What begins as an almost sexy encounter between Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) on grad night at Edinburgh University in 1988 turns into a saga of their friendship. We’re privy to the following 20 years of their respective lives, every July 15, as each finds or loses ambition—Sturgess, a coked-up TV host who […]
Empire Theatres – Bayers Lake
Posted inArts + Music
Whirligig charms
Nicholas (Gregory Smith) stumbles home to Nova Scotia with his tail between his legs. He’s a self-described fuck-up, running from responsibility. His parents aren’t particularly happy to see him. Well, his mother (Jennifer Overton). His father (Brain Downey) is entirely silent. So, he hops into bed with the married woman (Fiona Highet) down the lane […]
Posted inArts + Music
No knockout for Sucker Punch
Ass-kicking women are the main attraction in Zack Snyder’s latest addition to his repertoire—he directed 300 and Watchmen —of comic book fantasy flicks. Babydoll (Emily Browning) is orphaned at age 20. Instead of escaping from her abusive stepfather’s care, she’s sent to the loony bin. Only she can free her fellow patients, all beautiful women, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Incendies wins big at the Genies
Congratulations to Denis Villeneuve for his film Incendies (which showed first in Halifax at the Atlantic Film Festival back in September) having won eight awards last night at the 31st Annual Genie Awards, which took place in Ottawa. A lot of the attention around the awards this year was about how no one watches them, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Drive Angry‘s a hell of a movie
Patrick Lussier’s splatterfest is fully aware of its own glorious idiocy, yet it works mostly because its star, Nicolas Cage, attacks his absurd role without so much as a single knowing wink. Cage is deadpan as a dead man who’s escaped from hell to track down the cult that murdered his daughter and is about […]
Posted inBest of Halifax
Best Movie Theatre
Seventy-four years old and still the favourite cinema in town, so kudos to Empire Theatres for giving the place a facelift this summer, with fresh paint perking up the facade. Known primarily as an art house, it’s the perfect room to watch a new Woody Allen picture (Midnight in Paris did gangbusters there this summer) […]