Paul Gross has one of those faces that never changes. It’s been 16 years since he got his breakthrough role in the Mountie-in-America television show Due South, but his mug is none the worse for wear. At age 51, he’s still taking on the bad guys and charming the ladies in films like Gunless, which […]
Matt Semansky
Posted inArts + Music
Gunless is too G-rated
There’s a lot to like about this comic Western from writer-director William Phillips, a film that’s nothing if not eager to please. The central gag—Paul Gross plays an American gunslinger who can’t find himself a gunfight in a small Canadian town—is a winner, and the mix of laughs, love story and western conventions is clearly […]
Posted inArts + Music
Nightmare on Elm Street is too thin for nightmare material
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. […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Authenticity Hoax
Rebel Sell author Andrew Potter calls bullshit on the whole concept of authenticity with his latest book, slaughtering many of the most popular sacred cows of the self-righteous in the process. But Potter is a most genial killer, and even those who find themselves among his targets should enjoy engaging with him. Calling on the […]
Posted inArts + Music
John Davis breaks it down
To spend 45 minutes on the phone with documentary filmmaker John T. Davis is to appreciate the way a lifetime can be shaped by the breaks. The latest break to come his way belongs to his wife—a fractured ankle sustained in a fall at their son’s wedding in Washington, D.C. Speaking from his Northern Ireland […]
Posted inArts + Music
Tarek Abouamin’s past present
If viewers feel there’s a particular freshness to Tarek Abouamin’s short film Gawab, it’ll partly owe to the fact that the documentary is fresh in a literal sense. A couple of weeks before its April 14th screening as part of the Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival, its creator says he’s still “cutting like mad.” But a […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hurricane Season
When your source material is the true story of a New Orleans high school basketball team on an improbable post-Katrina winning streak, producing an inspirational film should be an easy layup. Yet Hurricane Season hoists up a brick. Here, the ravaged city is merely a support player, its plight trotted out to add dramatic weight […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Box
Richard Kelly refused to hold the audience’s hand in his excellent directorial debut, Donnie Darko, so it’s surprising that his lack of restraint cripples this thriller. James Marsden and Cameron Diaz, a married couple in 1970s Virginia, face temptation when a disfigured mystery man (Frank Langella) delivers the titular box and explains that pushing its […]
Posted inArts + Music
Bahamas’s island life
Afie Jurvanen is a big believer in happy accidents. He abides by the philosophy that nothing too good comes from trying too hard, and he’s managed to ride this laidback wave from the basements of Barrie, Ontario, to some of the music world’s biggest stages as a touring guitarist for Feist. Jurvanen, who’s also played […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Too tall for Dartmouth?
Darrell Dixon wants downtown Dartmouth to aim higher—about 23 storeys high—in search of its long-sought population boost. City planners are considering changes in downtown Dartmouth zoning laws that would allow Dixon to build higher than the current 70-foot height restrictions on buildings in the area. Dixon says the three residential buildings—at 23, 14 and seven […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Welcome to the New Dartmouth
The gleaming, stainless-steel kitchen at Dartmouth cafe Two If By Sea is a blur of activity, with a half-dozen young, black-clad employees milling about behind a panelled counter. Tattooed arms dole out espressos, dive into glass jars to retrieve gooey cookies and dig through baskets for croissants the size of footballs. Customers wait patiently in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Gamer
Built around the concept of a reality show that gives death-row inmates the opportunity to kill their way to freedom, Gamer is an update of the Schwarzenegger schlockfest The Running Man for the age of first-person shooter games. The twist here is that each con—including Gerard Butler’s wrongfully imprisoned John Tillman—is controlled remotely by an […]