Once more, with not much feeling, the biopic formula infects a celebrity’s life. Notorious reduces the career and death of Biggie Smalls. The year 1997 wasn’t so long ago that it’s forgotten, even if it isn’t often considered. But Notorious has no feel for the 1990s. This distinctive point in rap history (when east side/west […]
Video
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UK Subs submerge you in 1970s punk
English punks UK Subs are playing in Halifax for one night and one night only: Monday March 30. Tickets are $15 (contact plaguedogproductions@yahoo.ca). Rocking4Dollars is moving to Sunday that week, so don’t you worry about that. Some facts about the UK Subs: In the 1970s they recorded a Peel session for BBC1. They used to […]
Posted inArts + Music
Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood is still capable of making a good movie (most recently Letters from Iwo Jima ), but he’s also entered that canonical phase of old age, where everything he does is thought to hold some kind of wisdom. Gran Torino is just sloppy—not even its cliche build-up has poetry. This attempt at an Oscar-prestige […]
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Boxing Day bonanza
What do you do on Boxing Day? Sit on your kiester, arrange your Pogs in order of importance, watch To Russia With Love, snack on a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. All of that can take a backseat to this fine event. All cover bands, all night at Gus’ Pub on December 26 (10pm, $5). North of […]
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Punisher: War Zone
Punisher: War Zone is the most gruesome mainstream movie ever helmed by a female director. It’s hard to see anyone taking Lexi Alexander’s blood-soaked, live-action cartoon seriously enough to be offended. This is a movie populated on all sides by sociopaths. It doesn’t try to make you care about anyone or anything in it, and […]
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Milk
It’s to Milk’s advantage that it has a gay director. Unlike previous homophilic Oscar-hopeful Brokeback Mountain, this movie doesn’t shroud its subject in mystery. Instead, Gus Van Sant tells the story of Harvey Milk’s gay rights campaign from the already liberated perspective that the rest of the world better get used to it. In his […]
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Australia
Granted, Moulin Rouge! had novelty going for it on the initial viewing. But it’s now clear to me that Baz Luhrmann’s trick is to create movies that insist upon their own wonderfulness. This is where the patience-testing Australia tries to pressure us: Either you resist it and you’re a hopeless cynic, or you embrace it […]
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Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
Hey Dad! You know how you bailed me out of the drunk tank and then didn’t even make a huge deal out of it? And that time I backed the car into the neighbours’ stupid little stone lion at the end of their driveway? And when I got super stoned and knocked the TV off […]
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Wax Bananaquin
Holy shit! Anyone who knows me knows that “Animals Jump” is my jam. It’s the perfect mix of heavy riffage, ridiculous premises and itty bitty animals dancing in a serious way. To see it performed in person is, ‘ow you say, NANNERS. You’ll get your chance this November 29 when Wax Mannequin brings down the […]
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Nova Scotia Music Week gets ugly
In case you missed the news when Tara reported it, the race for Aliant Entertainer of the Year category is getting ugly. You can’t imagine the tension here in Pictou County–no one’s talking about it, but really, when you have Rich Aucoin, Dave Gunning, David Myles, Old Man Luedecke and Tom Fun Orchestra, shit’s gonna […]
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Halifax filmmakers take over the world
I hate that whole Hollywood East deal, but it was a banner week for Halifax filmmakers. First of all, Jay Dahl’s 10-minute trailer for There Are Monsters received a whopping 640,000 hits in its first 72 hours on YouTube (by Friday it was over 700,000), over 2,000 comments and a bunch of honours—it’s was rated […]
