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MOVIES
Third Annual INTERNET OSCAR POOL!
Submitted by Zombies Ate Lauren on 01.31.12 at 7:02am.
It is that fabelled time of year, pals: INTERNET OSCAR POOL TIME! The rules are easy-peasy and you could win some cold-hard cash for your movie nerdery.
As with last year, I’m going to do a 50/50.
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Local short: GAME
Submitted by Zombies Ate Lauren on 01.30.12 at 7:38am.
Josh MacDonald’s newest project (and his directorial debut), GAME, a short film, now has a website with stills, cast and crew bios, and a blog. It also has a bad-ass tag line: HUNTING SEASON IS COMING SOON. Eeee.
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The Artist: A Fun But Slight Throwback
Submitted by filmguy on 01.22.12 at 9:17am.
The Artist is one of those films that can’t help not living up to its own avalanche of hype. Sure, it’s silent, mostly, and in black and white. Yes, it’s lively and at times kinda fun, in an in-joke, wink-and-nudge-way. Mostly, however, The Artist is a tepid retelling of the old A Star Is Born st...
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The Devil Inside is a bad movie
Submitted by Zombies Ate Lauren on 01.20.12 at 7:06am.
It’s 2012, and if the first movie of the year is any indication, we are all doomed.
It is hard to put into words just how bad The Devil Inside was. I saw it last Friday with a crowd of the usual suspects—gaggles of teenagers and university students, couples looking for a scary date movie, ...
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News:: Postdata & Nick Everett @ The Carleton on Feb. 5th
Submitted by Herohill on 01.18.12 at 7:51am.
That thurr is a pretty self explanatory headline, but this show is kind of a big deal so I am going to add a few extra details. Normally, Superbowl Sunday is filled with black, gold and yellow but since this year it might end up being the Nickelback of Superbowls – you know, generic and terrible ...
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A Dangerous Method Is A Disappointment
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.18.12 at 6:36am.
David Cronenberg’s latest feature film A Dangerous Method is a curiously under-powered and reverential bio-pic that seems more Masterpiece Theatre than mainstream movie.
A true story set at the dawn of psychoanalysis in Vienna when Sigmund Freud and his then follower Carl Jung were charting a ...
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The Iron Lady: Streep Is Amazing, The Script Is Not
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.12.12 at 7:49am.
Meryl Streep’s astonishing performance in The Iron Lady is sure to gain her the usual torrent of acclaim. She’s more Thatcher than Margaret herself.
Arch, sharply poised, and encased in a dollop of hair that looks like it could survive a nuclear attack unmussed, Streep’s Margaret Thatcher is a...
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Halifax, 1973: Vampire Experts Meet at Dal
Submitted by Zombies Ate Lauren on 01.11.12 at 7:04am.
My favourite thing I’ve stumbled across at the archives in a long time. From the great paper The 4th Estate:
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Local web series: Flag on the Play
Submitted by Zombies Ate Lauren on 01.10.12 at 7:40am.
The internet’s premiere football vlog… featuring THE DARK ARTS.
I don’t watch football, but I find this show helpful. I now know what teams worship Cthulhu and which are made up entirely of wizards. I suggest you take heed and listen to these guys.
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2012 2012 Movie Picks
Submitted by Zombies Ate Lauren on 01.6.12 at 7:24am.
It’s a fresh new year with what seems like an equal amount of awesome and terrible movies set to hit the big screen. Actually, let’s be honest, it will probably be more bad than good, but the excellent ones tend to make up for that.
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Other 2011 Nova Scotian Favourites…
Submitted by Zombies Ate Lauren on 12.19.11 at 7:48am.
In my column today I was happy to name Hobo with a Shotgun, The Corridor, and Detention as three movies with local connections that did phenomenally in 2011.
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You better not shout, you better not cry…
Submitted by Zombies Ate Lauren on 12.9.11 at 7:49am.
December is a month for spending time with your family, reflecting on the year that has passed, drinking too much hot chocolate and engaging in the most brutal and taxing of all holiday traditions — shopping.
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“HOBO” ONE OF CANADA’S BEST
Submitted by Glen Mathews blog on 12.7.11 at 8:20am.
Jason Eisener‘s HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN has been named one of Cananda’s Top Ten Feature Films of 2011 by the Toronto Internation Film Festival!
I was fairly certain that a very successful DVD & BluRay release would have been the cherry on top of this whole HOBO-experience, but yesterday’s announceme...
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Almodovar's Disaster: The Skin I Live In
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.7.11 at 7:13am.
Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar has delivered the first real dud of his mature career, The Skin I Live In.
A stiff venture into stale genre filmmaking, this Mad Scientist-gone-wrong flick features recycled storylines from previous Almodovar films, and lots of really bad sex.
Starring a compl...
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Melancholia: A Masterpiece
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.25.11 at 7:00am.
Lars Von Trier’s latest, Melancholia, has been overshadowed by some unfortunate comments he made at this year’s Cannes Festival.
That’s too bad, because Melancholia ranks as one of his very best films, a deeply moving and brilliantly original blend of science fiction, psychological study and ...
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Hugo: A love letter to the early days of the movies.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.1.11 at 6:40pm.
Master Cineaste Martin Scorsese’s latest feature, Hugo, is a fascinating detour into family film territory. Leisurely paced, thoughtful and visually dazzling, it’s the kind of movie that makes for ideal holiday viewing.
