THURSDAY APRIL 6 | 7:30pm, $7 Brad Kessler The Vermont writer’s work has appeared in The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine. Kessler’s new novel Birds in Fall turns its sights northward, as families of victims from an airplane crash, including a New York-based ornithologist, congregate on the fictitious Trachis Island, off the […]
Arts & Culture
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Ice Age: The Meltdown
End-of-the-world peril is conveyed through slapstick in Ice Age: The Meltdown. Its balancing of world wary poignancy and breathless mayhem surpasses the 2002 original. Rather than play for lazy sequel dollars, the crew at Blue Sky animation aim their fuzzy animal adventure for something greater —finding the heart and relentlessness to pull off a winning […]
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Written for the screen
With the ubiquity of movies in popular culture, any novel that reaches a certain visibility gets in line to be adapted for film. It’s close to impossible to find a group of published authors whose numbers don’t include someone with some experience in screenwriting or whose books have not been adapted. Have a look at […]
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Inside Man
Despite prevalent claims that Inside Man is a departure for Spike Lee, it’s really more of a reformatting. The tested bank caper genre is used as a front for the director’s social concerns. As New York City detective Keith Frazier, Denzel Washington leads a prestigious cast of Jodie Foster, Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer, Chiwetel Ejiofor […]
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I want my real TV
Floria Sigismondi calls herself a realist. That may come as a surprise to fans of the Juno-nominated video director, best known for creating lush otherworlds for Björk, Fiona Apple, The White Stripes, David Bowie, Christina Aguilera, Marilyn Manson and other musical elite. “I’m just depicting things the way I see them,” she says. “There is […]
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Live capture
“It wasn’t like, ‘Now’s the time to make a DVD,’ it was, ‘Now’s the time to document something.’” Joel Plaskett is discussing the philosophy behind releasing his band’s new live DVD/studio EP package Make a Little Noise on the phone from a hotel room in Philadelphia. He’s touring the States with labelmate Kathleen Edwards, though […]
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V for Vendetta
Those who bought George Clooney’s Oscar speech statement that Hollywood is ahead of the curve by showing the world what issues it faces ought to love V For Vendetta. It addresses the freedoms of “the little people” with a ruse of sophistication that only the socially empowered can provide—enforcing obvious sentiment in simple-minded terms. It’s […]
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Girls talk
The funniest scene in the Shediac, New Brunswick-shot comedy These Girls takes place between leading man David Boreanaz and one of his three female co-stars, Holly Lewis. Boreanaz plays Keith, the local weed dealer, who is being blackmailed by Lewis’ character, the cheery, teenaged Lisa. She wants him to deflower her, “deflower” being a word […]
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Failure to Launch
When Animals Attack Matthew McConaughey has been released under the title Failure to Launch. Remembering that half the equation of a romantic comedy is humour, the filmmakers fill the downtime between story points with Trip (McConaughey) being bitten by a dolphin, a chipmunk and a lizard. So audiences don’t call out this repetition, the device […]
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Fire in the soul
Photos of celebrities posing in famine-stricken deserts or wading through hurricane debris are as easy to spot as the white plastic bracelet landfill from last year’s Live 8 concert. Philanthropy’s fashionable status could be dismissed as a crass publicity stunt—unless you’re dealing with hip-hop singer Michael Franti, whose documentary I Know I’m Not Alone follows […]
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The Stone carver
Under hazy winter skies, with the slate grey, blue and purple of a Dartmouth rock quarry around them, the film crew making A Stone’s Throw seems particularly relaxed in its third week of shooting. Energy on a film set trickles downward: if the executives, the producer, director and writers are happy, so is the crew. […]
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16 Blocks
Nothing is inherently gay about 16 Blocks or The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, but that shouldn’t make either confusing. Both movies are about the bonds of adult male friendship and the facade of machismo. In 16 Blocks, Bruce Willis is the typical cranky hero that defined his past action hits, except this time he […]
