month : 05/2015 35 results

Dispatches from Abroad: The Gentle Yens of Girona

Jay Stone explores an ancient Spanish city to discover a slow parade of humanity on cobble stone streets and the prosthetic digits of Edward Scissorhands By Jay Stone GIRONA, Spain -- There's a great lassitude that settles over Spain on a Sunday -- or perhaps, that settles over the visitor to Spain on a Sunday -- that is somehow ideal if you wash up in Girona. It's a medieval city just east of Barcelona whose historic district, all cobbled streets and narrow alleys, were built circa 1000. Little wrought iron balconies are set in the stone walls, and I saw an older couple sitting at a bistro table, having lunch together and each looking at their own cell phone. The stores aren't open, but the museums are free -- a mixed blessing -- and so you climb the steep steps behind the cathedral to the famous Jewish quarter, or El Call, one of the oldest in Europe. Once again, Jewish people have their historic roots on a hill all the better -- at least in this telling -- to come down ...

Disney boasts B.C. connection in Tomorrowland ads

George Clooney is on the B.C.-proud bus--literally. The movie star and pop culture icon will be featured prominently in new bus ads for Tomorrowland, the highly-anticiapted Walt Disney studios spectacle that started shooting in several different locations across eight different B.C. cities back in August 2013. In the ads, Clooney's figure looks out at a shiny new world created entirely through special effects, but if you look at the contours of the mountains in the background, the profile of Cypress Mountain is unmistakable. "While it's certainly not unique for a film to be shot in B.C., this is the first time that the province has been recognized in ad creative for the important role it played in production," said Greg Mason, vice-president of marketing for Walt Disney Studios Canada. "We're proud that one of our biggest releases of the year was shot on Canadian soil and this was our way of conveying that pride and saluting the province and the members of the local film ...
4Score

Canadian Must-Sees: Roadkill

No. 1 Canadian Must-See: Bruce McDonald and Don McKellar made Canadian history with this subversive story that pays vague homage to Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle, Hinterland Who's Who and the Canadian Shield ROADKILL, also known as MOVE OR DIE (1989)   4/5 Directed by Bruce McDonald Starring Valerie Buhagiar, Gerry Quigley, Larry Hudson, Bruce McDonald, Don McKellar, Shaun Bowring, Joey Ramone. Running time: 80 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG-13 Shot in grainy black and white, this satirical look at all things Canadian opens with a spoof of the Canadian wildlife service’s ubiquitous Hinterland Who’s Who film reels that featured 60-second vignettes on different animal species -- and a very melancholy flute line. The first thing we see is the furry face of a “northern cotton-tailed rabbit” twitching his cute little bunny nose, followed by the ominous sound of screeching tires and a honkin’ huge internal combustion engine. Valerie Bughiar stars as Ramona, a lowly ...
2Score

Movie review: Age of Ultron drains power

Director Joss Whedon takes a big stick to the over-stuffed piñata of Marvel Comics' characters and successfully empties out all the candy, but leaves a landscape strewn with plastic wrappers and the promise of a pounding headache  

Dispatches from Abroad: Dilly Dali-ing in Cadaques

Jay Stone ventures into the Spanish mountains to visit the very real birthplace of the seminal surrealist By Jay Stone CADAQUES, Spain -- This pretty-as-a-postcard town lies at the end of a long twisty road up and down a mountain a couple of hours southeast of Barcelona. You wouldn't get here by accident, but it's worth the drive: whitewashed buildings on gently rising hills, tucked around a small harbour with cafes and restaurants that crowd against tiny beaches. Everything is white and blue, cobbled and ancient. You could stay here forever. To get here, you pass through Figueres, where Salvador Dali was born and lived for a while, and home to a museum dedicated to his honour. Its thin curved corridors are lined with his bizarre constructions -- headless dolls, outlandish jewelry -- and even more bizarre tourists, who arrive in groups to press their noses against glass cases and to take photos of everything that doesn't move. Dali once said that the only difference between ...