For a city unsupported by a provincial or municipal arts council, Halifax boasts an astounding number of art galleries. Hey, we have a world-recognized art school smack in the middle of the downtown, a network of reputable university galleries and a dedicated arts community with an Energizer-rabbit attachment to hard work, all working hard to […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts + Music
The Math Building
Without any graduate creative writing programs in town, aspiring young writers must She wears glasses that are not too small. I wish I was a girl like that. I’m a different kind of girl. I wear contact lenses because glasses make me look like I am wearing glasses. I am not saying this properly. When […]
Posted inArts + Music
Idlewild
It should have been great. OutKast’s library lends itself to the upbeat rhythm of movie musicals, with the film’s Prohibition-era setting taking the stylization of contemporary music videos and director Bryan Barber’s deep shade photography. “MTV style” has become a favourite putdown among conservative movie critics, but I would love to be able to watch […]
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In-flight safety
Producers of the internet-hyped Hollywood movie Snakes on a Plane must be rubbing their hands together. The arrest of 19 air bomb conspirators in the UK has renewed anxiety around air travel, and it’s not hard to imagine some fast-talking studio-head saying snakes are a metaphor for our fear of airborne terrorism. As if there […]
Posted inArts + Music
Snakes on a Plane
“Really? That’s so cool!” a girl sitting behind me exclaimed when I joked to my friend that the only thing I like better than planes is snakes. The brilliance of Snakes on a Plane’s title (garnering it far more interest than mid-level action films of its ilk ever get) is how unpretentiously it lays out […]
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Pawnshop Blues: The Coles Notes version
Maybe you’ve been away since May, or maybe you just took a couple weeks off to cottage it up in the wilderness somewhere, or maybe you need a little help getting in the mood to go back to school, but whatever the reason, we figured we’d warm up your reading skills with a Coles Notes […]
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Gaining a hold
It’s a classic wrestling ending. Two wrestlers climb the ropes at a slow, dramatic pace. Once they’re balanced at the top, the stronger of the two hooks his opponent over the shoulder and proceeds to deliver the Spanish Fly, a high-risk maneuver where both wrestlers perform aerial flips simultaneously before crashing hard on the matt. […]
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World Trade Center
There’s an expectancy that any reasonable movie about 9/11 must represent political complexities. But Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center sidesteps global conflict and the director’s own reputation for a return to September 11’s initial helplessness. The day isn’t approached as a dramatic end in itself by Stone, it becomes a basis for his treatise on […]
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Pawn shop blues – Page 3
I stop in the living room to press play on the cd player. There’s a Tom Waits cd in there I’ve been listening to nonstop. As his dusty voice mingles with the sunlight and the coffee smell, I start to feel a bit human. It’s not a bad feeling. I’m just getting dressed when the […]
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The Descent
The nature-survival film gets rehauled as straight horror in The Descent, a UK item that’s well-versed in scare tactics. The documentary quality of the shot setups and observational tone recalls Wolf Creek, but The Descent’s primal terror—clautrophobics might have a rough time with it—hits harder, with more innovation and skill. The location of the horror […]
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The X-films
It isn’t a wild generalization to say that most people who get into filmmaking want to make a living doing it. It’s the result of a pervasive and populist medium of entertainment. This means understanding how to tell a story in projected light, but there are those who are able to look at unique elements […]
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Miami Vice
Michael Mann’s stylish film version of his trend-setting ’80s TV drama Miami Vice is a weird take on a cop thriller. Mann’s non-conformist approach to tough guy mystique is more defiant than inspired—interesting for what it isn’t, rather than what it is. By resisting cliche, Mann makes exactly the movie that his detractors frequently accuse […]
