DIDI (no distrib):  Sean Wang’s endearing memory piece won the US Dramatic Competition Audience Award.  It’s set in 2008 Northern California during the summer before Chris (Izaac Wang) begins high school and his sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) leaves for college in San Diego.  The kids have essentially been raised by Chungsing (Joan Chen) as […]

  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 […]

  In 1988, the Chilean military dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet was forced by diplomatic pressure to finally permit a democratic election, in order to prove its claim that the country’s people supported his presidency.  The plebiscite was simple:  voters would vote either “Yes” or “No” to authorize an additional 8-year term for the […]

  DOWNSIZING (Paramount – Dec 22):  Alexander Payne’s latest film (written with his usual partner Jim Taylor) is a delight–and a bit of a mess.  On its face, Downsizing is a leap out of Payne and Taylor’s comfort zones, renowned as they are for small-scale character studies and social satires like Election, The Descendants, Sideways […]

  CAT PERSON:  It seems to be necessary to establish one’s bona fides (or lack thereof) before commenting on Susanna Fogel’s Cat Person, so I’ll note that I’ve never read Kristen Roupenian’s celebrated New Yorker short story.  I’m given to understand, however, that the entire third act of Michelle Ashford’s adaptation is an add-on, which […]

  It’s not really a surprise to see Alfonso Cuaron join James Cameron, Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott in that small group of film artists who have made 3D part of the essential toolbox of their imagery (no, Baz Luhrmann and Guillermo del Toro don’t make the list, although Michael Bay might).  Cuaron is a […]

  In 2007, Julie Delpy wrote, directed and co-starred in 2 Days In Paris, a romantic comedy-drama featuring Adam Goldberg and herself as a couple who lived in NY and visited the title city for a tumultuous visit with her character Marie’s family.  Paris was only a moderate art-house success in the US ($4.4M), but […]

  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 Whiplash and the recipient of white-hot raves in Venice (where Emma Stone won the Best Actress award) and Telluride.  Chazelle’s rapturous […]