And while it might be a bit slow for today’s kids, there’s no question tha...
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Johnny Depp Goes Back To Gonzo in The Rum Diary
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.1.11 at 7:57pm.
The Rum Diary is not a great film. It is, however, a delightful one that re-establishes a great writer/director -- Withnail’s Bruce Robinson -- under the guise of a Johnny Depp romp derived from an autobiographical Hunter S Thompson novel.
Depp again plays the late Gonzo journalist -- as he di...
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Down the Road Again: Surprisingly Sweet and Satisfying
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.21.11 at 7:54pm.
Legendary Canadian Filmmaker Don Shebib has done the unthinkable: he’s made a sequel to his 1970 low-budget, ultra-realist Canuck cinema landmark, Goin’ Down the Road.
And surprise, surprise. It’s a pretty darn great ride. Titled Down the Road Again, it ties up all the loose ends of the first ...
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Martin Scorsese's George Harrison: Living In the Material World
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.11.11 at 12:56pm.
Martin Scorsese’s latest project is a 208-minute examination and celebration of Beatle George Harrison’s life and work for the pioneering TV channel HBO.
Like his PBS opus on Bob Dylan entitled No Direction Home, George Harrison: Living In the Material World is a rambling, insightful and absol...
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Herzog's Cave Of Forgotten Dreams One Of His Best
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.4.11 at 6:50pm.
German filmmaker Werner Herzog has hit one out of the park with his latest documentary feature The Cave Of Forgotten Dreams.
Investigating the Chauvet Caves in Southern France using non-professional 3-D video equipment operated by a miniscule crew, the director of Grizzly Man and Encounters At...
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Afghan Luke: Clattenburg catches the craziness of conflict
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 09.27.11 at 4:27pm.
The Canadian film first out of the Festival gate is Afghan Luke, Mike Clattenburg’s surreal and intriguing take on the conflict in Afghanistan.
Barrelling out of the Toronto and Atlantic Film Fests, Afghan Luke has piled up an unprecedented amount of buzz. A fascinating trip flick that easily ...
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Digi Go The Movies
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.29.11 at 3:05pm.
The biggest technological change since the introduction of sound in 1927 is happening in the movie business this late summer and early fall of 2011.
And practically no-one outside the sector knows anything about it.
Yes, the long-awaited changeover to digital projection in cinemas is underw...
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Another Earth: Another World Indeed
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.26.11 at 2:36pm.
2011 Sundance Prize winner Another Earth has finally made it to metro at the end of a summer crowded with comic book movies, rom-coms and cartoon flicks.
For audiences yearning for stronger stuff, Another Earth might fit the bill, unless you want to hold yourself for this year’s Atlantic Film ...
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Beginners: A low-key essay on the nature of melancholy
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 07.14.11 at 9:40pm.
Beginners is one of those rare films poorly served by its trailer. Written and directed by Mike Mills -- not the REM guitarist but rather the man who helmed the art-house hit Thumbsucker a few years ago. Beginners is made to look like a zany cross between Annie Hall and a gay Tuesdays With Morrie...
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The Tree Of Life: A boys-own-view of growing up
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.25.11 at 2:34pm.
Terrence Malick’s Cannes-winning new film The Tree Of Life can be described neatly as Stand By Me as directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, minus the plot, with codas from 2001 and 8&1/2.
Gaining any other understanding from the film may be more difficult. It’s long, beautiful to look at, and very medi...
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The Bang Bang Club: The Cost of Capturing Images
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.11.11 at 6:24pm.
The Bang Bang Club is one of those intermittently interesting but ultimately frustrating flicks that manages just to whet the cinematic appetite.
That said, the portrayal of a clutch of photojournalists working in the midst of the final meltdown of South Africa’s segregation -- and the release...
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Midnight In Paris: Daring and Delicious
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.20.11 at 6:57pm.
Woody Allen’s latest film Midnight In Paris has everyone talking about a late-career resurgence.
The reality is that the New York-based writer and director has never gone away.
And every once in a while -- in Vicki Christina Barcelona or Match Point -- he knocks one out of the park, remindi...
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Super 8 Is Classic Sci-Fi
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.13.11 at 6:56pm.
When jaded film critics start giving dismissive reviews to movies like J.J. Abram’s new Sci-Fi thriller Super 8, you know it’s time for those reviewers to find another line of work.
That’s because Super 8 is one of those rare cinematic joys that crackles with action, humour and compassion; alm...
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The Conspirator: Mary Surratt's Route to the Gallows
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.12.11 at 8:18pm.
Bad timing might just be The Conspirator’s biggest challenge. The fascinating new feature from director Robert Redford has arrived in theatres just as the elimination of Osama Bin Ladin has been cheered throughout America.
The Conspirator is about following the rule of law, as recalled by one ...
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HBO Revisits Reality.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.25.11 at 2:54pm.
HBO continues to produce some of the most provocative and interesting stuff for the small screen these days including the audacious Todd Haynes remake of Mildred Pierce and Tommy Lee Jones starring in and directing Cormac McCarthy’s play The Sunset Limited.
Last Saturday’s premiere of Cinema...
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Of Gods And Men: Faith And Naivete
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.16.11 at 12:50pm.
The award-winning and acclaimed French film by Xavier Beauvois, Of Gods And Men, has finally arrived on to a big screen in Halifax.
