Another in a string of video game movies, the Resident Evil series continues, with Alice (Milla Jovovich), a rogue agent of the Umbrella Corporation, fighting zombies (or, more accurately, cloned humans infected with a bio-weapon virus that makes them flesh-eating monsters). Alice’s mission is to traverse a series of simulated cities, battling various monsters summoned […]
Film + TV
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Atlantic Film Fest guide
Click here for all our Atlantic Film Festival coverage on one handy page. Check The Scene blog September 13-20 for daily reviews from the fest.
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Lost at sea
Those who worked on the set of Shandi Mitchell’s film, The Disappeared say it was one of the most memorable film experiences of their careers. The film tells the story of six fishermen who, after their boat sinks, are forced to find their way home in two small dories, stranded in the middle of the […]
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Starfish troopers: Seth Smith’s Lowlife
Despite the manic joy that comes from winter finally ending, spring in Nova Scotia is a long road, and can be a bleak one. Every time you catch a saucy wink from a newly sprouted crocus, there’s 10 times as many instances where a melting snowbank reveals a winter’s worth of dog shit or a […]
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Bones unburied
Filmmaker Stacy Peralta has been many things in his life. First, he was a professional skateboarder, getting worldwide acclaim for his freestyle and pool riding as one of the Z-Boys. In the ’80s, he became a visionary, co-founding Powell Peralta Skateboards and changing the face of the industry with the introduction of skate videos, advertising […]
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The Cold Light of Day
Saddled with an overused premise, and a horrendous title, there’s still some glimmers of fun in The Cold Light of Day. When vacationing businessman Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) is forced to rescue his kidnapped family, he’s consequently thrown into a world of espionage and trigger-happy spies. All routine stuff, but director Mabrouk El Merchri (who […]
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Farewell, My Queen
In the early days of the French Revolution, the court at Versailles is in denial, trying to maintain its extravagant normalcy, as the Parisian masses are circulating a list of heads-to-be-chopped—Benoît Jacquot’s Versailles is claustrophobic and insular, as tension builds and luxury loses its shine. We learn of these events through Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux), […]
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The Words
When a self-absorbed white dude, Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper), has writers block, it’s hard to sympathize with him as he plagiarizes an old, stumbled-upon manuscript. Cooper cannot even pass himself off as a failed novelist. But, this movie has layers: this entire story is being told through the voice of another author, Clay Hammond (Dennis […]
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Lawless
If you don’t have an iron stomach, you should probably miss John Hillcoat’s Lawless, a prohibition-era story of three Bondurant brothers’ bootlegging ventures in Virginia. The Bondurants run the town until a deputy from Chicago (Guy Pearce) arrives, wanting a cut of the action, inciting bloodshed to get his way. Forrest (Tom Hardy), the “invincible” […]
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The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure
Sixty million dollars was somehow spent on The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, a torturously awful singalong puppet pile of trash. A trio of rainbow-coloured monstrosities, Oogieloves Zoozie, Toofie and Goobie work with goldfish Ruffy and vacuum cleaner J. Edgar to rescue five magic balloons lost in Lovelyloveville and throw a birthday party for […]
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Robot and Frank
Technology, like the elderly, is often thought obsolete as soon as its out of date. Or so feels Frank (a charmingly grumpy Frank Langella), the retired cat burglar whose children don’t want to visit him. When Frank’s memory begins to fade, his son brings him an ASIMO-like robotic helper which Frank dismisses as a nuisance […]
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Wrestle mania
Eighteen-year-old Fran Whiteway (Republic of Doyle‘s Marthe Bernard) is a pint-sized wrestling pitbull. She yearns to become a pro but her overprotective father, Whitey (Trailer Park Boys‘ Robb Wells), is dead set against it. Discovering her father’s wrestling ban originated with her parents’ prior wrestling careers tearing them apart (oh, and that her mother’s not […]
