A Bug and a Bag of Weed, a good-hearted, raucous drugs-and-dudes movie, played to a sold-out audience at the 2006 Atlantic Film Festival. It represented a dream-pursuit move cross-country, five years of form-filling, fundraising and industry navigation, a 15-day shoot and almost $500,000. It was the rarest of rarities—not just a Canadian feature film, but […]
Tara Thorne
Posted inArts + Music
Various
VariousMusic from The OC: Mix 2 (Warner)Perhaps a year spent with The OC’s characters makes this more affecting than the solid first mix, or perhaps the songs are just better. A balance between sensitive boy fare (Super Furry Animals’ “Hello Sunshine,” Nada Surf’s cover of “If You Leave,” Death Cab for Cutie’s “A Lack of […]
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Gomez
GomezHow We Operate(ATO)Underappreciated Brit quintet Gomez is more familiar to you than you think. If you watched the finale of Grey’s Anatomy, you heard the band’s aptly named title track underscoring the dual operations of Burke and Denny. How We Operate begins quietly with a lament from smooth Ian Ball, followed by Ben Ottewell’s lovely […]
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Matthew Good
Matthew GoodHospital Music(Universal)The infamously contentious Matthew Good was markedly affable upon the release of White Light Rock and Roll Review in 2004, looking as if he loved to play shows again. Then he fell apart. Diagnosed as bipolar, he also got divorced and OD’d in his parents’ shower. He wrote the aptly titled Hospital Music […]
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Matthew Good
Matthew GoodIn a Coma: 1995 – 2005 UniversalSkip the for-casual-fans-only single- disc hits package and cough up for the deluxe. Disc two of a staggering three-part package is the literal and musical centrepiece. Before a reissue of the limited edition Loser Anthems EP and some b-sides is Rooms, an acoustic thematic re-arrangement of nine songs […]
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Various
VariousMusic from The OC: Mix 1(Warner)Welcome to the soundtrack, bitch! Proving further that Josh Schwartz is handily surfing the zeitgeist—track names are “hand-scrawled” on the disc as if it were a copy; you can web-link to the scenes featuring each song—the first collection of The OC’s hip background music is as smart and emotional as […]
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Jon McKiel
Published November 30, 2006. Jon McKiel Jon McKiel (independent) Now that more than a decade has passed, the Dependent Music collective’s impact on the local community is starting to reveal itself in artists like McKiel, whose enchanting debut matches the lyrical sensitivity (and delivery) of Brian Borcherdt with Wintersleep’s more contemplative moments. Tara Thorne categories: […]
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The Weakerthans
The WeakerthansReunion TourEpitaphFour fucking years after Reconstruction Site come the 11 tracks of Reunion Tour, which includes a sequel to the song sung by a cat on its predecessor, as well as tributes to curling, Gump Worsley, lost friends and transit drivers. It’s more of the same, but when shit’s this brilliant, that’s a compliment. […]
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Hiding places
Ang Lee’s films vary wildly in scope, subject and setting—think gay cowboys in rural America (Brokeback Mountain), swinging WASPs in 1970s New England (The Ice Storm), a Jane Austen adaptation (Sense and Sensibility), old-school Chinese assassins (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), a CGI rageholic just trying to sort out his daddy issues (Hulk). But while you […]
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Trial and errors
Reese Witherspoon disrupts her glam presentation—short-sleeved black dress, artfully wavy hair—by coughing onto her bare forearm. “I have a terrible cold,” she’ll say later, apologetically. Stars, they’re just like us. Witherspoon, seated two conspicuous chairs away from co-star and alleged boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal, has gathered with a sliver of her new film’s international ensemble at […]
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In good company
“Given that I’m in a country where the popularity of the president is comparable to that of Nixon during Watergate, one would think there would be a general disdain for the administration here. You also have to factor in that 71 percent of the country now believes they’re in a war they shouldn’t be.” Matthew […]
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The winning Pot
For years the Atlantic Film Festival has been running a program for emerging screenwriters, in which a handful of scribes spend the summer workshopping an original script each with legendary Canadian story editor Allan Magee, then pitch it to producers during the fest itself. Last year, which focused on first-draft features, was the first time […]