A film that tells the true story of nine French Trappist Monks in troubled 1990s Algeria -- seven of whom were murdered by Islamic Extremists -- Of Gods And Men p...
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Source Code: A fascinating if frustrating sequence of events
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.4.11 at 1:29pm.
Source Code is a fascinating if frustrating second film from Moon director Duncan Jones.
Another sci-fi thriller, Source Code exchanges the deliberate pacing, minimalism and anachronistic use of models that helped distinguish Jones’ debut for a more upscale, flashy approach complete with a go...
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The Illusionist: An animated whimsy of Jacques Tati
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 03.18.11 at 6:55pm.
The Illusionist is a sweet, sad bit of animated whimsy that channels the spirit of the late, great French physical comedian and filmmaker, Jacques Tati.
Adapted from Tati’s own screenplay, by director Sylvain Chomet, the film’s main character is in fact an extension of Tati’s own screen person...
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Another Year: Another Great Mike Leigh Film
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 03.8.11 at 3:37pm.
British realist filmmaker Mike Leigh’s latest, Another Year, has garnered scads of acclaim on the festival ciruit – and no wonder. It’s a great film, period.
While some have carped that it doesn’t reach the heights previous Leigh achievements such as Secrets And Lies, Vera Drake or Topsy Turvy...
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Biutiful Isn't
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.25.11 at 1:00pm.
I’ve seem all four of Mexican Auteur Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s films now, each one delivering less than the one before. His latest -- the baleful, overlong Biutiful -- is clearly the least of his efforts.
That didn’t stop European Critics dumping all sorts of praise on the film, especially...
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Somewhere: Lost In Translation
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.20.11 at 5:39am.
Sophia Coppola’s early success with her first two films The Virgin Suicides and Lost In Translation is beginning to look like a fluke, because her latest feature, Somewhere, is a boring dud.
A dud coming after the unpleasant surprise of her third film, Marie Antoinette, means the California-ba...
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The Eagle: A Cracking Great Adventure
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.11.11 at 1:23pm.
A costume drama that makes the world of Roman-era Britain seem unexpectedly close, The Eagle is a surprisingly brisk and and gripping slab of history on screen.
The Eagle is a challenging project by any stretch of the imagination. Set in the early years of the Roman occupation of Britain (appr...
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Nowhere Boy Is Moving and Powerful
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.22.11 at 4:37pm.
The bigscreen appearance, finally, of Sam Taylor-Wood’s John Lennon bio-pic in Halifax qualifies as the movie event of the winter.
The film portrays the future Beatle from 1955-1960 when he rediscovered and reconciled with his mother Julia, only to tragically lose her again before he turned tw...
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Kimball Co-Writer Profiled in NYT
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.20.11 at 9:56am.
Halifax filmmaker, Paranormal expert and prolific blogger Paul Kimball is extensively quoted in the January 5th issue of the New York Times Magazine in the article Cyberspace When You're Dead by Rob Walker.
The article profiles Mac Tonnies, Kimball's friend and co-writer who died suddenly Octo...
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Final Takes Film Retro at Dal Art Gallery
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.15.11 at 3:18pm.
What can be gleaned from a survey of the last films by leading directors?
That’s a question being asked this winter and spring at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, where the series “Last Takes-Final Films From Great Directors will unspool Wednesday Nights at 8pm from January 19th to May 4th.
It’s ...
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Dry Gulch Poetry: True Grit 2010
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.4.11 at 7:13pm.
The Coen Brothers have their first bona-fide out-of-the-box mass audience hit with their remake of Henry Hathaway’s 1969 classic western, True Grit.
The fact that the new film is not quite as good as the original -- or that Jeff Bridges’ marvelous performance still pales next to John Wayne’s O...
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The King's Speech: Can't Miss, Must See
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.22.10 at 11:45am.
The King’s Speech is already piling up enough hype to start setting some impossible expectations as the can’t-miss movie of Christmas 2010.
Don’t let all that hot air dissuade you from catching this perfect collision of history and entertainment. It really is a terrific flick from beginning to...
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The Fighter A Great American Movie
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.17.10 at 9:49am.
One of the big Christmas releases of 2010 is The Fighter, a film that is destined to be considered as one of the great boxing movies of all time.
A curious mix of indie brashness and old-style Hollywood storytelling, The Fighter recounts the true story of two boxing half-brothers from hardscra...
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The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage Of the Dawn Treader: Due For A Refit
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.10.10 at 3:04pm.
The third installment in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Voyage Of the Dawn Treader, has veteran director Michael Apted taking the helm.
Alas, even the great filmmaker responsible for such memorable works as the 7-21-35 Up series and the recent ‘End-of-British-slavery’ epic Amazing Grace ...
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Faith, Fraud and Minimum Wage – Held Over!
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.7.10 at 3:08pm.
Holy Smokes! The Josh MacDonald-penned locally made Indie Movie Faith, Fraud And Minimum Wage is being held over for a second week at the Empire Bayer’s Lake Cinemas!
Helmed by legendary My Bloody Valentine director George Mihalka, Faith, Fraud And Minimum Wage is inspired by real events -- li...
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Lennon Times Two On PBS
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.26.10 at 8:12am.
John Lennon’s 70th birthday is being celebrated by a trio of films, two of which are being shown on American Public Television (PBS) this week at various times on their series Masterpiece Theatre and American Masters.
