MOVIE : "SAW II"

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Alright, here comes another sequel, only 12 months after the 1st SAW film scared it's way onto the big screen. Unfortunately, the originality factor is gone this time around, it's more of the same. This time, instead of two guys in a room, it's 8 people in a house... and there is more blood. A lot more gory stuff that might be hard to handle for the squeamish. It's still a good movie in the end with a new kids on the block guy in the lead role (Donnie Whalberg) and perfect for this time of year. Enjoy the madness of Jigsaw! :)

MOVIE : "THE LEGEND OF ZORRO"

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7 years after the movie that really introduced the beautiful miss Zeta-Jones to the world, here's a sequel. This film is nowhere near as good as the original. First off, the movie is a good 30 minutes too long, it's way too long (over 2 hours!). This movie is more of a family entertainment film. Even more of a comedy than the 1st film, this one bombards you with cheezy & corny humor, similar to jokes found in a so-so sitcom on tv (watch out for the horse stuff!). Overall, it could have been better, maybe an okay rental.

MOVIE : "STAY"

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This movie has a great cast ; Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts & Canadian actor Ryan Gosling . This psychological thriller is really well done and features some pretty amazing camero work and scene changes. The movie is complicated and full of intrigue. Unfortunately, by the end of the film... lots of questions will remain unanswered. It had potential to be an incredible movie, but it ended up being a good movie with great performances from the lead actors.

CD : "CONTROLLER.CONTROLLER - X-Amounts"

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X-Amounts from controller.controller is another great cd by another new and good Canadian Band. Canadian music right now is way better than any other music around the world (i.e. Arcade Fire, DFA1979, Wolf Parade, Metric, etc.). This quintet sometimes reminds me of "the Pixies". I really like the drumming on the record.... you should check them out online.

MOVIE : "WAITING"

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This movie features a lot of funny young actors including Ryan Renolds (Van Wilder)l, Anna Faris (Scary Movie) and Justin Long (Dodgeball). Unfortunately, a lot of the funny parts were shown in the preview. The film would have been a funny sketch but was streched out to 90 min. or so... Some funny stuff and lots of not so funny stuff. Watch it on TV if you feel like turning your brain off for one hour and a half. Definitely not worth your money.

MOVIE "THE FOG"

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In the US, last week, Sony decided not to screen "the Fog" for the members of the press. That says it all. This movie is just plain bad. A little less painful than "The Cave" and "Boogeyman" released earlier this year, this movie still sucks. It was nice to see Lost's Maggie Grace for a few minutes, that's it! All the horror movie clichés are there, the annoying music, the ghosts, the young people partying on a boat and getting killed. And the movie is way to long and should have been trimmed to 90 min. Please avoid this film.

CD : "BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE"

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Broken Social Scene is a supercollective. Ranging from 5 to 17 members, the Toronto-based group includes musicians from Stars, Metric, and many other bands, as well as the up-and-coming Leslie Feist. This cd brings a special musical mood. There are some great tracks on this record including "Fire Eye'd Boy" & "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" (featuring rapper K-Os). Overall, great disc.

MOVIE : "ELIZABETHTOWN"

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This is not Cameron Crowe's (Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, Almost Famous) best work but it is a nice, simple but also beautiful film. In general, I am not a big Kirsten Dunst fan but I was pleasantly surprised. And it was nice to see Orlando wear normal clothes... I found the film to be very inspiring as they show you how different people can deal with grief and how to deal with failure. As usual, Crowe fills his movies with great music.

MOVIE : "ST-MARTYR-DES-DAMNÉS"

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Quebec horror films are pretty rare... "Sur Le Seuil" released last year was a far better film than this one. St-Martyr-Des-Damnés tries to be creepy and scary but doesn't achieve much. The movie is painfully long and the only reason I give it one and a half star is for its great and powerful images. The cinematography is good and the script is crap. Take my word for it, avoid this film.

CD "WOLF PARADE - Apologies to the Queen Mary"

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Right now, Montreal is a booming music scene, and here's another great Canadian band from Montreal. Somewhat in the same musical genre as their friends Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade releases a powerful debut cd produced by Isaac Brock (who works with Modest Mouse). Here's a quote from Rolling Stone magazine :


"I'll Believe in Anything," the best cut on Wolf Parade's excellently shambling debut, may be the indie-rock song of the year

CD "FRANZ FERDINAND - You Could Have It So Much Better"

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The first Franz Ferdinand cd was an amazing surprise. So, for this one, the expectations were really high. The first single off the record "Do You Want To" is very catchy. The are a few really great tracks on this record including the opener "The Fallen". This cd has a lot of energy but it's hard to beat the original one. Overall, it's a fun cd from a great band.

MOVIE : ''A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE''

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David Cronenberg is also a weird director known for making very strange films (i.e. ''eXistenZ'' and ''Crash'' the original film, not the one released this year with Sandra Bullock). This film is definitely more mainstream than his previous ones. Viggo Mortensen stars in this movie and his phenomenal and so is the rest of the cast. This movie is very intense and is rated 16+ for violence. There are only a few minutes of violence in this film but they are very very graphic. Great film!

MOVIE : "FLIGHT PLAN"

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I found it weird that a great actress like Jodie Foster chose to do a film like "Flight Plan" after taking almost 4 years off since her last movie "Panic Room". "Flight Plan" is set in a small space, where Jodie plays a single mom trying to protect or save her daughter, as she did in "Panic Room". I thought this movie might be really bad, but it's actually a pretty good thriller saved mostly by Jodie's acting. Unfortunately for Miss Foster, this movie is nowhere near as good as "Panic Room" was.