Thriller sports all-star cast, but lacks definition, direction

Furby Street residents fed up with inaction on drug houses

Anxious Furby Street residents contacted the city and their elected officials Friday to — once again — report people coming and going from a boarded-up house they call a dangerous “drug centre” and “den of thieves” that’s just steps away from a house under construction.

Linda Zak, who was holding a yard sale with a group of neighbours Friday morning, described the trouble the home attracts, while a woman slumped on the front steps and a man standing in the yard yelled to someone inside it.

“It is a drug centre,” said Zak, 77. “We know that. A couple of days ago, a person lit the front on fire. Now, as you look at it, you can see where the facade was burning and they were trying to harm people inside.”

“We’re very concerned about it being next to the home this man is building,” she said, pointing to the two-storey that’s nearly completed. The boarded-up house is in the 500 block of Furby.

Province invests $3.8M in culinary arts training facility for francophone high school students

A new dedicated culinary arts training facility will give francophone high school students a place to learn the trade in French.

Thriller sports all-star cast, but lacks definition, direction

Release dates shouldn’t necessarily be a metric for evaluating films, and yet, sometimes it’s the best way to contextualize what’s going on with a movie. Kin, a dark and confounding young adult thriller, written and directed by Jonathan and Josh Baker, co-written by Daniel Casey, is best described as a prototypical “August movie.” Not fitting into one genre or another, too dark to appeal to kids and too juvenile to draw adults, it’s seemingly been dumped in that no man’s land between blockbuster and awards season.

Kin is based on a short film by the brothers Baker called Bag Man. It follows a 14-year-old boy from Detroit, Eli (Myles Truitt, in his first feature film role), as he goes on the lam with his adopted ex-con brother, Jimmy (Jack Reynor). Eli’s brought along a mysterious gun, a large, box-shaped weapon he picked up in an abandoned building while scrapping to make extra money.

In pursuit is Taylor (James Franco), a psychopathic drug dealer out for vengeance after a robbery leaves both his brother Dutch (Gavin Fox) and Eli and Jimmy’s father Hal (Dennis Quaid) dead. Franco’s Taylor is essentially his character Alien from Spring Breakers with several hard years on him, cornrows chopped into a ratty mullet, sporting a moth-eaten sweater and many misguided tattoos, signifying his impulsive and reckless nature.

Eli and Jimmy, en route to Lake Tahoe, one of their dead mother’s favourite places, are also being followed by a mysterious pair of futuristic soldiers on a mission to repossess the weapon. Eli discovers how useful the “ray gun” can be when they find themselves in a brawl at a Midwestern strip club. The gun shoots blasts that can vaporize anything. After escaping evil club owner Lee (Romano Orzari), dancer Milly (Zoë Kravitz) joins the brothers on the run.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Aries.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

This is a wonderful, energetic day. The moon in your sign is dancing with lucky Jupiter promoting domestic peace and happiness. It’s a great day for business. But your top choice will be to socialize, enjoy fun activities with kids, check out sporting events or slip away on a vacation. .

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Bombers let another one slip away and face pivotal issue

Mike O’Shea summed it up best.

“That one doesn’t feel very good.”

Nor should it.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers started out hot Friday night, only to run out of gas down the stretch and allow the visiting Toronto Argonauts to steal a 30-28 victory.