In Cinemas: April 10, 2015 — Danny Collins, The Longest Ride, You’re My Boss, Wild Tales

The cuts announced in yesterday’s provincial budget will likely destroy the local film industry.

My heart goes out to you, friends and colleagues, and anyone who works in or benefits from the business of film and TV—so pretty much everyone who lives here.

I worked as a production assistant when I first moved to Halifax, and I’ve had the good fortune to do a little story editing on locally produced scripts. These are the kind of jobs that will likely be much harder to find in the weeks and months to come, along with all those on-set technicians, camera people, actors, sound engineers, carpenters, drivers, and craft service professionals.

What a mistake the Liberal government has made. This isn’t just a matter of careers, talented crew leaving the province to find work elsewhere, it’s a matter of culture, of stories that may now not get told. I hope there is some kind of recourse. I know in the coming days the creative people who work in this industry will be making themselves heard.

I hope no one forgets this appalling decision at the next provincial and federal election. Give those votes to the NDP.

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Danny Collins

Pacino plays an aging rock star in this one, starring alongside Annette Bening,  Jennifer Garner, and Christopher Plummer. Hell of a cast, and nice to see Pacino headlining a feature again.

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The Longest Ride

The most recent soft-focus Nicholas Sparks adaptation, a one-man romance drama factory who shows no sign of slowing down. This one is about a rodeo rider and the groupie who loves him. That guy is played by Scott Eastwood, son of Clint.

You’re My Boss

How many Filipino movies have opened in Bayers Lake this year? Two? Three? It’s amazing to me that the local Filipino community is big enough to support the regular import of the country’s cinema, but good on them. If anyone from Cineplex is listening, let’s see this trend start to happen for the Arabic, French, and Chinese immigrants and visitors. All movie-goers benefit from being exposed to international film.

This picture looks like a workplace romance and (not-so) subtle gender-role reversal movie, based only on the trailer:

Wild Tales

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Another terrific Friday night selection from the Carbon Arc programmers, an Argentinian/Spanish hit, that, like last week’s Leviathan, was up for Best Foreign Language film at this year’s Academy Awards. This one’s an anthology of six stories, which I gather is stylistically indebted to Pulp Fiction. That’s hardly ever a bad thing. Go here for more information.

About the author

flawintheiris

Carsten Knox is a massive, cheese-eating nerd. In the day he works as a journalist in Halifax, Nova Scotia. At night he stares out at the rain-slick streets, watches movies, and writes about what he's seeing.

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