Lennon Naked is a British TV movie with Doctor Who actor Christopher Eccles...
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Monsters: A Creature Feature Treat
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.13.10 at 12:55pm.
First-time director Gareth Edwards has been getting a strange reaction to his ultra-low budget sci-fi creature relationship flick Monsters.
Mostly, critics and audiences are perplexed by the listless sense of action and heavy atmosphere. When the gigantic squid-like aliens appear, they seem mo...
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Conviction: A rhythm and uniqueness all its own.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.29.10 at 3:35pm.
The gripping true-to-life story told in Tony Goldwyn’s Convicted may seem like a downmarket, Boston-based version of Erin Brockovich, but it has a rhythm and uniqueness all its own.
What initially appears to be a just a run-of-the-mill star vehicle for Hilary Swank -- she’s one of executive pr...
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Life During Wartime: A tight, disciplined essay into modern-day ethics.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.17.10 at 6:58pm.
Maverick American Indie filmmaker Todd Solondz’ latest, Life During Wartime, might just be his best film yet.
Derided by blase critics, the 94-minute contemporary tale of families awash in guilt, desire and the quest for forgiveness is actually a tight, disciplined essay into modern-day ethics...
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The Social Network: Must-See Film of the Fall
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.2.10 at 1:35pm.
The Social Network is impossibly good. The only recent film that can compete with small-screen masterpieces like The Wire and Mad Men, it dares to look at contemporary life without rose-coloured glasses. The result is dazzling.
Written by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin -- and driven by his tra...
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Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky: Endlessly Fascinating
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 09.8.10 at 8:21am.
Coco Chanel And Igor Stravinsky is a fascinating but opaque examination of two extraordinary figures of the 20th Century as each brought their respective area of the arts kicking and screaming into Modernism.
As biography, Jan Kounen’s film -- from screenwriter Chris Greenhalgh’s novel Coco an...
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Get Low: Only Mildly Satisfying
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.30.10 at 9:47am.
High profile vanity project Get Low is only a mildly satisfying distraction from Hollywood’s mainstream summertime piffle.
Based on a true story about a Tennessee recluse who wants to have a funeral party while he’s still alive, Get Low is actor Robert Duvall’s second or third starring indie v...
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Winter's Bone: Truly Chilling
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.7.10 at 7:28pm.
This year’s Grand Jury Winner at Sundance, Winter’s Bone is one heck of a picture. Adapted from Daniel Woodrill’s 2006 novel of the same name and set and shot in his native wandering grounds, the Missouri Ozark Mountains, Winter’s Bone blends raw authenticity with a genuine edge-of-your-seat stor...
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Inception A Mind-Blowing Movie
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 07.17.10 at 12:48pm.
Inception is sensational. Christopher Nolan’s Sci-Fi thriller is not only the film event of the summer, it might just be the best film of the year.
With a stellar cast headed up by Leonardo DiCaprio and buttressed by Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Lukas Haas, Marion Cotillard an...
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Please Give: A Pointed, Compassionate Comedy
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.21.10 at 8:44pm.
The most talented female comedy director writer/currently working, Nichole Holofcener, has just released one of her very best films in the urban contemporary drama of manners, Please Give.
Sporting a stellar cast (Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet, Catherine Keener and Rebecca Hall, amongst others), H...
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Splice: A Fabulous Mess Of A Sci-Fi Movie
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.8.10 at 7:39pm.
Splice is a fabulous mess of a movie, with a dynamite mad scientist start devolving into a silly ‘couples therapy’ finish. Still, it’s loaded with enough wild and woolly ideas to please any sci-fi or techno geek.
And while the cheap-nite audience I saw it with laughed inappropriately all throu...
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The Stones 'Exile' N.S. Connection
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.25.10 at 7:09pm.
The media swirl around the re-release of the Rolling Stones classic 1972 album Exile On Main Street has revolved mostly around the 1o new tracks unearthed and polished up for one of the new editions of the landmark double disc.
What’s been missed in all of this is the Nova Scotia connection. T...
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The Trotsky: An Insufferable Dud
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.18.10 at 6:45pm.
Jacob Tierney’s The Trotsky has a genuinely funny premise and a terrific Canadian cast. So why is it such a bad film?
Championed at Film Festivals across this land last fall, the intermittently humorous comedy charmed critics, film snobs, and most importantly, the Canadian Cultural elite.
...
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Iron Man 2: Sizzling With Action, Fun
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.12.10 at 4:28am.
The critical chorus on Iron Man 2 has mostly been a wail of ‘it’s not as good as the first one’. It’s possible that most of those critics either don’t like movies or don’t like comics. Or both.
Perhaps they should find some other form of employment because I found Iron Man 2 to be just as wil...
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The Runaways: A Run Of The Mill Music Bio
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.18.10 at 12:55pm.
The Runaways -- the movie of the story of the mid ‘70s all girl rock band of the same name -- is just about as bad as the band itself.
I remember one rock critic describing their music as ‘bang-bang-plop’, virtually confirming the long-held fact that women couldn’t play rock and roll.
Luck...
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Chloe: Atom Egoyan's Latest Film is Plodding And Pretentious
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 03.27.10 at 8:03am.
Canadian director Atom Egoyan’s latest movie, the contemporary domestic betrayal flick Chloe, is a plodding and pretentious affair that has little to show for all its upmarket gloss.
