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Arts & Culture
Posted inArts + Music
So many movies
This was an all-movie, celebrity-free day, so this particular post is for the cinephiles. Late last night I took in The Last King of Scotland, fulfilling one of my cardinal moviegoing rules of Gillian Anderson = yes. (This also holds true for Jodie Foster, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling, Laura Linney and Holly Hunter.) Anderson, as […]
Posted inArts + Music
Sarah, dope and short
I’m in between films after a long day yesterday so here’s a quick update in photos. Sarah Polley chatted to a packed house — including Ruthe Stein of the San Fransisco Chronicle and Leah McLaren of the Globe and Mail — about her weep-inducing feature debut, Away From Her. It screens at the Atlantic Film […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Art of Being Single
Another one-act, one-woman play written and performed by Laurie Jones who takes time out of her daily life as a lawyer to share The Art of Being Single. Jones is hilarious as she recalls her dating disasters and gives the audience her list characteristics needed in guys she can be with, including No. 1, “Must […]
Posted inArts + Music
Shut up, Brad
I remember when Brad Pitt broke. It was probably around 1994. I was in Grade 9 and Thelma and Louise had taken its rightful place as my favourite movie. Holly Millea, who is the very best entertainment writer working today, used to appear on The Dini Petty Show to tell Dini what was going on […]
Posted inArts + Music
Circumference
A tale of a woman’s struggle with body image, Circumference is a dynamite one-woman play written by and starring Amy Salloway. A series of monologues strung together, there’s more content in this play than any other this reviewer has seen combined. That explains the notebook that Salloway references throughout the hour-long performance to keep herself […]
Posted inArts + Music
Senseless sensibility
Halifax-like weather kept the city at a grumpy boil today. In the morning I crossed the street too early and ended up walking against the flow of the annual Walk for breast cancer, thousands and thousands of people, mostly women, ponchoed out and in high spirits despite the weather and earlyish hour. I took the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Pretty Pieces
Leigh Ann Bellamy and Mike Sheppard play desperate siblings who feel the world closing in on them in this dramatic piece from Kingston, Ontario-based writer Charles Robertson. Set in a bachelor apartment, an agoraphobic sister passes the time away acting as mother to a child she wishes would love her back. She waits for her […]
Posted inArts + Music
Divine Mechanics
Written and directed by Jamie Feldman, this satiric play tackles the issue of the reliance on technology as well as the role of a higher being in contemporary society. A great concept geared for laughs, Divine Mechanics only fails with a lack of comedic timing the plot needs to succeed.Andee Morgan effectively portrays the angel […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Butleress
Some wag once wrote: a farce is a type of play that critics laugh at and then pan. Not in this case. The Butleress is a jolly outing nicely living up to farce’s raison d’etre – to entertain an audience, eliciting laughs using broad humoured comedy, a ridiculous situation or scenario, played by shameless farceurs. […]
Posted inArts + Music
September rain
Essential festival tools forgotten in Halifax Business cardsLocal band t-shirts (hanging to dry in closet)MP3 playerHeadphones Solutions Sister’s Ipod with permission to replace music“Deluxe” headphones purchased from WestJet ($3 — slightly too big for head)Re-discovery of In-Flight Safety shirt in suitcaseContact info available upon handwritten request The first few days of FFing are such an […]
Posted inArts + Music
Pussy Star
Before video, and way before DVDs, dirty ol’ men and chronic sexual adolescents over voting age, bent on keeping their hand in with the “love connection”, frequented sleazy movie theatres known as Porno Palaces. Every movie had its “dramatic” moments before its inevitable bump and grunt, passion-free finale. Ohh, the mental anguish there had to […]
