Movie review: Who ordered the large bomb, hold the laughs?

Movie theatre reopening generates excitement in Selkirk

Selkirk got an extra dose of lights, cameras and action this weekend.

And ribbon cutting — for the grand reopening of the city’s sole theatre.

“It’s fantastic,” Mayor Larry Johannson said. “The sky’s the limit.”

The Garry Theatre now operates under a non-profit charity. It’s been closed since 2021, when Landmark Cinemas left the city.

Feds hold back on stable health funding

The federal government wants provinces to improve health care, expand treatment services and find better ways to deliver care. But it’s refusing to provide provincial governments with the one thing they need most to plan for the future: stable, predictable funding.

That’s not a serious way to manage public health care.

Provincial and territorial health ministers gathered in Winnipeg last week hoping to secure long-term federal funding commitments to help manage mounting pressures on their health-care systems. They left with little more than a promise to keep talking.

Ottawa agreed to extend a $1.2-billion annual funding agreement for mental-health and substance-use treatment, home care and community care by one year. That’s welcome, but it hardly provides the certainty provinces need to maintain existing programs, never mind expand services to meet growing demand.

Would Canada actually spy on Cuba?

The Globe and Mail recently ran a series of stories on how “Havana syndrome” negatively impacted a number of diplomats working at the Canadian embassy in Cuba. As of this writing, there has been unusual radio silence on the topic from Mark Carney’s governing Liberals.

The reportage also linked the so-called “sonic attacks” or what the Americans call “anomalous health incidents” (and the attendant concussion-like symptoms) to a Russian high-frequency microwave weapon. More importantly, the Globe maintained that Moscow’s retaliation against Canadian officials in Havana was because of their close co-operation with U.S. intelligence agencies in spying on the Cuban government.

Some of the articles claimed that high-tech satellite gear, which was brought into Cuba covertly by U.S. officials, was installed on the roofs of the residences of Canadian diplomats in Havana. Presumably, Canadian officials — or what are sometimes referred to as officers or agents working under the Global Security Reporting Program (GSRP) within the Department of Global Affairs — were using this satellite technology to collect intelligence on human sources in Cuba.

The secret information was eventually passed on to Canada’s partners in the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance (the U.S., Australia, Britain and New Zealand). It’s worth pointing out that this wouldn’t have been the first time Canadian officials in Cuba were funnelling sensitive intelligence to their U.S. counterparts.

New twist in Hellebuyck saga, suspension ends Friday

Connor Hellebuyck has played the reverse Uno card. What we don’t know is if he has any intention of coming back to friendly Manitoba or if this is simply the latest attempt to put the Winnipeg Jets' feet to the flames in an effort to move him to an American market.

Movie review: Who ordered the large bomb, hold the laughs?

A movie that advertises the star and director of the zom-com Zombieland effectively promises the thrills and dark humour of that quirky 2009 horror-comedy.

It doesn't take even 30 minutes to determine that 30 Minutes or Less is not going to deliver. Indeed, by the half-hour mark, you'll be forced to conclude that the only person more miscast in this movie than star Jesse Eisenberg is director Ruben Fleischer.

The premise, lifted from a grimmer reality, has Eisenberg's slacker pizza delivery guy Nick knocked unconscious by criminal lowlifes Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson). By the time he regains consciousness, Nick finds himself outfitted with a bomb vest. Dwayne and Travis, disguised in ape masks, inform Nick he has nine hours to pony up $100,000 or he'll go kablooey.

It emerges that Dwayne needs the dough to finance a hitman to kill his own dad (Fred Ward), a former military man living the self-indulgent life of a lottery millionaire.