The fight between religion and science in The Exorcism of Emily Rose is mirrored in the movie’s own struggle for respectability. Not content to be “just” a horror movie, the “Based on a True Story” credit is an attempt to legitimize it with a seriousness it doesn’t contain. The effect of applying horror tropes to […]
Arts + Music
Live theatre, art exhibits, comedy, literary, spoken word – The Coast guide to Halifax and Dartmouth, NS . The downtown, local arts scene – plays, writers, actors, artists and performers. Painting, sculpture, photography, stand-up, stage.
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Festival express
In 1981, the world of film festivals was very different. Sundance wasn’t even known by the title of Robert Redford’s most famous role. It was The Utah/US Film Festival, just moved from Salt Lake to Park City. The Toronto International Film Festival was five years old, also under its former name, The Festival of Festivals, […]
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Nothing personal
Add one more talented singer-songwriter to the list of those who call Halifax home. After more than a decade in the local music scene, Norma MacDonald finally releases her first debut solo album, Nothing Is Where It Was, this Saturday at Stage Nine. “I feel like I’m starting something completely new,” the 30-year-old MacDonald says. […]
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Girl Talk
A young girl—still a virgin—is called a slut simply because she lives in a group home. At the age of 10, another girl overhears her principal whisper “slut” as she walks by in a pair of short shorts. Yet another makes the mistake of kissing a boy and ends up being shunned by her classmates […]
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Recording soundtracks
Film is a naturally collaborative medium, and much of the best in music is as well. To bring filmmaking bigwigs and music honchos together is such a natural marriage, it’s sort of surprising no one thought of it before. This year’s Atlantic Film Festival dates, September 15 to 24, overlap with the Nova Scotia Music […]
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Poetry in Motion
November 11, 2004. A couple thousand people come together for a Remembrance Day ceremony at Sullivan’s Pond in Dartmouth. Paul McNeill and Catherine Cooper are among the families and neighbours who have devoted the day to appreciating the men and women who sacrificed everything for their country’s future; or, more precisely, us. After all the […]
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On the line
When Halifax filmmaker Steven James May set out to document the lives of three women working in the phone sex industry, he knew that he would dealing with some touchy subject matter. Sure enough, in the weeks leading up to his film’s premier at the Atlantic Film Festival on September 22, he was busy working […]
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On the line
Laura Linney is the perfect amount of famous. Consider the case of Kinsey, the 2004 biopic of controversial sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, for which Linney received her second Academy Award nomination. She gained 25 pounds to play the doctor’s wife. When Renee Zellweger ate herself to a healthy weight for both Bridget Jones films, the […]
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Firking A
We’re generally not that interested in wire stories, those often blandly written nuggets of fluff available to newspapers the world over. But an interesting one drifted across our desk yesterday. It appears “fuck,” in all its multi-purpose glory, has been added to the 40th edition of The Canadian Press Caps and Spelling, a guide for […]
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Street sense
Earlier this summer, the mayor and 20 city councillors voted in favour of a motion asking the provincial government to enact something called the Safe Streets Act, similar to legislation currently in effect in BC and Ontario. Upon seeing the moniker Safe Streets, you might reasonably assume this is legislation cracking down on street crimes […]
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Wide awake in New York
Following a short break from a European tour promoting their second album, there is lots of news to report out of the Wintersleep camp. The group will be supporting k-os’ three date campus frosh week jaunt across Atlantic Canada, skipping Nova Scotia for the annual CMJ Music Marathon in New York City. The three-day event […]
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Free Form’s function
“Hold on, let me give a quick hurray — we just found out we’re not lost,” says Ryan Wylie, turning away from his cell phone to cheer on his fellow passengers. Navigation woes are inevitable as the co-founder of the Free Form Film Festival travels across North America in a convoy of three vehicles—two vans […]
