“I do what feels right to me, and I follow my instincts,” says Ashley McKenzie, the director, writer and editor of Werewolf, her debut feature. “I had a feeling, writing the script, knowing we should never see the ocean. Growing up in and now living in a town where I can look out a window […]
Empire 8 Park Lane
Posted inArts + Music
10 other films to see at the 2016 Atlantic Film Festival
With the Atlantic Film Festival launching its eight-day marathon of 200-odd movies Thursday night, you will already have a sense of a few of the hyped offerings. There are the Atlantic gems, Weirdos, Maudie and Werewolf (see accompanying story), the international pictures beloved of European festival-goers Julieta and I, Daniel Blake, and Kristen Stewart continuing […]
Posted inArts + Music
Money Talks: local features at the Atlantic Film Fest
Tonight, the 35th Atlantic Film Festival kicks off with the premiere of Hyena Road, the new Paul Gross–Allan Hawco joint about Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan (7pm, Rebecca Cohn). There are a number of internationally acclaimed films and shorts screening in the next eight days, but there are also great batch of Atlantic-made features that show just how skilled […]
Posted inBest of Halifax
Best Movie Theatre
Gold Winner Oxford Theatre Silver Winner Empire Dartmouth Crossing Bronze Winner Empire Park Lane A great theatre means lots of different things to lots of different people. Dark enough to make out in undetected? Quiet and respectful attendees, with limited annoying texters? Tasty popcorn? Romantic atmosphere? The Oxford Theatre—“One of the last great venues for […]
Posted inArts + Music
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas is a gift to fans
For Harold and Kumar fans, this is a welcome third installment, written by the same duo as the first two movies, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. TV director Todd Strauss-Schulson (new to the franchise) didn’t have to use 3D, but puts it to good use with self-conscious cheekiness: smoke rings swirl in the air and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Tower Heist a limp caper
(image-1) A big-budget, mindless blockbuster entertainment, Brett Ratner’s (Rush Hour, The Red Dragon) Tower Heist doesn’t quite hit the mark. When businessman Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) defrauds the employees of the swanky high-rise he calls home, ex-building manager Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) leads a robbery of Shaw’s apartment with the aid of a team of […]
Posted inArts + Music
In Time a waste
Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, The Truman Show) brings another clever idea to the screen with a future-world where people’s bodies stop aging at 25 and time literally is money, but doesn’t execute well enough to make the most of it. Justin Timberlake plays a poor worker who’s given an extra century by a suicidal old dude […]
Posted inArts + Music
Puss in Boots is feline fun
The badass Puss (Antonio Banderas) of Shrek 2 is back as a leading feline: an outlaw seeking to clear his name. We’re privy to Puss’ backstory when Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) reappears—they were “brothers” in a Spanish orphanage. They pursue the magic beans (a dream they’ve shared since childhood), which they must steal from a […]
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The Rum Diary a hot mess
It’s 1960 and Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) has just arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Going to work at a failing local newspaper staffed by layabouts and alcoholics, Kemp writes horoscopes and stories about tourists bowling, but also sees the dichotomy on the island, the impoverished locals being screwed by American hotel owners and land-grabbers. […]
Posted inArts + Music
Paranormal Activity 3 familiar but scarily effective
Like the charity haunted house at your nearest community centre, Paranormal Activity 3 arrives in time for Halloween with familiar but nevertheless effective scares. A prequel to its two predecessors, the film travels back to 1988 and the childhoods of sisters Kristi and Katie as they are plagued by a sinister apparition. Mom’s boyfriend attempts […]
Posted inArts + Music
Sharp blades but dull wit of The Three Musketeers
Once upon a time, we didn’t need CGI to be lured into theatres. It’s now a staple of any action flick, including Paul W.S. Anderson’s (Resident Evil) iteration of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel. It does a good job pretending it’s part of the Pirates franchise—befuddled plot, sword fights and Orlando Bloom included—only in Louis XIII’s […]
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Atkinson shines as Johnny English Reborn
Rowan Atkinson doesn’t need a gargantuan budget to be funny. (Remember Mr. Bean or the Blackadder series?) Oliver Parker’s Johnny English Reborn, the sequel to Peter Howitt’s 2003 English debut, reinstates English as an MI7 agent after his five-year retreat as a Tibetan monk. His mission: to stop Vortex, a CIA-MI7-KGB assassination trio, from killing […]