With a cast headed by world-class stars Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore and a startling performance by sex-bomb ...
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The Ghost Writer: Polanski, Underpowered
Submitted by filmguy on 03.20.10 at 7:46pm.
Critics have been kind to legendary director Roman Polanski’s latest, The Ghost Writer, as he sits under house arrest awaiting extradition from Europe to the US to face charges dating back to the mid-70s.
Polanski’s extraordinary situation -- detailed in the documentary Wanted And Desired -- h...
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Alice In Wonderland: More Disney than Burton.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 03.5.10 at 2:47pm.
Tim Burton fans should be properly forewarned that his major studio take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland is more Disney than Burton.
With a truly horrifying girl-power script by Linda Woolverton -- who penned Beauty And the Beast and The Lion King for the Mouse Factory -- this particul...
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The Crazies: A Vibrant Zombie Variant With a Tart Sting
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.26.10 at 4:30pm.
Sahara director Breck Eisner has tackled a modern-day remake of one of horrormeister George Romero’s most neglected films, The Crazies.
Built around a star-making performance by Deadwood actor Timothy Olyphant -- who was so effective in the terrific Canadian heist flick High Life -- The Crazie...
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Shutter Island: Visual Poetry in a Twisting Plot
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.19.10 at 12:36pm.
Paramount has fiddled with the release date for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island for almost a season and a half, putting off this potentially difficult film’s launch for at least six months.
Now it’s finally here and there’s no question it is essential cinema for anyone who considers film to b...
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Crazy Heart: Blazingly Great
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.8.10 at 8:15am.
Scott Cooper’s debut feature Crazy Heart has build up a fine surge of hype mostly due from the extraordinary performance of Jeff Bridges as a broken-down Texas-based country writer and performer named Bad Blake.
The film is surprisingly straightforward and bittersweet. While the songs reflect ...
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Broken Embraces: Good But Not Great
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.31.10 at 7:58am.
Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar’s latest feature film, Broken Embraces, is regularly referred to as a letdown after his brilliant and vastly entertaining 2004 entry Volver.
Sure, it has an overly dense plot that again returns to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece, Vertigo, for its inspirati...
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A Single Man Is Utterly Ravishing
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.22.10 at 8:18am.
Fashion designer Tom Ford’s first feature film, A Single Man, is just about as ravishing a movie that’s ever hit the big screen.
Adapted from Christopher Isherwood’s landmark 1964 novel of the same name set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film tells the story of an English professor at a...
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The Book Of Eli: post-apocalypse-du-jour with a plot.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.15.10 at 12:41pm.
The Hughes Brothers (From Hell, Menace II Society, Dead Presidents) have entered the post-apocalypse-du-jour sweepstakes with the Denzel Washington vehicle, The Book Of Eli.
Seemingly using some of the same locations and sets as the recent film version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, The Book O...
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Daybreakers: Spawn of vampire sequels.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.8.10 at 12:53pm.
The Aussie Spierig Brothers have delivered a surprisingly solid blast of imaginative entertainment in their just-opened horror flick Daybreakers.
While it’s a bit wobbly at times, like an overstuffed triple decker-sandwich -- Daybreakers is, after all, a Vampire/Zombie/Sci-Fi Apocalypse flick ...
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Up In the Air, Down in the Gutter
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.26.09 at 3:01pm.
Cynically calculated and yet virtually unwatchable, Up In the Air is one of those movies whose reputation gets inflated on the hothouse film festival circuit.
As writer/director Jason Reitman’s follow-up to the quirky hit Juno, it reinforces the notion that the son of legendary Canadian produc...
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Avatar: A Cinematic Trip
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.20.09 at 10:07am.
Sensory overload sci-fi epic. Landmark nerdland technical breakthrough. Masterful video-game-movie hybrid. Exhausting eco-fable wrought large. Rip-snorting revisionist actioner. James Cameron’s Avatar is all of these things, and more.
Created with a new Fusion 3-d camera system, the excess of ...
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Me And Orson Welles: The Legend Still Dazzles
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.12.09 at 1:55pm.
A must-see for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of the performing arts, Me And Orson Welles might just pull in a few more members of the greater movie-going public due to teen heart-throb Zac Efron’s involvement.
Considering the elf-like Efron mostly has to gaze admiringly at the amazin...
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The Road: A masterpiece of cinematic mood in search of a story
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.3.09 at 7:23pm.
John Hillcoat’s long-awaited followup to his international breakthrough The Proposition is only a mild letdown. The Road -- adapted from Cormac MacCarthy’s acclaimed novel -- is full of haunting post apocalyptic landscapes and practically no plot.
The result is a masterpiece of cinematic mood ...
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Precious: Astonishing use of a forceful cinematic palette.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.28.09 at 2:41pm.
Calling Precious a ‘brave’ movie is selling it short. The word that more aptly describes it is ‘ferocious’.
You could throw around other words too, like ‘groundbreaking’, ‘innovative’ and ‘original’. Whatever the case, Precious is one terrific flick.
Everything you’ve heard about it is tru...
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It Might Get Loud: It Doesn't
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.23.09 at 5:39pm.
The new electric guitarist feature documentary It Might Get Loud is getting a very strange pre-DVD release: a couple of latenight weekends only before a December 22nd street date. The film premiered at the 2008 Toronto Film Fest.
