resident Morgan […]

In this film and the superior 1984 original, the premise is the same: a fringe member of the early-childhood education job sector, Freddy Krueger is burned alive by a pitchfork mob as punishment for the kind of crimes that ensue when desire meets access. Krueger then kills the children of the mob in their nightmares. […]