Eric Church, a fresh voice of country music, comes to Rexall in February
Posted on October 4, 2012 By Mike Ross Front Slider, Music
Here’s another allegedly redneck country singer who’s recently spilled over to the mainstream – Eric Church, who’s making his Edmonton debut not in some bar, but in the “big room,” the hockey arena, the one and only Rexall Place. The North Carolina singer performs Tuesday, Feb. 5 (2013), part of his “Blood, Sweat and Beers” […]
Cinematic mash-up brings fresh slice of real Klondike to fake Klondike
Posted on October 3, 2012 By Mike Ross Film, Front Slider, Music, Theatre
To have someone from the Yukon come all the way to Edmonton to present a “reconstituted” 1923 silent movie about the REAL Klondike is real treat for locals who are sick of the FAKE Klondike. On the recent moronic rebranding of our formerly bogus festival Klondike Days as K-Days, Whitehorse filmmaker and musician Daniel Janke […]
EIFF REVIEW: Plimpton as Himself reveals genius beneath goofy facade
Posted on October 1, 2012 By Barry Hammond Film, Front Slider
For those who know George Plimpton only as the plumy-voiced, New England accented socialite who appears in TV commercials, “Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself” will be a revelation. Screening at The Edmonton International Film Festival (EIFF) on Wednesday, Oct. 3, the film by writer/directors Tom Bean and Luke Poling takes a serious and in-depth […]
EIFF REVIEW: Darwin not the end of the Earth, but you can see it from there
Posted on September 30, 2012 By LH Thomson Film, Front Slider
At the end of a bleak road in Death Valley – itself one of the most inhospitable places on Earth – Monty Brannigan lives life as a gloriously unique individual. A Buddhist with a history of violence, an artistic savant who creates sculptures reminiscent of Henry Moore, a widower whose wife was shot in a […]
EIFF REVIEW: Unmade in China better than the film they ruined
Posted on September 29, 2012 By LH Thomson Film, Front Slider
“Unmade in China” is a brilliant documentary about how the Chinese government turned a decent film into a terrible film. It’s not new turf, but it’s rarely covered better than this often absurd examination of what happens when a mild mannered American director tries to make a movie in China. Both the film and the […]
EIFF REVIEW: Director’s cut shows good film despite toltalitarian meddling
Posted on September 29, 2012 By LH Thomson Film, Front Slider
Gil Kofman is some sort of genius. The director of The Memory Thief makes two appearances at the Edmonton International Film Festival (EIFF), first as the protagonist in a documentary about making a film in China (Unmade in China); the second, with a showing of his cut of that film, Case Sensitive. Without giving too […]
EIFF REVIEW: Montage makes all the difference in gringo-out-of-water films
Posted on September 28, 2012 By Mike Ross Film, Front Slider
What we have in “A Band of Rogues” and “Mariachi Gringo” may be a recurrent theme at the 2012 Edmonton International Film Festival (EIFF) – gringos messing around where they don’t belong. These two films are similar on the surface. A Band of Rogues deals with a young American musician with prescription drug issues, who […]
EIFF REVIEW: Happy Family shatters fourth wall in brilliant Italian comedy
Posted on September 28, 2012 By LH Thomson Film, Front Slider
Happy Family breaks the fourth wall constantly, with characters talking to the screen. It’s done in the same lighthearted vein as in the classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but is wonderfully off-the-wall and part of why this Italian film is so funny. Well, that and the writing, which is brilliant: touching, thoughtful, poignant, almost never […]
EIFF REVIEW: Oxygen for the Ears celebrates jazz city that Ken Burns missed
Posted on September 26, 2012 By Barry Hammond Film, Front Slider, Music
When Ken Burns’ 10 part series on the history of jazz premiered in 2001, you can just imagine German filmmaker Stefan Immler watching the segments on New York, Chicago, St. Louis, or Kansas city in his new home-town and screaming, “Hey! What about Washington, D.C.?!” He’d have a point – and makes it beautifully in […]
Book lovers lament expected closure of Greenwoods’ Bookshoppe
Posted on September 24, 2012 By Wayne Arthurson Culture, Front Slider, Lit
For years, we have been cocky about our bookstores. As city after city lost their independent book sellers, Edmonton crowed: “We have two strong independent bookstores!” But we crow no more. Although there is no official word from the owners, Greenwoods’ Books is closing in about a week, according to discussions on Facebook and Twitter. […]
WHO NAMED THE BAND: Living with Anthrax
Posted on September 19, 2012 By Mike Ross Front Slider, Music
The metal band Anthrax only had one problem with its name – in the tense few weeks following Sept. 11, 2001, when packets of deadly bacillus anthracis spores were mailed to several media outlets and politicians around North America. Seventeen people were infected, five died. The Edmonton Sun newsroom even got a delivery of suspicious […]
Can Christ forgive anything? Disturbing documentary begs the question
Posted on September 19, 2012 By Barry Hammond Film, Front Slider
Some films hang uneasily in the mind long after you watch them, tugging at your preconceptions and knee-jerk reactions and forcing you to re-evaluate them for months or even years afterwards. “The Redemption of General Butt Naked” is such a film. It opens Friday at Metro Cinema at the Garneau. As the title suggests, this […]
