Happy Pop Family (Mint) Two years after its ambitious Mint Records debut, Monomyth has returned with a new rhythm section and a nimble, buoyant new album, Happy Pop Family. Two thousand fourteen’s Saturnalia Regalia saw the band honing in on a slick, spindly style of guitar pop that sanded down some of its rougher edges. […]
Reviews
Posted inArts + Music
Atlantic Fringe 2016 – Day 1
The reviews are in from the opening night of the Fringe Fesitval. You can just read them all in order, or jump to a specific one with these links: Hummingbird I’m Only One Man The Mom Show or the Most Boring Show Ever Noel James, What’s Welsh for Funny? The Princess Show Stood Up Hummingbird […]
Posted inFood + Drink
Ewe oughta know about Black Sheep
If you look at the restaurant community as a family, Black Sheep is by no means the disgraceful brother or ne’er-do-well sister. It is run by a duo of chef-owners, Dave Woodley and John House, who previously worked together at Gio. Gio has long been a bit of a hidden gem, even if some of […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Money Monster
Just before the glut of summer moviedom comes a movie for grown-ups. Neither franchise entry nor reboot nor app-turned-feature, Money Monster is an old-fashioned Hollywood thriller starring a pair of vets—Julia Roberts and George Clooney—directed by another, Jodie Foster. Clooney is Lee Gates, a roguish asshole who hosts a gimmicky show called Money Monster, in which he fast talks and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
Nobody tries very hard in the sequel to 2014’s best comedy—it’s the same movie except Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen battle a sorority instead of a frat—which detracts some humour points. But with a cast this great—especially Zac Efron; Byrne, 2014’s standout, sadly gets less to do and a rehash of insane/grossout scenarios, plus a curious and enduring feminist streak—you’ll […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: I Saw The Light
Sandwiched between last month’s Chet Baker biopic Born To Be Blue and next week’s Miles Davis film Miles Ahead is I Saw the Light, which did a round on the fall festival circuit first. It stars Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams, who in about a half-decade career managed to become an icon, despite—according to this movie, at least—being a […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Miles Ahead
Don Cheadle takes the often-staid musician’s biopic and turns it on its head with Miles Ahead, a presumed account of Miles Davis’ life somewhere between 1975 and 1980, when he was hiding out in his New York mansion, high on cocaine and playing not a note. When Rolling Stone reporter David Braden (Ewan McGregor) shows up with the aim […]
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Review: Demolition
Quebecois director Jean-Marc Vallée continues his steady march into Hollywood—you have him to blame for Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar—following up Wild and Dallas Buyers Club with the Jake Gyllenhaal-starrer Demolition. Gyllenhaal, who’s made two films with Vallée’s fellow ascendant Francophone, Denis Villeneuve, stars as Davis, an investment banker whose wife dies in a car accident. A hospital vending-machine incident inspires Davis to write […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Eye in the Sky
The actor-writer-director Gavin Hood follows up the mostly computer-generated Ender’s Game—about a boy training to fight intergalactic war through a simulator that turned out to be real—with a similar but much more realistic battle pitched across nations in Eye in the Sky. Colonel Katherine Powell is played by Helen Mirren—a terrific, welcome force to have in a typically manly environment […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: The Little Prince
This terrific adaptation of the beloved children’s book for adults features a passel of Hollywood voices, but they’re beside the point. When a little girl (Mackenzie Foy), overworked by her uptight single mother (Rachel McAdams), meets a kooky neighbour (Jeff Bridges) who tells her of his adventures with the Little Prince—a boy born on an asteroid searching the universe for […]
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Review: Allegiant
The Hunger Games, which stretched on for a movie too long as well, at least had the good sense to end each one with a cliffhanger. (Even Twilight did that.) Divergent, the Shailene Woodley-starring Games ripoff that’s on film three of four, conversely ends as would a television series on the bubble—each installment could continue on, but if for some […]
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Born To Be Blue
This Very Canadian Biopic stars Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker, who in the ’60s was womped by his drug dealer’s goons and had all his teeth knocked out. Teeth are pretty important to a trumpet player! Writer director Robert Budreau does the smart biopic take—instead of trying for a life overview, he covers a specific era, during which Baker is […]
