As the 31st Atlantic Film Festival comes to a close, I decided I would go out for one last night to check out some films to tie me over until next year. The first feature was The Swell Season, a documentary on the band by the same name, which charts their rise from obscurity to […]
Oxford Theatre
Posted inArts + Music
Afghan Luke dramatic, comic and thoughtful
Hometown hero Mike Clattenburg bursts out of the Trailer Park in a major way with this film about the tragedy, comedy and madness of war. Based on the work of freelance reporter Patrick Graham, who also co-wrote the script, Afghan Luke follows a battlefield journalist (Nick Stahl) who returns to Afghanistan in search of more […]
Posted inArts + Music
Bored to tears by The Turin Horse
I’m going to preface this piece by saying I’ve never seen a film by Béla Tarr, the Hungarian director behind The Turin Horse, an existential movie about the life of a horse who is later whipped in an Italian square, a moment which supposedly sent Friedrich Nietzsche into insanity for ten years prior to his […]
Posted inArts + Music
Colour Me tells the story of black identity in suburban Ontario
Colour Me is a documentary about six kids in a Brampton, Ontario high school, all of whom identify as black. They’re interviewed by Anthony McLean, whose own mixed ethnicity made for struggles in his youth. He’s a motivational speaker, but also a high school dropout, struggling to make ends meet by working as a waiter […]
Posted inArts + Music
Take This Waltz? It’s complicated.
Oh, there’s so much I’d like to say about Sarah Polley‘s new Toronto-shot feature film, Take This Waltz, a story about a neurotic woman (Michelle Williams) in a happy marriage (to Seth Rogen) yet falling in love with another man (Luke Kirby). Unfortunately, I’m hamstrung by the embargo, the request of distributors to not fully […]
Posted inArts + Music
Higher Ground and Jane Alexander
Only have a few minutes to scrawl some notes before rushing off to the next dark room. The first Saturday of the Atlantic Film Festival is crammed with screenings, parties, what have you. Last night I had the good fortune to catch American actor and director Vera Farmiga‘s Higher Ground, a really amazing feature film […]
Posted inArts + Music
Empire Theatres have trouble with their screenings
We here at The Coast love movies, and the we presume the good people at the local branch of the national cinema chain Empire Theatres do too, or why would they be in the business of offering them for our enjoyment? They have a monopoly on first run cinemas in Halifax, so they must really […]
Posted inArts + Music
Picnicface opens festival with a big bang
I’ve been covering this festival for half a dozen years, and this is the first time it’s rained on the opening night during that span. A couple years back AFF director Lia Rinaldo told me part of the reason they decided to take the gala opening party inside from Argyle Street was because they figured […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Quinpool Road guided tour
Recently covered by a fresh coat of asphalt, Quinpool Road is about to celebrate with Quinfest Family Fun day on Saturday, September 17, from 11am to 3pm. It’ll be a chance to check out what Quinpool has to offer, its broad selection of merchant wares. From Greece to China, Korea to the Middle East, Quinpool […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Debt pays off
John Madden’s remake of a 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov about three Mossad agents who botch the kidnapping of a German war criminal is a case study in thriller construction. We meet the agents (Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds) in the late-90s, 30 years after their high-risk mission to lift a vicious doctor (Jesper […]
Posted inArts + Music
One Day isn’t quite enough
What begins as an almost sexy encounter between Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) on grad night at Edinburgh University in 1988 turns into a saga of their friendship. We’re privy to the following 20 years of their respective lives, every July 15, as each finds or loses ambition—Sturgess, a coked-up TV host who […]
Posted inArts + Music
Despite funny moments, Crazy, Stupid, Love disappoints
Despite some truly funny moments (half of which are in the previews), director duo Glenn Ficarra’s and John Requa’s (I Love You Phillip Morris) Crazy, Stupid, Love doesn’t live up to its full potential, falling into a well-worn Hollywood routine of soulmates and grand gestures. As Steve Carell’s 25-year marriage to Julianne Moore breaks up, […]