With the holidays approaching, Hollywood is rolling out a second batch of blockbusters primed to either capitalize on the spirit of the season (A Christmas Carol) or provide a couple of hours of blissful escapism, like this week’s “rock ’em, sock ’em, world-go-boom!” epic, 2012, from today’s maestro of destruction, Roland Emmerich. The trailer indicates […]
Movies
Posted inArts + Music
Good Hair shines
Comedian Chris Rock combs through the culture and industry of African-American hair, and its complicated, fraught history, with observational humour and surprising depth. Director-collaborator Jeff Stilson guides the affable Rock through a world of pop-can-eroding relaxer chemicals (Rock observes it’s called relaxer because it’s actually relaxing white people), expensive weaves and underground hair markets, with […]
Posted inArts + Music
Impressive and familiar Love & Savagery
Love & Savagery takes place in 1969 Ballyvaughan, in Ireland. Newfoundlander, poet and geologist Michael (Allan Hawco) is there to look at rocks, though swiftly becomes interested in local barmaid Cathleen (Sarah Greene). But Cathleen’s bound for the nunnery and the village’s highly protective men-folk don’t take kindly to some outsider distracting fair Cathleen so […]
Posted inArts + Music
Don’t be scared by 2012
Director Roland Emmerich declares his superiority to Italian Renaissance artists in 2012, first by threatening the Mona Lisa, then by reveling in the destruction of the Sistine Chapel. 2012 (AKA Revenge of the Earth) has been under some scrutiny for exploiting 9/11 imagery. But its failure isn’t that noble: Emmerich hasn’t the skill to invoke […]
Posted inArts + Music
An Education unsettles
An Education certainly has enough achievements to boast about, namely the star-turn from Carey Mulligan and Nick Hornby’s expertly crafted screenplay. But director Lone Scherfig can’t lift the fog from the creepy undertones of its central relationship. Mulligan’s clever yet sheltered schoolgirl, Jenny, is romanced by the seemingly urbane (and grown up!) David (Peter Sarsgaard). […]
Posted inBest of Halifax
Best DVD Rental Store
The price to purchase DVDs has gone down as Blu-Ray picks up speed, but it’s hard to imagine that the enormous library of film available in DVD format at Video Difference is going to switch over anytime soon. That said, they do have Blu-Ray available, along with the city’s best selection of TV box sets. […]
Posted inBest of Halifax
Best Short Film
Jason Shipley’s Blood Shed is a gory horror/comedy short film that has played in festivals around the world. An abridged list: Adelaide, Huntington Beach, Varazdin, Lisbon, Barcelona, Cleveland and Strasbourg. It will finally screen here in January with Peter Jackson’s Dead/Alive as part of the reborn Thrillema genre cinema program. Watch The Coast for more […]
Posted inArts + Music
Amelia a one-note wonder
A quick perusal of the Wikipedia page for Amelia Earhart indicates a complex character best suited for the close analysis of a 400-page book, not a two-hour movie that will certainly include Earhart’s (played here by Hilary Swank) “greatest hits,” like her solo flying accomplishments and the attendant fame and fortune, her lovers—husband George Puttnam […]
Posted inArts + Music
Coco Avant Chanel keeps tight focus
Anyone hungry for fashion gluttony should continue to wait patiently for the Vogue doc The September Issue, or rent Valentino: The Last Emperor. Adapted from Edmonde Charles-Roux’s biography, Coco Avant Chanel, starring the always-endearing Audrey Tautou, focuses on Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s early days. Life is bleak—Chanel and her sister are abandoned at an orphanage by […]
Posted inArts + Music
Webb to make play Wake into short film
More short films going to camera in Halifax: From October 23 through 25, 2009 Merritt award-winning actor Jeremy Webb will be stepping behind the camera for the first time, directing the short Wake. It’s based on the Jessica Marsh play Maelstrom, a dark comedy about a young man returning to Halifax to attend his uncle’s […]
Posted inArts + Music
Zombieland brainless fun
It’s to Zombieland’s benefit that it pays no mind to the most obvious questions it poses. 1) Didn’t Shaun of the Dead already perfect the zombie comedy? 2) Is Jesse Eisenberg’s career relegated to playing neurotic 20-something virgins in movies with the suffix “-land”? Zombieland uses its redundancy as attitude—even the poster tagline wants you […]
Posted inArts + Music
Franchise reaches its Final Destination
The Final Destination can only rank as a complete imaginative failure. Selling bland fatalism to kids, it’s the work of crooks. The original movie had the best premise of any slasher film: Making the killer death itself, while teenagers question the uncertainty of their own mortality. Rather than expand the mythos, the sequels (and this […]