THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING (Focus/Universal) – Opens November 7 – Worth A Ticket There’s a benefit but also a burden to being clear-cut “Oscar bait.” At this point we all know the kinds of movies the Academy looks upon with favor: serious biographies, period pieces, leading actors who contort themselves in one way or […]
It would be easy enough to fill a Worst 10 list with low-budget “found footage” horror movies, and sadly not that much more difficult to fill one with earnest, badly-executed indies, but where’s the fun in that? No, if we’re going to throw stones, let’s throw them through some expensive windows. WORST BIG BUDGET […]
Due to our upcoming Sundance Film Festival coverage, ratings posts for the remainder of the week are likely to consist largely of charts without text. In addition, we may not be able to respond promptly to reader Comments requests for extra ratings. (On the other hand, Sundance reviews!)
> 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 […]
WRITERS is considered an “independent” movie because it was made without big-studio financing and because its stars (Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Kristen Bell) are familiar faces, but not at the level that sell tickets strictly on the basis of their names. Beyond those business considerations, though, Josh Boone’s debut feature is as safe and predictable […]
A week at the Toronto Film Festival added up to 24 screenings–a decent pace, but not an outstanding one. Blame some vagaries of the festival’s scheduling, and a baseline decision that Midnight Madness was too much midnight and maybe even too much madness. The potential awards contenders I wasn’t able to get to included […]
When push came to shove, a choice had to be made between The Birth of A Nation and “the farting corpse movie” (AKA Swiss Army Man), and your faithful narrator has to confess that he went with the former, so apologies for that. There are other films, as well, that I would have liked […]
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (New Line/Warners): Sundance was somewhat awash in feel-good movies this year, which is unusual but not unprecedented. One of the most successful in previous years was 2002’s Bend It Like Beckham, directed by Gurinder Chadha. Chadha returned to the festival this year after some time in the movie wilderness (Bride […]