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 […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts + Music
Dig your Roots
During Bill Clinton’s Metro Centre visit last week, he lounged in front of a starry backdrop, speaking about unavoidable—negative and positive—global interdependence. Clinton’s relationship model could also be applied to Halifax’s visual arts community: they work together, socialize together and yes, some even sleep together. An exhibition at Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Roots […]
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A brief history of gloss
If the thought of Colin Farrell tying his stringy hair back into some goopy ponytail as narcotics cop Sonny Crockett in the new Miami Vice movie gets you down, remember for a second that Don Johnson originated the role in the 1984 TV series and did it sock-less, in white loafers. See if you don’t […]
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Clerks II
Clerks was about the person Kevin Smith was, and its sequel is about who he could have been. Picking up on the 20-somethings of 1994’s Clerks 12 years later, Smith views dissatisfaction in life as something that’s socially imposed. The fear of growing up is for many a fear of losing one’s identity. It’s conversely […]
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Into the Outback
Guy Pearce’s favourite scene in The Proposition, in which he stars, is when Emily Watson’s Martha realizes the deal her husband has made with the devil in order to, in his words, “civilize” the land. “I cry every time I see it,” he says. “One of the things I think the film is about is […]
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Rita education
Outskirts, Tower of Silence,Side Street, Defunct, Urban Scroungers, Destruck, The Artificial Marsh. The titles of Rita McKeough’s artwork hint at the artist’s preoccupation with architecture. Or with spaces and bodies and how they fit together—or clash. Long Haul, slipping by, Wave Over Wave, Shudder, Shiver, Take it to the Teeth. They’re all art installation performances—presented […]
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Monster House
Monster House is a throwback to a mostly deceased subgenre: the scary movie for kids. Spooky stuff in the new Pirates of the Caribbean is just part of its corporate mindset. That film aims to pacify everyone, but kids can embrace Monster House as their own. Even in its opening stages, the characters display a […]
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The right Fitz
The perfect fit. We’re all seeking it—for our jobs, our jeans, our lovers and our leaders. But perfection usually proves elusive and we end up settling for pretty good or make-do solutions. Once in a while, though, fate throws us a bone. Like, for example, Thom Fitzgerald hooking up with Halifax Pride to curate and […]
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Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest
“Two hours and 20 minutes is a wearying time to spend on a movie that’s really about nothing,” I wrote of 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Not wanting to offend me the same way twice, Gore Verbinski’s follow-up to the Disneyland ride adaptation is just as innocuous, but runs […]
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Loot for McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan’s birthday was July 11. Had he not died in 1980, the Canadian communications and media scholar would’ve been 95 this year. Imagine the party. There’s always one whose gifts outdo the rest. In McLuhan’s case, Terry Gordon—who teaches French, Italian and linguistics at Dalhousie—and his body of work on the “media analyst and […]
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Think Linklater
For a generation-defining film, Slacker is a bit of a bore. The meandering, aimless, over-philosophizing tone of the film doesn’t resonate now as it would have in 1991, when Richard Linklater’s debut feature—with its endless characters, car crash and Madonna’s pilfered pap smear—quietly revolutionized independent filmmaking, for better (structural risk-taking) and worse (unknown writer-director as […]
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Turn down the hype
There’s a great moment in Superman Returns, a variation of an effect that opens Robert Zemeckis’ Contact, that’s an unintended summary of the present blockbuster season. The Man of Steel looks down on Earth from outer space, and is inundated by a cacophony of the planet’s sound waves. So many movies emit so much loud […]
