Production boom “I did various commercials,” says Shauna Hatt, a film production coordinator who works on a contract basis in film. “And I did two CBS TV movies back to back.” She’s referring to the Tom Selleck movies, sequels to the popular movie of the week Stone Cold, based on the Robert B. Parker novels. […]
Film + TV
Posted inArts + Music
Picture show
Every year, critics complain how it was a bad year for movies, and then I point out that that they’re paying attention to the wrong ones. This year is a different matter. Big movies came from directors like Roman Polanski, Tim Burton, Hayao Miyazaki, Terry Gilliam, Cameron Crowe, David Cronenberg, Jim Jarmusch, Richard Linklater, Deepak […]
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Movie report card
This is an ordered ranking of every feature length 2005 movie I saw, prior to December 23. Movies first released in North America in 2004 that didn’t open in Halifax until 2005 (eg. Hotel Rwanda) are not counted. Nor are foreign movies released domestically in 2005 that were counted on last year’s list (eg. Oldboy). […]
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Fun with Dick and Jane
Jim Carrey, as everyman slob Dick, stands on top of a table in a high-class bar, ranting wildly about how the patrons (corporate employees) are just puppets. His wife Jane (Tea Leoni) tells off the bartender for serving her husband so many drinks to allow him to make such an animated fool of himself. The […]
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Draft pick
Jay Dahl doesn’t have many compliments when he talks about his home province. “I always wanted to make films,” he says. “I’m from northern Alberta, so that possibility just did not exist. There’s no such thing there as the arts, I guess.” Dahl isn’t someone who’d let that keep him from getting what he wants. […]
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King Kong
Scale and spectacle are the two words most apt in describing the new King Kong. Peter Jackson’s three-hour remake is nothing if not big. It’s an impressive feat and — with generous frequency — a thrilling one. Yet it’s also this reach for monumental status that keeps it from greatness. Were the movie an hour […]
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Super 8 is enough
Whether it’s a lead who won’t work without his or her daily dose of whiskey, a snowstorm during a summer beach scene or surly extras who won’t listen to the director, every film presents different challenges. Each filmmaker showing their work at the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative’s (AFCOOP) annual Super 8 Holiday Party screening tonight dealt […]
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Tried and Truman
“It’s a time of his life where he has become what he realized,” says director Bennett Miller of Truman Capote. “He found what he was looking for, and suffered the consequences of getting it.” Miller heads a table at which the actors Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr. and the actor-turned-first-time-screenwriter Dan Futterman […]
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The Chronicles of Narnia
The best moments of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe come early. But even once they’ve passed, this adaptation of CS Lewis’s children’s classic has a surprisingly humble charm. When Lucy (Georgie Henley), the youngest of four children evacuated from home during a WWII air raid, discovers a land inside […]
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Back to the auteur
Bruce McDonald is Canadian cinema’s enfant terrible. The Kingston, Ontario-born director emerged from the outlaw auteur movement created when Telefilm came into being in the mid-’80s , along with Patricia Rozema and Atom Egoyan. They shared the new face of Canadian cinema; movies for us, about us and made by creative people here who needn’t […]
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Aeon Flux
The visual excitement of Peter Chung’s MTV series Aeon Flux is lost in transition from animation to live action. Weird pop art becomes routine. There’s a sincere effort to recreate a cartoon look. Director Karyn Kusama (returning five years after her festival hit Girlfight) imbues horizontal line structures through the designs of Earth’s last city […]
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The eyes have it
2046 (sony)Wong Kar Wai’s long-awaited follow-up to In the Mood For Love finally arrives on DVD in December. Partly a sequel to the doomed love affair of the earlier film, and partly a science-fiction mood piece, Kar Wai makes images as important as narrative. CK Angel: Season 5 (fox)Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s shadow haunted this […]
