> The first substantial buy of the Toronto Film Festival (Shame had sold first, but for art film prices) turned out to be Salmon Fishing In the Yemen, a modestly engaging romantic comedy from Lasse Hallstrom.  Hallstrom has made a career out of “modestly engaging,” following his early distinction with My Life As a Dog […]

> Derick Martini’s HICK is like a Sundance movie that took the wrong indie-film exit and wound up in Toronto.  For whatever reason, Toronto’s film festival tends to find itself with fewer stories of young people from small towns who come of age on the road, so Hick has a little air of distinction here. […]

    WE BOUGHT A ZOO:  Worth A Ticket – Cameron Crowe Pays His Dues and Keeps His Dignity   There’s a classic line in Albert Brooks’s incredibly prescient 1979 Real Life where Brooks, as the prototype of a reality-television director, tries to decide whether to do something unethical.  His rationalization for going ahead:  “What […]

> It stood to reason that if anyone was going to figure out how to effectively convert standard 35mm to 3D, it would be James Cameron. Cameron, whose Avatar is singlehandedly responsible for creating the current 3D frenzy, has spent more than a year and $18M to go back 15 years and transfer his 1997 […]

> The magically moving portraits are pulled off the walls of Hogwarts in 2007’s HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, and the colors have started draining from the Potter universe.  Gone are the lush visuals of Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire; the palette of Slawomir Idziak’s photography (his films include Kieslowski’s […]

> Watch It At Home:  Petty larceny. Sometimes casting can be too good:  Keanu Reeves playing a guy who pretty much sleepwalks through his own life is practically redundant.  His whole style, from the very start of his career in the Bill and Ted pictures (more than 20 years ago!), has been to lag a […]

  SARAH’S KEY – Watch It At Home:  Misses a Difficult Mark     There may be no cinematic minefield more dangerous for filmmakers than the Holocaust.  For films entering that difficult territory, the choices of tone, approach and imagery may not just be called into question, but outright offend audiences, and viewers have very […]

  MACHINE GUN PREACHER:  Watch It At Home –  A True Story Rings False   MACHINE GUN PREACHER simply isn’t good enough for the story it wants to tell. And the story, a true one, is remarkable:  Sam Childers (played by Gerard Butler in the film) was a drug addict and violent criminal who found […]