There was reason to believe that director David Gordon Green and writer-actor Danny McBride, who collaborated to varying degrees on Pineapple Express and Eastbound and Down, could make some comedic hay with this quest-movie parody. Instead, they’ve produced a tepid and lazy film, wasting their own talents and those of a strong cast. McBride plays […]
Empire Theatres – Dartmouth Crossing
Posted inArts + Music
Hop falls flat
Hop, directed by Tim Hill (Alvin And the Chipmunks), is about a friendship between the digitally animated Easter Bunny-in-waiting, EB (Russell Brand), and the unemployed and whiny Fred O’Hare (James Marsden). When EB runs away to Hollywood to become a drummer, a trio of ninja bunnies is dispatched to retrieve him while an overgrown evil […]
Posted inArts + Music
Blood-chilling Insidious
Saw director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell ditch the blood spilling and go for blood-chilling with *Insidious*, the most thoroughly terrifying film since its influential ancestor Paranormal Activity. After an accident in his new home, little Dalton (Ty Simpkins) goes into a mysterious coma, a development that coincides with much supernatural weirdness. His parents […]
Posted inArts + Music
Source Code executes
Duncan Jones follows up his Kubrick-cool debut Moon with an earthbound piece of sci-fi, one starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier continually re-living the eight minutes leading up to a train bombing. While trying to figure out the identity of the bomber, Gyllenhaal’s Colter Stevens also tries to figure out how his superiors (Vera Farmiga […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hobo With A Shotgun hits its target
For most movies, adjectives like cheesy, offensive and tasteless carry a negative connotation. But this movie is called Hobo with a Shotgun, for fuck’s sake, so it’d be a shame if these descriptions didn’t apply. No worries there. Dartmouth director Jason Eisener’s first feature is a blood-soaked and kinetic exploitation masterpiece, an abattoir for cinema’s […]
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
Hobo With A Shotgun opens in local cinemas
Let’s see if we’ve got this straight: Monday night Hobo With A Shotgun director Jason Eisener was in Montreal for a screening of his new film. Tuesday he was in Toronto. Wednesday he was here for the invite-only screening at the Oxford for crew and the local film biz folks. Thursday he was in Boston […]