Archive

“X-MEN FIRST CLASS” – First Class Indeed

Posted June 3, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> Worth A Ticket:  Superheroes Behind the Camera, Too. The most substantial movie of the summer so far is, depending on how you calculate, the fifth in a comic book series, a prequel or a reboot.  X-MEN:  FIRST CLASS arrives with its own secret weapons, namely a smart script, a well-chosen cast, some genuine thematic […]

Full Story »

Archive

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Project Nim”

Posted July 18, 2011 by Mitch Salem

  PROJECT NIM:  Worth A Ticket – If You Can Stand It   At first I wondered why on earth Fox Searchlight hadn’t grabbed James Marsh’s documentary PROJECT NIM at Sundance, to serve as an unofficial prequel to Big Fox’s release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes next month.  It seemed like a […]

Full Story »

Archive

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: “Shame”

Posted September 13, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> Although Fox Searchlight didn’t actually acquire Steve McQueen’s film Shame until last Saturday, in a sense the marketing campaign for the film began when the producers made it clear that the film would not be edited for US release, and would be distributed with an NC-17 rating. This quickly became the most memorable fact […]

Full Story »

Archive

THE BIJOU REVIEW: “50/50”

Posted September 30, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> 50/50:  Worth A Ticket –  A Genuinely Feel-Good Cancer Comedy With The Big C renewed for its third season on Showtime, the concept of a comedy getting laughs from the experiences of a cancer patient is no longer especially shocking, which means that the new 50/50 has to be judged on its comedy-drama merits, […]

Full Story »

Archive

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “The Muppets”

Posted November 25, 2011 by Mitch Salem

    THE MUPPETS:  Watch It At Home – Nonstop Cuteness   When it was announced that Disney’s new movie of THE MUPPETS (the Mouse House bought the entire franchise from Jim Henson’s company some years ago) was going to be written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, previously behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall (and Stoller […]

Full Story »

Archive

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”

Posted August 29, 2011 by Mitch Salem

  DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK – Not Even For Free:  No, Really–Don’t Be Afraid     FilmDistrict has gone out of its way to identify co-writer/co-producer Guillermo del Toro with DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, to the extent that from the marketing, one could easily fail to realize that the movie is […]

Full Story »

Archive

LIMITED RELEASES: “Queen to Play,” “Ceremony” and “Meet Monica Velour”

Posted April 11, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> Today, 3 films from first-time directors: Caroline Bottaro’s marvelous QUEEN TO PLAY is, in a sense, a sports movie.  We have the out-of-nowhere player whose newly-discovered talent shakes up her whole life, the wise and somewhat eccentric mentor, even the climactic competition.  The game here, though, is chess, and the film (in French, with […]

Full Story »

Archive

“THE HANGOVER PART II” – Hair Of the Dog

Posted May 26, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> Worth a Ticket; It Wasn’t Broke, They Didn’t Fix It In Hollywood, the word “sequel” is often code for “remake.”  This isn’t news:  the James Bond series has been going on for almost 50 years, and allowing for the occasional change in cast and some fluctuation in quality, it’s pretty much been the same […]

Full Story »