HARKEMA’S GIRL TROUBLE
A GIRL IS A GIRL (1999): The first feature film from Vancouver-based film-maker Reg Harkema (editor of Hard Core Logo, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, Last Night), A Girl is a Girl is a kinder, gentler meditation on Canadian alienation as it tells the story of Trevor (McIntyre), a really nice guy looking for a that one perfect girl. Little does Trevor know he’s a victim of mass media marketing campaigns, and really, there is no such thing as the smart, funny, Sports Illustrated swimsuit model who lives and breathes to make Trevor feel good about himself. Instead, women are just people -- or, as the title suggests: a girl is really just a girl. For the bulk of this offbeat charmer, we watch Trevor make an ass of himself in a variety of ways, with a variety of different women. There is Lisa, the ex-model with the eating disorder, Lisa, the rocker chick and Karen, as he slowly comes to accept the lack of feminine perfection -- not to mention his own shortcomings. Good dialogue, strong ...
ROBERT LEPAGE BIOGRAPHY
Biography: Robert Lepage
Born: 1957, Quebec City
A Renaissance man with a modernist’s flair for re-inventing media, Robert Lepage is one of the most exciting visual narrators in Canadian cinema -- a talent that may be explained by his entrance to film via theatre.
Born into a working class family which had already adopted two English-Canadian children, Lepage was always interested in performance, a passion that eventually led him to Quebec City’s Conservatoire d’art dramatique. He was an engaged student, and when he graduated in 1977, he could write, direct, act and execute elaborate stage designs -- but had no particular area of expertise. After a three-week workshop with Alain Knapp in Paris, he returned to Quebec and formed Theatre Hummm with Richard Fréchette.
The two produced award-winning work and from there, Lepage hooked up with Théâtre Repère, an established troupe, where he would stage works such as Tectonic Plates, En attendant and The Dragon’s Trilogy ...
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
Pretty sure it has something to do with love.
WHERE IS THE BATHROOM?
Down the hall.
WTF IS THIS?
Right now, an experiment with one intention: To enable the ex-press to express themselves, and allow creators to retain control of content.
WHO THE F… ARE YOU?
People who worked in corporate journalism and either called it quits, were rendered redundant, or stormed out of the newsroom to make a statement, couldn't find their security card and were too proud to ever return (true story).
WHY IS THERE SO LITTLE IN THIS P.O.S?
We're still beta. So let's not fight.
NEWS BEGINNINGS
This started as boiler plate text, but as I type the very first words for The Ex-Press, I see Oscar was on to something: One has to look forward; the past is no longer an option… I'd tell you more but there are legal things to sort out at the moment.
Chappie reboots best bits of Blade Runner, Robocop
Droidful!
A hacked version of Robocop, Chappie takes place in the not-too-distant future, when violent crime has gone viral and police resources are too stretched to contain the chaos.
By Katherine Monk
Infused with ambient paranoia, apocalyptic imagery and an overall sense of social collapse, Neil Blomkamp’s movies operate in a familiar science-fiction setting, but they feel significantly different from Hollywood spectacle.
Where the likes of Lucas and Spielberg find ways of affirming all-American value systems through hero-centric stories, Blomkamp doesn’t seem at all interested in themes of god and country.
If anything, the South African filmmaker (who makes his home in Vancouver) focuses on the opposite: He ignores the grand rhetoric of the visible and the valued in an effort to hear the slang of the common folk.
In his brilliantly bleak feature debut, District 9, Blomkamp re-invented the alien invasion theme by weaving it into Apartheid metaphor, ...
The Lazarus Effect falls flat
Movie review: The Lazarus Effect
Raising the dead gets tired in hipster Frankenstein story as Olivia Wilde and Mark Duplass play mad scientists looking to overcome the fundamental rules of nature
Circling the Drain: Hot Tub Time Machine 2
Starring: Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Adam Scott, Jason Jones,
Directed by: Steve Pink
Running time: 93 minutes
One star out of five
MPAA Rating: Restricted
By Katherine Monk
No matter how many times you scour afterward, the filmy scum left by Hot Tub Time Machine 2 lingers like greasy dark ring around the brain.
A sequel to the surprisingly okay 2010 comedy about four down-and-out dudes who are given a second chance at redemption with a trip to the past via the titular spa equipment, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 had some built-in appeal: Escapist entertainment has its place in life, and sometimes, all you want to do is take off your cerebral corset and get naked in a hot bubble bath of silliness.
It’s not that much to ask for, really: A couple of good jokes to keep you listening to the dialogue, characters that prompt empathy, and maybe a plot that doesn’t have to be explained in every other scene.
I congratulate screenwriter Josh Heald ...
