Francois Ozon’s IN THE HOUSE is a delicious examination of the pleasures and dangers of addictive narrative.  Storytelling (and corresponding tricks of cinematic structure) has been an interest of Ozon’s throughout his career, in films like Sitcom, Swimming Pool, 5×2 and Angel, and here he approaches the subject from a new angle. The setting is […]

  It just wouldn’t be a film festival without something from Michael Winterbottom.  Winterbottom isn’t at the very top of the film director pantheon, but he’s respected enough that his projects have been in near-constant festival demand for most of his two decade-long career, and one way or another they tend to be included in […]

  As a movie year, 2013 was awfully slow in getting started.  Hardly anything worth remembering opened all winter and spring–only 1 movie in the Top 10 below opened in theatres before late May.  Summer brought some relief, and then the film festival season that began at the end of August opened the doors wide […]

  The title ZIPPER suggests something wittier and more enticing than Mora Stephens’ well-made melodrama turns out to be.  If a filmmaker is determined to reexamine the familiar story of a politician who can’t control his own personal excesses, some kind of new take or distinctive angle is advisable, but Stephens and her co-writer Joel Viertel […]

  SIDNEY HALL (no distrib):  Shawn Christensen’s literary drama (written with Jason Dolan) is initially engaging as a modern-day sort of J.D. Salinger story, told simultaneously across three time periods, with Sidney Hall (Logan Lerman throughout) presented as an arrogant but troubled teen, an acclaimed novelist, and a middle-aged man who’s run away from the […]

  IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Annapurna – November 30):  Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Moonlight received a rapturous standing ovation at its Toronto premiere, and it’s unquestionably a beautiful piece of filmmaking,  Jenkins reunited with most of his Moonlight creative team, including cinematographer James Laxton and composer Nicholas Britell, and with a higher budget at […]

  WORTH (no distrib):  A dry but fascinating angle on the story of 9/11, Worth centers on the real-life Ken Feinberg (Michael Keaton), an attorney with a very specific expertise:  he and his firm calculated and negotiated compensation payouts to victims and survivors of disasters, in order to settle suits brought for their losses.  In […]

  BERGMAN ISLAND (IFC – Oct. 15):  Mia Hansen-Love’s Bergman Island asks to be poked and scrutinized in several ways.  It takes place on the island of Faro, where Ingmar Bergman filmed some of his most celebrated masterpieces and lived the last decades of his life, and which now hosts a thriving business of tours […]