It’s a strategy that would seem to encourage punters to wait for...
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The Box: Press the button, or not.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.17.09 at 7:38am.
Richard Kelly has returned to wide release with his third film, a supernatural thriller called The Box, adapted from the classic Sci-Fi author Richard (I Am Legend) Matheson’s story ‘Button, Button’.
Kelly, whose debut 2001 outing Donnie Darko has become the definitive film about youth culture...
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An Education: An Affair Turns The Corner
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.7.09 at 11:11am.
An Education is one of those must-see films that has gotten a tad inflated from expectations and hype that come with dazzling the denizens of the festival circuit.
A product of the wonderful British novelist Nick Hornby - who wrote the script, but not the story, while his wife produced.
An...
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Paranormal Activity: One supremely scary film.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.31.09 at 5:56pm.
Paranormal Activity is one supremely scary film. Reportedly made for ten grand by writer/director Oren Peli, the brilliant bargain basement supernatural nail-biter has already endured some really dumb comparisons to shaky-camster thrillers such as The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield.
Those...
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Amelia: A Crash Landing
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.24.09 at 9:36am.
While the real Amelia Earhart disappeared in the South Pacific in 1937, a big screen counterpart is crash-landing in cinemas this weekend.
Mira Nair directed Hillary Swank as the star of this bio-pic, filmed partly in Nova Scotia, but the talented but erratic director is completely lost in ha...
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Where The Wild Things Are: A film that should dazzle audiences of all ages.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.17.09 at 2:07pm.
The long-awaited bigscreen version of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book Where The Wild Things Are has finally arrived in theatres after years of development starts and stops, and even more trouble from the production end.
Directed by the visionary Spike Jonze, who directed two of the mo...
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Zombieland: trashy jokes, crappy music and delightfully under-developed ideas.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.10.09 at 1:20pm.
Sure, Zombieland might be only a throwaway film that barely whets the hunger for the next installment in George Romero’s template-making Living Dead series.
Seemingly built out of spare parts leftover from flicks such as Trainspotting and Shaun Of the Dead, it relies a little too heavily on fe...
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Bright Star: Bright Indeed
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.4.09 at 9:37am.
Jane (Sweetie, The Piano) Campion’s new film Bright Star is a fluid and fascinating attempt to refashion the traditional costume drama bio-pic.
Based on the three-year affair between British poet John Keats and clothes maker/designer Fanny Brawne, Bright Star is remarkably restrained filmmakin...
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Trailer Park Boys: Countdown To Liquor Day – A Classic
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 09.27.09 at 12:58pm.
Trailer Park Boys: Countdown To Liquor Day is supposed to be the swansong of the popular and influential Showcase TV series set right here on the East Coast.
Half an hour in and the film seems like a shrug, with everyone involved having their minds on something else, but then something very st...
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9: Indeed a 9
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 09.10.09 at 7:19am.
Shane Acker’s debut animated feature 9 is getting a rough ride from many critics who simply don’t recognize the filmmaker’s extraordinary achievement.
The terse 79-minute computer-graphic film tells a post-apocalyptic story of a clutch of burlap-bag creatures who battle a montrous machine. Whi...
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Taking Woodstock: Catching the Counterculture
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.26.09 at 7:46pm.
Ang Lee’s latest film, Taking Woodstock, is a slight but strikingly original take on the legendary three-day hippie musical festival held in 1969.
Surprisingly funny and often very sweet, Taking Woodstock tells the tale of the delapidated Jewish family resort that hosted the army of logisticia...
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District 9: It makes Sci-Fi feel fresh again.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.15.09 at 7:31am.
District 9 is one heck of a movie, a wicked Sci-Fi flick so full of ideas, humour and action that it makes the whole genre feel fresh again.
Directed by Peter Jackson acolyte Neill Blomkamp, District 9 tells the tale of end-of-their rope crustacean-like aliens getting marooned in South Africa ...
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Julie & Julia: A Double Dud
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.10.09 at 2:59pm.
No reviewers seem willing to admit just how horrible Nora Ephron’s new movie is.
Part bio-pic and part contemporary chick flic, Julie & Julia completely wastes the considerable talent of Meryl Streep and the extraordinary story of American TV chef Julia Child.
What was Nora Ephron thinking?...
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The Hurt Locker: An Unreserved Masterpiece
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 07.24.09 at 7:35pm.
The Hurt Locker might just be the one Iraq War movie that finally connects with audiences. It certainly is making a connection with critics. Especially this one.
Directed by the legendary female action helmer Kathryn Bigelow - who made not one but two of her features in Halifax, The Weight Of ...
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Moon: A Classic In Miniature
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 07.17.09 at 6:36pm.
Duncan Jones’s feature debut, Moon, has been attracting glowing reviews and modestly growing audiences in the midst of all the summer blockbuster hoopla.
The son of David Bowie, Jones has fashioned a fascinating chamber sci-fi flick that harkens back to the early 1970s for its style and execut...
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Public Enemies: Depp as Dillinger drowns in nostalgia
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 07.2.09 at 4:11pm.
Michael Mann’s highly anticipated Johnny Depp 1930s gangster vehicle, Public Enemies, is a curious disappointment.
Badly shot on hi-def video it runs 143 minutes - 43 minutes too long.
Yet, any movie about the famous real-life bank robber John Dillinger is going to be worth seeing. Add Depp...
