Disney is once again whisking movie-goers away to the Land of Oz, but this time the journey is anything but magical. The opening credits—a topsy-turvy Victorian circus—promise creativity: a quirky take on a bygone era, drama, suspense, and great visuals. But the best is over before the film begins, and[Read More…]
Search Results for author "Emma Hambly"
Twilight surpasses admittedly low expectations
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 2, the conclusion to the popular vampire franchise, is a good movie. Not great—this is Twilight we’re talking about—but good. Yes, I’m just as surprised as you are. The final Twilight film, directed by Bill Condon, is by far the best of the series. It’s[Read More…]
The Noble Thiefs: Beyond the 11th Deck
We live in an age of the retrospective—of Adele, sampling, and electro swing. The challenge for vintage-inspired artists is updating oldies to the tastes of the 21st century. The Noble Thiefs, a Winnipeg-based band, are foraying into vintage-modern territory by combining a gaggle of genres. Their debut album, Beyond the[Read More…]
The true mystery behind a Canadian icon
creations-gallery.com West Wind: the Vision of Tom Thomson by Michèle Hozer and Peter Raymont, isn’t a documentary so much as a detective story. Yes, there is a love triangle, and an unexplained death that may or may not be a murder, but these aren’t the mysteries Hozer and Raymont are[Read More…]
Dragons, magic, and totalitarianism
readingrevels.com Inheritance is about dragons, their riders, an elf princess, and an evil, all-powerful king. But at its core, the last novel in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle is a coming-of-age novel. Throughout his adventures, the main character, Eragon, undergoes drastic change, which coincides with the growth and improvement of[Read More…]
A beautiful apocalypse
Guy Glorieux Guy Glorieux’s pinhole camera photography exhibition at the McCord Museum presents Montreal from a unique perspective. The exhibition, Impressions of a City: Montreal Through a Pinhole, features pinhole photography by French-born Canadian artist Glorieux. The eighteen prints showcase Montreal transformed from a vibrant metropolis into a disjointed ghost[Read More…]
Coriolanus: he is the one per cent
aceshowbiz.com Coriolanus is not an easy movie to watch. Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut, an adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known tragedies, is no popcorn action flick. The plot is complex, the war scenes are more brutal than exhilarating, the dialogue is heavy, and the characters defy empathy. But for those[Read More…]
Holiday Movie Preview
Usually the movies that come out during the holiday season fall into one of two categories: Big budget blockbuster flicks sure to draw in restless crowds emancipated from work and school, or last minute Oscar bids hoping to become critical darlings. Either way, December is a good month for movies.[Read More…]
Difficult to explain, easy to like
Sometimes authors face a chasm between the critical and the consensus. Last year Johanna Skibsrud won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for her debut novel, The Sentimentalists. Critics praised the book for its poetic language and complex themes, though many readers disagreed. Some found the work overwritten, and the storytelling murky,[Read More…]
Toronto International Film Festival tidbits
Twixt Like a fantastical nightmare cut short by wakefulness, Francis Ford Coppola’s ghost story Twixt gives us a wild, imaginative ride but cuts to black before it all makes sense. The protagonist is Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer), a bargain-basement horror writer making the rounds on his latest book tour.[Read More…]
