From the category archives:

FILM

FILM

All That Jazz On Acid

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The Great Gatsby, Cinema du Parc

by Marianne Ackerman
17.05.2013

Everybody who hates the new film adaptation of The Great Gatsby seems to love parts of it. Both the New Yorker and the New York Times offered fairly scathing analyses – and high praise. Out of allegiance to the author, I decided to re-read Fitzgerald’s novel before seeing the movie.

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FILM

War Babies

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My Mother, the Nazi Midwife and Me airs May 14 and May 18 at 8 pm on CBC's Documentary channel

by Anna Fuerstenberg
13.05.2013

I first read Gina Roitman’s book Tell Me a Story, Tell Me the Truth (2008, Second Story Press), a series of nine linked stories about the struggles of growing up against a backdrop of the Holocaust, about five years ago. Her stories felt as though they had come out of my own life. We were born a few weeks apart in refugee camps in Germany soon after the Second World War.

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FILM

The Bujold Files

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Genevieve Bujold on her remarkable career and her latest turn in Still Mine

by Matthew Hays
12.05.2013

Genevieve Bujold is elegantly poised in a posh Old Montreal hotel room as we sit down to chat about her latest role, in a new film called Still Mine. In it, Bujold plays a woman grappling with advancing Alzheimer’s disease. As she begins to fade, her husband (James Cromwell) decides to build a new house for them to live in, a residence that will be safer for her as her dementia gets worse.

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FILM

To the Wonder Climbs Even Higher

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Terence Malick’s latest film reveals another branch to the Tree of Life

by Devon Gallant
09.05.2013

If you have not seen Terence Malick’s Tree of Life, do so before watching To the Wonder. Although the latter is not officially a sequel, it might as well be, feeling more like a branch from the same tree than an entirely new cinematic statement. Regardless, To the Wonder is a film that demands to be watched.

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FILM

Ray Harryhausen, RIP

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An interview with the big-screen special-effects trailblazer

by Matthew Hays
08.05.2013

Along with Willis O’Brien (who made the original King Kong in 1933), Ray Harryhausen is regarded as the granddaddy of contemporary cinematic special effects. He died this past week in his London home. Though much of the stop-motion animation he did for films like The Valley of Gwangi (1969), Mighty Joe Young (1949) or the Sinbad movies may now seem quaint and dated, those special effects laid the groundwork for what we now take for granted on the big screen.

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FILM

Under Water

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Dolphin Boy, Cinema Guzzo Megaplex Sphèretech, April 25

by Oksana Cueva
25.04.2013

The 9th consecutive edition of Israel Film Festival takes a bow today, leaving behind an array of world-class features and documentaries, many of which are premieres: a Canadian premier: Rock The Casbah (2013) and three Montreal premiers: The World is Funny (2012), Epilogue (2012) and Out in the Dark (2012).

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FILM

Wall and Chain

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Triumph of the Wall: Life as a Work in Progress, dir Bill Stone, Cinéma Excentris, April 12 - 18

by Leila Marshy
11.04.2013

Chris Overing is not quite Sisyphus, but a couple of years into his project of building a stone wall you have to wonder what he’s being punished for. Not that he entertains such thoughts. “This is art,” he asserts. How do we know it’s art? “If it’s insane and you’re still doing it, well it must be art.”

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FILM

Going for Broke

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Après la Cinquantaine Dondaine: Voix des Femmes, directed by Sophie Bissonnette

by Eisha Marjara
09.04.2013

On the heels of her tween-centred NFB doc Sexy Inc: Our Children Under Influence, local filmmaker Sophie Bissonette recently produced its chronological antithesis, pointing the lens at a generation of women who are beyond influence and are, in fact, silent powerful influencers themselves. “On s’en fout!” says one participant, Claire St-Denis in Après la Cinquantaine Dondaine: Voix des Femmes.

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FILM

The Long and Winding Road

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A look at Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines

by Devon Gallant
02.04.2013

Featuring Ryan Gosling as a motorcycle stuntman turned bank robber, Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines immediately conjures comparisons to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive. And, for the first five minutes, Beyond the Pines does seem to be in the same vein as Refn’s thriller. However, what follows is something so unexpected that it will completely defy your expectations. The trailer for Beyond the Pines sells the film as a high speed thriller. However, it is much more focused on the actions that shape peoples’ lives than any high speed chase.

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FILM

Hard Time

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Eugene Jarecki’s latest documentary, The House I Live In, is difficult but essential viewing. Cinéma du Parc, opening March 29

by Matthew Hays
29.03.2013

From early in the screening of The House I Live In, I got the powerful sensation of familiarity. I was entering into a documentary by filmmaker Eugene Jarecki. And that’s a very good thing; Jarecki is quite simply a genius at analyzing complex issues, at showing us how the personal and political are intricately interwoven.

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FILM

Wind-Powered Film

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Landscape and Technology: The Films of Chris Welsby, Cinéma Quebecois, March 30+31

by Tom Llewellin
28.03.2013

Since his start in early 1970s London, Chris Welsby has spent his career searching for a compromise between nature, technology and the passage of time. A retrospective screening of his work at the Cinémathèque Québécoise this weekend in association with Double Negative will look at some of his best-known 16mm shorts from his early years, tackling the filmmaker’s relationship with the natural world.

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FILM

Let Slip the Dogs of War

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The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer, Cinema Excentris, March 28

by Leila Marshy
27.03.2013

Remember when you made that touchdown in high school? Or your first job? Or the time you saved a dog from drowning? Remember your first kiss? Remember that village you massacred? Whoa minute, as they say in French. There’s something wrong with this picture. Welcome to the surreal reality of modern-day Indonesia, where the gangsters and thugs are pop stars and their greatest hits include rape, pillage and torture.

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FILM

Art Imitates Life

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A look at James Franco’s performance in Oz the Great and Powerful

by Devon Gallant
20.03.2013

I’m going to be perfectly honest, the only reason I went to see Sam Raimi’s new Oz installment, Oz the Great and Powerful, was to watch James Franco’s performance. Fortuitously, this turned out to be even more rewarding than I had first anticipated. Although the film has generally received poor reviews, Franco’s performance as Oz resonates with a certain allegorical parallelism to his own artistic career and endows the film with a greater depth than one might at first suspect.

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FILM

Hey Boo

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Harper Lee: Hey Boo (Mar 17) and Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel (Mar 16 & 23) featured at FIFA

by Elizabeth Johnston
15.03.2013

Your first novel is a runaway bestseller. How do you top that? What if it was just luck? Do you even want to attempt another novel? These kinds of questions no doubt plague anyone who finds themselves in the enviable position of instant success. Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee, two American writers of considerable note, struggled with that exact quandary. Their stories are featured in two separate documentaries showing during the International Festival of Films on Art.

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FILM

Southern Hospitality

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Guadalajara Film Fest announces special Québec showcase

by Shawn Katz
14.03.2013

Mexico’s celebrated Guadalajara International Film Festival, whose 28th edition wrapped up on Saturday, has announced a special showcase in next year’s festival dedicated exclusively to Québécois cinema.

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