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Away We Go: Doesn't Quite Get There
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.24.09 at 2:59pm.
American Beauty director Sam Mendes has taken up with hipster writers Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida to create the shaggy and slightly unsatisfying road movie Away We Go.
It starts promisingly. The sweet and sometimes silly stay-at-home thirtysomething couple (Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski) wh...
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Outlander: Out Of This World
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.19.09 at 10:55am.
Film Nova Scotia did everyone a big favour by screening the long-awaited locally made Viking/Sci-Fi flickt Outlander at the Oxford Theatre recently.
Not only did they score a 35mm film print, they brought writer/director Howard McCain and two of his producers to introduce and speak afterward.
...
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Easy Virtue: Easy On the Eyes
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.13.09 at 4:07pm.
Easy Virtue is one 1920s-written drama that seems far more durable than it should. Based on Noel Coward’s play, it features a dissolute English aristocratic family on an estate it can’t afford and an American interloper who has married uncomfortably into the clan. The resulting costume flick blen...
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Drag Me To Hell: Gross, Funny and Scary As Hell
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.30.09 at 3:29pm.
Legendary Evil Dead director Sam Raimi has paused long enough from counting all the money he’s made from directing the three Spider Man movies to crank out a small-scale horror tale entitled Drag Me To Hell that returns him to his shock-a-rama roots.
Scripted and co-produced with his brother I...
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Terminator: Salvation provides plenty of pop with its apocalypse
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.24.09 at 12:50pm.
Terminator: Salvation certainly doesn’t deserve the truckload of crappy reviews it’s piled up since it opened wide in the spring rush of popcorn movies.
Two stars here, one star there. You’d think these were critiques of the last Alien Vs Predator installment, now the tin standard for movie fr...
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Wendy And Lucy: An American Indie Classic
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.28.09 at 12:57pm.
This week's installment in AFCOOP’s Monday Night Movies (May 4th) series is a must-see.
American Indie writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s heartbreaking Wendy And Lucy rates as one of the truly great films of 2008.
Seeing it on the big screen, then, becomes imperative, even if Wendy And Lucy...
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Two Lovers: An Unexpected Pleasure
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.30.09 at 8:12am.
Two Lovers is an unexpected cinematic pleasure. The third collaboration between writer/director James Gray and actor Joaquin Phoenix (after We Own The Night and The Yards), it is a measured romance vividly anchored in the subculture of New York City’s modern day Jewish community in Brighton Beach...
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17 Again: a soggy premise gone effervescent
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.17.09 at 7:32pm.
Everybody’s out to get Zac Efron this weekend, with a virtual torrent of rotten reviews for his leading man debut in the high-school body switch comedy 17 Again.
Sure, it’s soggy premise has been done before (Like Father Like Son, Freaky Friday, Big and countless others) but 17 Again hardly ra...
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Sunshine Cleaning: Class struggles
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.11.09 at 12:46pm.
Sunshine Cleaning is one of those "quirky" indie comedies that has a surprising lack of quirk or comedy. A determined tale of lower-class sisters struggling through young adulthood in New Mexico cleaning up other people's messes - while creating their own. It piles on the pathos to deliver some c...
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Adventureland: Amusement Park Life
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.5.09 at 5:18am.
Greg Mottola’s latest feature Adventureland is one of those heartbreakingly definitive films that absolutely nails a time of life that’s been badly served by North American popular culture.
Following a trio of recent lower-middle-class university grads in 1987 as they attempt to transition fro...
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Pontypool: a Canuck Zombie flick par excellence
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 03.21.09 at 9:37am.
Maverick Toronto director Bruce McDonald’s follow-up to his experimental, multi-screened Elaine Page vehicle The Tracey Fragments is a ferocious genre tour-de-force. Shot on a single location, Pontypool is a Canuck Zombie flick par excellence, channeling 1970s David Cronenberg for a new millenniu...
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Stone Of Destiny: A rippingly great Boy’s Adventure Story
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.20.09 at 9:50am.
Sorry, but it’s simply not possible for someone with the last name Macdonald to give Stone Of Destiny a bad review.
The true-to-life story of how a quartet of patriotic students took back Scotland's Coronation Stone from Britain’s Westminister Abbey on Christmas Day, 1950, is a remarkably enga...
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The Class: Grade A
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.17.09 at 9:35am.
The Cannes Palme D’Or-winning French flick The Class is one of those must-see films that seems a bit underwhelming at first.
Filmed verite-style in the blah Parisian suburbs, it reverses the formula of the 1960s classic To Sir With Love by placing a white teacher in the midst of a mainly immig...
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Coraline: Eye candy can't replace the jittery sense of magic.
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.7.09 at 6:47pm.
Stop-motion animation master Henry Selick’s adaptation of graphic novelist Neil Gaiman’s Coraline has piled up many respectful reviews. In what seems to be a growing trend, those critics might not have stayed with the film through to its end. If they had, they might have been less respectful.
...
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Frost/Nixon: Regrets, I've Had A Few
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.1.09 at 2:45pm.
Ron Howard’s latest film Frost/Nixon is the fourth major motion picture to treat the 37th President of the United States. While it is a sumptuously realized picture, with a terrific cast, the film simply cannot escape its origins from Peter Morgan’s slight stage play now inflated into big budget...
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Revolutionary Road: Good, But The Thrill Is Gone
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.23.09 at 5:25pm.
