In 2011, Canadians haven’t been going out much to see Canadian movies. More people are going online, whether they pay for the movies or not. Halifax director-producer Chaz Thorne says that’s at least partly because Canadians don’t even know when a Canadian movie shows up in cinemas. “It actually is shocking when you’re a filmmaker […]
Matthew Ritchie
Posted inArts + Music
Flight club
As musician and concert promoter Bethany Fulde’s band This Ship embarks on its first Upper Canadian voyage, her crew encounters a frosty squall as provinces across the country get their first taste of winter. For Fulde—whose music collective known as Berserker Lion is preparing its first music festival with The Flight of Fall Music Festival—the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hello Steve
Prior to the release of 2009’s We Are America, Atlantic folk-rockers Caledonia began charting their music into less folky territory. But singer- songwriter Steve Gates still had some songs to sing with his acoustic guitar. “We were trying to get Caledonia sort of out of the folk world at one point, but I kept writing folk […]
Posted inArts + Music
Justice
I can understand why Justice’s new album, Audio, Video, Disco, sounds nothing like its old album. After releasing its debut in 2007 to critical acclaim, every electronic act from that day forward stole the band’s signature sound (bass that sounds like a monster farting) and put it on every song out since. Then dubstep happened […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Perfect Host
A few years ago, when the creators of Dexter hired comedic actor John Lithgow to play a demented serial killer, no one could have guessed that the 3rd Rock from the Sun star would be the series’ most terrifying character. The makers of psychological-thriller The Perfect Host probably realized this when they cast David Hyde Pierce, […]
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Kevin Smith in Halifax
In the end of Kevin Smith’s stoner comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Silent Bob (Smith) and Jay (Jason Mewes) use royalty money from one of their movies to travel around America, beating up online critics who posted negative comments about their movie. It was pretty silly to watch in 2001, but even weirder […]
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Fucked Up
It’s kind of hard to fully grasp how a band with a swear word in its name could become one of the biggest punk bands on the planet. But that is exactly what happened to Fucked Up, a Toronto six-piece that has gone from relative obscurity to the most important punk group of its generation. […]
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Wilco
Wilco has come a long way since the Chicago folk-rockers hit the mainstream with 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But after a brief foray into chilled out ’70s-inspired stoner rock with Sky Blue Sky and Wilco (The Album), the band is back to their more experimental roots with The Whole Love, a schizophrenic sound collage that […]
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Not The Thing of beauty
The Thing is a prequel to the 1982 horror movie by John Carpenter, yet retains the title and much of the narrative structure of Carpenter’s classic. The film tells the story of a Norwegian research group in Antarctica who uncover a frozen alien with shape shifting abilities, filling in the backstory leading up to the […]
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Footloose cuts loose
Was there even a need to remake Footloose? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean Craig Brewer’s adaptation of the Kevin Bacon classic should be dismissed by fans of the original. Footloose follows the 1984 version closely, keeping the majority of the original plot and script intact, but slight changes update it for modern audiences. The […]
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Born again
I like the way electro-dance pop outfit Born Gold does things. Learning that the flamboyant electronica act (formerly named Gobble Gobble) is heading to Halifax for this year’s Pop Explosion, I discover that the group is unwilling to do interviews and generally works with journalists by providing them poems and horoscopes. Kind of an unorthodox […]
Posted inArts + Music
Dumbstruck
Puppets are creepy—except for The Muppets, which are the exceptions to the rule—especially when they involve a ventriloquist. Dumbstruck is a documentary about people who feel differently, about five would-be puppeteers as they try to make it in a world that doesn’t always understand their art form. Goffman does a good job portraying a range of ventriloquists, from […]
