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Film Festival

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 2 Capsule Reviews: “Snowden,” “American Pastoral” & “Carrie Pilby”

  SNOWDEN (Open Road – Sept 16):  Oliver Stone’s return to politically-charged biography is subdued by the standards of his Nixon or W.  It’s a hagiography that follows the character arc of his Born of ...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Film Festival

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 3 Capsule Reviews: A Monster Calls, Lion, The Bleeder, Colossal & Elle

  COLOSSAL (no distrib):  Well, you haven’t seen this take on sci-fi spectacles before.  In Nacho Vigalondo’s whatzit, party girl Gloria (Anne Hathaway) and her hometown friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) discover...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Film Festival

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 4 Capsule Reviews: “Sing,” “Denial,” “Nocturnal Animals,” “Moonlight” & “Queen of Katwe”

  For this audience member, it was the day Toronto moved into high gear. MOONLIGHT (A24 – October 21):  Barry Jenkins’s second film, after his little-seen but much-praised Medicine For Melancholy, is a validat...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Film Festival

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 5 Capsule Reviews: “Jackie,” “Arrival,” “Loving,” “Blue Jay,” & “Black Mirror”

  JACKIE (Fox Searchlight – December 9):  The most impressive film of the festival thus far is director Pablo Larrain’s jewel-like examination of the realities and artifices behind our perceptions of history, ...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Film Festival

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 6 Capsule Reviews: “La La Land,” “Deepwater Horizon, “Brimstone” & “Wakefield”

  LA LA LAND (Summit/Lionsgate – December 2):  No film arrived at Toronto this year with more hype to live up to than Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, the follow-up to the filmmakers’s Oscar-winning Whiplas...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Film Festival

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 7 Capsule Reviews: “Paterson” & “The Salesman”

  Note:  this will be our final installment of Toronto reviews, although the festival runs on until Sunday. It’s been a good if not classic festival, with a trio of legitimately great presentations in La La Land, Ja...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Kevin Can Wait”

  KEVIN CAN WAIT:  Monday 8:30PM on CBS (thru 10/17, then 8PM) – Change the Channel Sometimes when a TV star returns to the tube, it’s to try something excitingly different.  Think of Rob Lowe’s second ...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Scream Queens”

  SCREAM QUEENS:  Tuesday 9PM on FOX There didn’t seem to be a pressing need for a second season of SCREAM QUEENS.  The ratings for Season 1 were meager, even in the young female demo the show was courting, and the...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Designated Survivor”

  DESIGNATED SURVIVOR:  Wednesday 10PM on ABC – In the Queue ABC’s DESIGNATED SURVIVOR takes great pains to distinguish its version of Kiefer Sutherland from 24‘s Jack Bauer.  The show’s Tom Kirkm...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Notorious”

  NOTORIOUS:  Thursday 9PM on ABC – Change the Channel Any viewer apt to complain about the over-the-top melodrama of Scandal should be forced to watch the pilot for Notorious, a supposed “drama” so cons...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Pitch”

  PITCH:  Thursday 9PM on FOX – Potential DVR Alert Dan Fogelman is a busy man.  He’s not only the creator of This Is Us, which debuted strongly two nights ago, he’s also co-creator (with Rick Singer) ...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Pilot + 1

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Van Helsing”

  VAN HELSING:  Friday 10PM on Syfy – Change the Channel The playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute has dabbled in genre before, although he may prefer not to be reminded of his disastrous remake of The Wicker Man.  ...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “The Exorcist”

  THE EXORCIST:  Friday 9PM on FOX – Potential DVR Alert Like Noah Hawley’s ongoing take on Fargo, the new FOX version of THE EXORCIST, created for television by Jeremy Slater (one of the unhappy group credite...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Articles

Behind the US/Worldwide Weekend Box Office – 9/25/16

  OPENINGS:  It was important for THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (Village Roadshow/MGM/Columbia/Sony) to hit the $35M that the studio is currently claiming, because that puts it slightly over the two obvious comparisons:  the $34...
by Mitch Salem
 
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Articles

EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “Miss Peregrine,” “Deepwater Horizon” Slow, “Magnificent 7″” Drops

  Both of the weekend’s major openings cost too much for the amount they’re currently earning.  MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN (TSG/20th) has production/marketing costs of $225M+, and prelim...
by Mitch Salem
 
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