I always wear it in the way she said will draw people to me. Funny thing, this ring. I haven’t noticed a marked difference in my life. Seems to me I attract and repel people pretty much the way I always have. With a look or a gesture, or a few well-chosen words. For sure, […]
Arts & Culture
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Flight plan
On September 11, 2001, at 10:03am, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Forty-four on board died. United 93, the movie about that flight, was released last Friday, 1,670 days later. It is, of course, not too soon to release a movie about the fourth plane to crash that day. United 93 is the […]
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On the waterfront
Cirque de CJThe cult of celebrity is alive and well in HRM. This is a town where local weather girl Cindy Day can barely get a cup of coffee in peace and where audiences who shun other homegrown shows will come out with bells on for Cathy Jones’ Cirque de CJ. For the most part, […]
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Neil Young: Heart of Gold
It takes strong vision to find new ways of shooting a concert movie, but Jonathan Demme does it in his outstanding documentary Neil Young: Heart of Gold. Filmed in a Nashville auditorium over two nights, Demme doesn’t give us any crowd shots. The usual scope and spectacle of filmed concerts is done away with for […]
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Pawn Shop Blues
For sure, the fear has got me now. I’m lying on my back in the absolute dark of my room, blinking wildly, trying to keep my eyes open, trying to wake up, really wake up. I’m not sure exactly what has scared the hell out of me, but something has, and I struggle to pin […]
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No kidding
If Ellen Page’s new movie Hard Candy was transformed into a sugary confection, it would be one of those giant sour balls that you must commit to before putting in your mouth. When Hard Candy premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah last January, Ugg boots stormed out of the theatre, spreading anger across […]
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King of the Hill
Brian Howald is a busy guy. He’s in Toronto, in transit from a meeting to a screening and he only has a few minutes to speak. To make matters worse, he’s having to dodge nosy questions down the line from Halifax about this new IMAX project he’s working on. “I don’t know,” he says, hesitating. […]
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Scary Movie 4
The Scary Movie franchise provides the same service American fast food chains do for tourists in foreign countries—it’s not especially rewarding, but the menu is easy to interpret, and you get what you’re accustomed to. Only prior experience with this series makes it satisfactory that Scary Movie 4 is just reasonably OK. A full half […]
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Watching and talking
Let us first do away with the term “chick flick.” Unless we are going to institute the term “dick flick” for every male-driven film that treats women as caricature—that would be most films, then—let us read no more of Peter Travers’ “chick flick hell.” The whole world is dick flick hell, dude. Find a new […]
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Lucky Number Slevin
It may seem unlikely that Lucky Number Slevin and The Benchwarmers have entirely different filmmaking philosophies; they’re both, after all, failed comedies. The distinction lies between the extremities of their attitudes. One is deathly in love with itself. The other just doesn’t give a fuck. Slevin displays one of the worst influences of Tarantino- inspired […]
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Teresa MacInnes, British Columbia born-and-raised, has been a Nova Scotia resident for seven years. She came to filmmaking through social work, and found that by telling stories through the lens she was able to make more of a difference in people’s lives. “After a couple of years in social services you realize very quickly the […]
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Writes of passage
Writers are scavengers. They tear the flesh off family lore, historic events or personal experiences, hunting for inspiration. Sometimes the hunt is pragmatic, but in some rare situations, magic—or perhaps destiny—occurs. If you believe in magical intervention, you might attribute the conception of Ami McKay’s gorgeous debut novel The Birth House to old-fashioned serendipity. After […]
