Marielle Heller made one of the most striking debuts in recent memory with 2015’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl, the real and unflinching coming-of-age story of a California teen. It was tough, tender, funny and poignant—all qualities found here in her follow-up, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, though it’s toughness that dominates long before […]
Film + TV
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Film review: Widows
Steve McQueen’s Widows was ballsy before it even showed up: You know going in that all the men, including a famous one (Liam Neeson), die in the beginning. (Note to Hollywood: Start more films like this.) Following McQueen’s brutal, sobering Academy Award winner 12 Years A Slave, Widows looked to be a complete 180: A […]
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Film review: Mid90s
Jonah Hill makes his directorial debut with the coming-of-age story Mid90s, which received a rapturous standing ovation when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last month. But let us push a pin into that festival bubble: Sunny Suljic leads a cast of mostly unknowns as Stevie, the son of a single mom (Katherine […]
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Film review: Beautiful Boy
Starting right from the title, there’s something very earnest about Beautiful Boy, the Belgian director Felix Van Groeningen’s adaptation of an addiction story based on memoirs by David Sheff and his son Nic. This is something we’ve seen over and over—it’s happening on a nearby screen in A Star is Born right now—but rarely do we get […]
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Film review: Bel Canto
Paul Weitz has led a curious career, with a huge hit right out of the gate in his 1999 directorial debut, American Pie: Though it had a smattering of heart, it mostly had pie-fucking and explaining what MILF meant. In the 20 years since, Weitz has returned to the comedy well a few times—the Chris […]
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Sharkwater’s way
Sharkwater Extinction Opens Friday, October 19 Late in Sharkwater Extinction is a scene that has nothing to do with sharks, one you’ve known is coming the whole movie, that gives the title a sombre double meaning: The death of its director and star, Rob Stewart. Stewart’s debut documentary, 2006’s Sharkwater, was instrumental in the banning […]
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Film review: Fahrenheit 11/9
If Michael Moore’s last film, Where to Invade Next, was possibly his most gimmicky (that is saying a lot), then Fahrenheit 11/9 sets him back somewhere he can be taken seriously again. A spiritual sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore’s condemnation of the Bush administration, 11/9 looks at how exactly America—and the rest of us—ended up […]
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The weekend warriors of The 48 Hour Film Project
48 Hour Film Project premiere Thursday, September 27, 6:30pm Paul O’Regan Hall, Halifax Central Library 5440 Spring Garden Road $10 tickethalifax.com The character: Liam or Lily, professional musician. The prop: An alarm clock. The line: “What a small world!” Then: Pick one of two genres. Those were the restrictions placed on the 11 teams competing […]
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AIFF 2018: 160 girls fight for justice in The Girls of Meru
The Girls of Meru Sunday, September 16, 1:30pm Cineplex Park Lane, 5657 Spring Garden Road $12.50 ($11.25 stu/sen) finfestival.ca “I just wanted to focus on the case,” says Andrea Dorfman of her documentary The Girls of Meru. She says it multiple times, speaking with empathy and care for the 160 girls she made the movie […]
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5 recommended picks from FIN’s global offerings
Ash Is The Purest White Sunday, September 16, 3pm, Park Lane 7 Ciao (Zhao Tao) is a gangster’s moll in a crumbling Chinese city. When she uses a pistol to protect her boyfriend from a gangland attack, she takes the fall and spends five years in prison. Getting out, she finds her country, her relationships […]
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Fall for Hopeless Romantic
Gala presentation: Hopeless Romantic Cineplex Park Lane Mall, 6:30pm 5657 Spring Garden Road Saturday, September 15 $22.50 finfestival.ca How might you make a romantic comedy that is funny and honest without being reductive about our experience of love? That’s the guiding question behind Hopeless Romantic, an ambitious locally-made film premiering this week at the Atlantic […]
Posted inArts + Music
Fall for Hopeless Romantic
Gala presentation: Hopeless Romantic Cineplex Park Lane Mall, 6:30pm 5657 Spring Garden Road Saturday, September 15 $22.50 finfestival.ca How might you make a romantic comedy that is funny and honest without being reductive about our experience of love? That’s the guiding question behind Hopeless Romantic, an ambitious locally-made film premiering this week at the Atlantic […]