EIFF REVIEW: Vegreville-filmed Drama Probes Old Ukrainian Wounds
It is Ukraine – the year is 1943 and the German army has broken through the lines and is systematically slaughtering everyone in a local village. The first images we see in Troy Ruptash’s film They Who Surround Us are fragmented and disconnected. They will come together in the mind of the film’s central character […]
EIFF REVIEW: Banksy Most Wanted Digs Deep Into Picasso of Street Art
The elusive graffiti artist Banksy may be the most famous artist in the world. His simple but affecting works have appeared mysteriously on walls, also in galleries, on trains, cars and wherever an inviting surface appears. He’s parlayed his shadowy persona and artistic genius into a fortune guessed at $50 million. His stencil of a […]
EIFF REVIEW: Jasmine Road a tear-jerker with a message: ‘They’re just like us.’
A redneck rancher unwittingly becomes the host of a family of Syrian refugees. What could possibly go wrong? Better yet: What could go right? Jasmine Road, the opening night feature at the Edmonton International Film festival, looks on the positive side of the immigration issue that has touched nearly every Canadian. Writer-director Warren Sulatycky takes […]
Multi-hyphenate Edmonton talent on the doorstep of Hollywood
At least one thing is true to real life in the developing sitcom Casanova. It’s “The List” – of every person the main character Cassie had sex with, male or female, doesn’t really matter. “She’s modelled after a version of myself, and earlier 20s version of myself” says filmmaker Mac Watson, who’s worked her way […]
ESO to use FORCE in Music of Star Wars
It can be argued that John Williams’ brilliant scores for the Star Wars movies will one day be remembered as widely as Beethoven’s Fifth, The Magic Flute, or even Adagio in G Minor – if they aren’t already. There is a great disturbance in the Force over the impending concerts by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, […]
5 Tips to get your Nerd On at the Edmonton Expo
If I can offer the No. 1 piece of advice for the first-time visitors to the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo this weekend, it would be this: Don’t drive. There’s construction all along Wayne Gretzky Drive. Take the LRT. It stops close to the ticketing entrance at the Northlands Expo and you don’t have to […]
DEDfest Still Alive – With a Vengeance
In a flurry of complaining, local film producer Derek Clayton told the CBC that last year’s DEDfest would be its last year ever. Yet here we are, again. The 10th annual genre film festival now called DEDfest With a Vengeance runs Oct 19-21 at the Metro Cinema in the Garneau. Selections include Climax (above), a […]
EIFF: Rabbit so good it needs to be proud to be Canadian
Films like Rabbit make it easy on reviewers. When the material and performances are as nearly flawless as they are here, the only thing that needs to be decided is how much to gush – so get ready. This film could easily be the best dramatic feature at this year’s Edmonton International Film Festival. It […]
EIFF: Bel Canto serves palatable pablum
Bel Canto, starring Julianne Moore and Christopher Lambert, is a historically revisionist melodrama so loosely based on the 1996 Peruvian Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis that actual Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was renamed President Masuda in the film. That should tell you how close this one sticks to the facts. To be honest, it’s more directly […]
EIFF: Hang Ten in … Ireland?!
Every film festival always has a documentary or two, and Between Land and Sea focuses on the lives of a band of like- minded sportsmen in the international surfing hotspot of … Ireland. No, that wasn’t a typo. The town of Lahinch, on the west coast of Ireland near the cliffs of Moher, lays claim […]
EIFF: Necessary Evil an existential comedy with horns
Fans of The Good Place might be interested in another existential comedy, Necessary Evil – making its premiere at the Edmonton International Film Festival on Friday night. The web series (aiming for TV) is a bit darker in its hour-long pilot episode Soul Purpose. It’s set in a hell that actually looks like hell – […]
EDMONTON EXPO-SE: So much money, GTA lives, Bob Ross
The money that flew through the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo this weekend was mind-boggling. The entire event is designed to suck your bank account dry. Do the math, if you dare! Consider the official count of 41,238 people (up from last year) each paying $80 for their pass. That’s about $3.3 million (more when […]