Theatre director and occasional filmmaker Sam Mendes (Jarhead, The Road To Perdition) has tackled a prestige novel for his latest cinematic adventure, Revolutionary Road.
Adapted from Richard Yates’ acclaimed 1961 novel which is set in suburban 1955 Connecticut, Revolutionary Road is a beautif...
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The Wrestler: Leap's Right Out of the Ring
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.17.09 at 6:50pm.
Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler is a triumph. Sparked by an absolutely amazing performance from former has-been Mickey Rourke, the film is a wildly redemptive tour through the wreckage of 1980s culture.
Using a surprisingly straightforward script by Robert Siegal, Aronofsky dives into an ultra...
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Gran Torino: Grand Indeed
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 01.9.09 at 4:00pm.
American cinematic icon Clint Eastwood has delivered a sly elegy to his own looming screen persona with his latest movie, Gran Torino.
Directing himself in declining inner-city Detroit with a gaggle of non-professional actors from the Hmong Community, the square-jawed actor/filmmaker shameless...
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Movie Review: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is a Tiresome Trip through Pop Culture
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.26.08 at 1:27pm.
The curious thing about the Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is how many great reviews it has amassed in the run-up to its Christmas Day release.
The 2-hour and 47 minute adaptation of a fanciful F. Scott Fitzgerald short story is a bloated mess. It begins promisingly as a magic realist fable s...
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Milk: Tastes Great
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.10.08 at 7:37pm.
Gus Van Sant’s return to conventional filmmaking, the shockingly traditional bio-pic Milk, is just about what everyone says it is: a triumph of conventional movie-making and a welcome sellout to the mainstream. It sports some tremendous acting from Sean Penn - in the lead role as San Francisco Su...
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Synecdoche, New York: A Grey and Glacial Filmgoers' Challenge
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 12.2.08 at 10:53am.
Maverick film writer Charlie Kaufman - the script author of off-beat flicks like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation and Being John Malkovich - has delivered a surprisingly dour but imaginative directoral debut in the 125-minute curio Synecdoche, New York.
Starring a humorless Ph...
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Twilight: a landmark post-modern women’s film
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.22.08 at 10:43am.
Twilight is a much-anticipated, vastly-hyped and surprisingly strong entry in the post-Buffy teenage vampire sweepstakes.
Adapted from Stephenie Meyer’s gazillions-selling book, the film gains traction on its own from the sterling work of screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg and director Catherine H...
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Quantum Of Solace Is No Quantam Leap
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.17.08 at 8:18pm.
After Casino Royale singlehandedly revived and re-energized the James Bond franchise, it’s quite natural that the follow up Quantum Of Solace would feel a bit like a disappointment.
Still, Daniel Craig is a formidable clench-jawed 007. And there’s enough bone-jarring action to power five or si...
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Changeling Is Clint Eastwood's Masterpiece
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.1.08 at 4:20pm.
American filmmaking Icon Clint Eastwood has had a pretty good run in the last decade with flicks such as Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and the Flags Of Our Fathers - Letters From Iwo Jima double header.
So why are reviewers so tepid in their response to the granite jawed actor/director’s l...
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W.: Oliver Stone's Fair and Engrossing Take on George Bush
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.26.08 at 9:59am.
Oliver Stone’s presidential bio-pic W. has surprised just about everybody with its gutsy and shockingly fair portrait of the two-term US Chief Executive from Texas.
Shot through with Stone’s trademark aggressive filmmaking style - there’s lots of jumping back and forth in time, expressive came...
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Burn After Reading: A slightly under-cooked, very funny spy farce
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.13.08 at 3:01pm.
Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest, Burn After Reading, has been hanging around theatres for almost a month now. A slightly under-cooked spy farce set in and around Washington DC, it’s a film that’s built up some surprising staying power.
Dismissed by many as a minor comedy - time-wasting filler aft...
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Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist: Que Cera, Cera
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.5.08 at 2:57pm.
To call the new Michael Cera romantic comedy slight is putting it lightly. Nick And Nora’s Infinite Playlist attempts to make a leading man out of the young, po-faced Canadian actor who was so effective last year in Superbad.
Director Peter Sollet, who has certainly come down in the world sinc...
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Miracle At Saint Anna: Spike Lee's third cinematic masterpiece in a row
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 09.28.08 at 12:09pm.
Spike Lee’s latest film, Miracle At Saint Anna, has accumulated some wildly divergent reviews. Some have acclaimed it as brilliant and insightful; others have denounced it as lumpy and uneven. Currently it’s got a 28 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes, hardly a fair consideration of such an import...
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Lakeview Terrace: A Creepy Picture of Race Relations
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 09.22.08 at 7:30pm.
Lakeview Terrace might initially seem like a standard studio assignment on first view. Surprisingly, it’s topped the box-office charts for its opening weekend.
A creepy neighbour potboiler superbly realized by director - playwright Neil LaBute, it’s a perfect vehicle for character actor Samue...
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Hamlet 2: Maybe the best movie ever about the witless enthusiasm of theatre
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.29.08 at 10:07am.
Riotously funny, sharply satiric and tremendously acted, Hamlet 2 might just be the best movie about the witless enthusiasm of theatre ever made.
Driven by a jaw-droppingly effective performance by Brit Actor Steeve Coogan, whose air-headed American attitude and accent are honed to perfection ...
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