CAUSEWAY (Apple – November 4):  After a decade as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, there was reason to wonder whether the Jennifer Lawrence who first came to prominence with the Sundance movie Winter’s Bone still had a gritty indie-movie gear.  She returns to those roots with Causeway, for which she also serves as a […]

  WINNER (no distrib):  Yes, this sounds familiar.  Last year, HBO aired Tina Satter’s Reality, which told the story of the young jailed NSA leaker Reality Winner, and now filmmaker Susanna Fogel has taken the other half of that memorable name for her version of the tale.  (The Reality title was more evocative.)  Their approaches […]

> TEN YEAR, which premiered tonight at the Toronto Film Festival, is one of the few festival movies that has the feel of a potential hit.  This is because, apart from its hugely engaging cast and, to be sure, some effective writing and directing, it’s really not a “film festival” movie at all, but a […]

> Sundance has a thriving Park City At Midnight program that features plenty of high-octane horror movies, but the most unnerving and disturbing film of this year’s festival may have been Craig Zobel’s COMPLIANCE, a low-key drama based (apparently rather closely) on a true story without any hacked-off limbs or hint of the supernatural. In […]

  With The Silver-Linings Playbook and now Wayne Blair’s THE SAPPHIRES, Harvey Weinstein may have the feel-good part of the coming awards season locked down.  This slight but charming true story (or at least “inspired by” one) about an Australian singing group is like the happytime version of Dreamgirls. The story is set in 1968 Australia, a time when, […]

  If you go to too many Sundances, or see too many indie films, there are certain templates you come to recognize all too quickly.  THE LIFEGUARD, written and directed by Liz W. Garcia, a TV writer (Memphis Beat, Cold Case) making her directing debut, follows so many of these conventions that it could have […]

  HER:  Buy A Ticket – Tetrabytes of Love From Spike Jonze HER, which was presented at the AFI Film Festival before opening in theatres next month, is the first film Spike Jonze has directed from his own original script, and although its inventiveness recalls Being John Malkovich and Adaptation., the projects on which he collaborated […]

  THE LAST 5 YEARS (Radius/Weinstein) – release date currently unscheduled – Worth A Ticket Richard LaGravenese’s  film version of Jason Robert Brown’s THE LAST 5 YEARS, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was acquired for release by the Radius division of the Weinstein Company, is a must-see for anyone who loves musicals–and very […]