Category Archives: Commentary

Outlier Podcast: The Creeping Garden

As I mentioned last week, The Outlier Film Festival is on the horizon, bringing the most unusual horror, cult, science fiction, and documentary films to Halifax on November 27-29. Matt Charlton, one of the festival organizers, invited me to be part of a podcast at Village Sound, talking about a few of the documentaries playing…Read More

Where’s the Oscar bait?

Friday is Halloween. It makes sense a crappy—in most reviewers' opinions, anyway—horror movie is in cinemas, Ouija. But since the Toronto International Film Festival in September, the traditional start of the season where Hollywood studios release their best stuff, we haven't seen much that's award-worthy. I'm talking about prestige pictures. Where are they? It's as if it's…Read More

Egregious Examples of Movie Marketing: Brassed Off!

I just had to share this: After having enjoyed the  gay-activists-raise-funds-for-Welsh-miners-comedy Pride—probably the best thing I saw at the  2014 Atlantic Film Festival—I decided to revisit Brassed Off!, the 1996 comedy-drama about a group of miners in Grimley, near Worcester, Northern England, whose pit is threatened with closure. Will the miners' union fight to keep it open or…Read More

A Bad Summer at the Movies

I'm back, FITI readers. I've been away the past few weeks—in New York and London—but am now returned to Halifax and gearing up for the fall cinema season, where the bombast of the summer grows quiet, replaced by the sophistication and awards-bait pictures of the fall. A host of quality films—now showing at festivals in Telluride…Read More

My Problem with Forrest Gump

I hated this movie. When Forrest Gump came out 20 years ago this weekend, I was really annoyed by it. I saw it in Ottawa, and I remember exiting the cinema just cheesed off. I wasn't even sure what it was that bothered me so much, just the distinct feeling I'd been proselytized to. Next…Read More

40 Years of Chinatown

Roman Polanski's Chinatown turns 40 today. It opened in cinemas June 20, 1974. I never cease to find the movie astonishing in it's acting, sense of place, and most of all, screenplay. The narrative locomotion, how it starts slowly, dropping clues to the mystery of personal and municipal malfeasance, then speeds up in the final…Read More

Blockbuster Blues 2014: The Good and The Grim Prospects for This Season at The Movies

This summer's blockbuster selection looks pretty dire, I gotta say. In April we had Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Transcendence. This month we've got The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past. These are big-budget science fiction and fantasy films, highly anticipated, which make all in the Nerd Nation very happy—and me too. But the first three are…Read More

How do I watch Woody Allen now?

Yesterday I sat down with an old friend. We talked about movies, as we sometimes do, and since we both grew up watching Woody Allen, we talked about the reasons he's been in the news lately. She said, "I can forgive a lot, but this is one thing where I'd leave him on a desert…Read More

Five reboots I’d like to see

This is really a case of If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em. I've gone on record saying I'm dubious of reboots, relaunches and reimaginings on film and TV. So rarely are those efforts to replicate and update original material anything near as much fun as what spawned it. But, hey, nobody is listening to…Read More