What do four short films about a disappearing brook, a haunted house, a quest for hidden art and a host of community heroes have to do with one another? Location, location, location. All are centred in and around Spryfield—the sometimes urban, sometimes rural borough of HRM located just past the Armdale Rotary along the Herring […]
Arts & Culture
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Running with Scissors
Personal cinema is in desperate shape. Amid the faceless, streamlined norms of moviemaking, films that carry legitimate human experience must be encouraged. But this counter-equation has resulted in a sheltered narcissism. The screen puts up with self-promoting artists. This deluded faith that one’s egotism will help others has resulted in everything from Tarnation to Super […]
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Pawn shop blues – Page 4
“Peat, I said I’d do it for you! Both my grandfathers were barbers, you know.” I move toward him, raise my hand to riffle what’s left of his hair. He flinches away. “I know,” he says. “I just wanted it done. Anyhow, who does who think they’re kidding?” “What?” I say, thrown off by the […]
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Death speak
A new word will have to be invented for what this is. “Mockumentary” brings to mind This is Spinal Tap and the subsequent comedic work of Christopher Guest. Gabriel Range’s Death of a President in no way resembles those films. If anything, this is hard science fiction, looking into an imagined future to reexamine our […]
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Flags of our Fathers/The Prestige
What might be described as Showbiz Syndrome is the core of the year’s most intricate screenplay. Christopher Nolan finally meets his hype with The Prestige’s genre fantasy about the agony of success. Nolan (co-writing with his brother Jonathan, and based upon a Christopher Priest novel) knows this doesn’t entail the usual portrait of fame as […]
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Tiernany
Being funny isn’t always easy. In fact, for Irish stand-up Tommy Tiernan and many of his fellow touring comedians, it’s often downright difficult to keep tickling the humerus night after night. “It has its challenges to be sure,” says the comic from County Meath, speaking from his hotel room in Corner Brook. “I mean, here […]
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Bus to New York
If you stick the words “New York” into the Internet Movie Database’s search engine, you get 6,025 results (the first one it spits out at you, disappointingly, is Friends). If you modify New York with “City” you’ll get 8,495 results. More than 8,000 films, television shows and video games either set, shot in or featuring […]
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Rareplay
It’s the middle of Labour Day weekend and dawn has yet to crack. In a van crammed with gear and costume changes, the members of In-Flight Safety—bassist Brad Goodsell in the driver’s seat, keyboardist Daniel Ledwell in the passenger side, drummer Glen Nicholson in the middle and singer-guitarist John Mullane in the back—are headed from […]
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Crossing time
We live in dangerous times. Canadian troops are dying with alarming frequency. Atomic weapons tests are rearing their ugly mushroom-shaped heads. War is a game played by countless young people in the flickering light of computers. Armed conflict is all around us, yet we are, for the most part, happily removed from it. Flash back […]
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Face off
Most competitive males will admit to taking part in a ridiculous challenge at one point in their lives. Who can shotgun a beer faster? Been there. Face slapping contests? Done that. Most contests of this nature involve alcohol or poor judgment (sometimes both), and usually result in physical injuries and terrible hangovers—perfect entertainment for close […]
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Man of the Year
In many screenplays, a movie’s entire progression becomes evident after its first third. Some don’t even need that much time. If Man of the Year and The Marine barely register on the pop climate it’s because they aren’t actually new movies. These autumn regurgitations foresake surprise (and interest)—begging the question of why their makers think […]
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Neptune squad
Practically any evening of channel-surfing will reveal an abundance of forensic crime dramas. But before CSI (in any city), before Bones, certainly before Cold Case, there was CTV’s Cold Squad, helmed by the spunky Sgt. Ali McCormick, AKA Julie Stewart. Stewart—the only cast member to work all of the show’s seven seasons—has been looking for […]
