> When the inevitable US remake of the French thriller SLEEPLESS NIGHT arrives, it’ll benefit from some sharper dialogue (assuming the subtitles in Toronto were fully translating the original), a bit more characterization and a slightly more varied tone.  But the framework already exists for a solid action hit. The picture begins as a variant […]

At this point in movie history, it’s beside the point to ask why we even need a new film version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS when David Lean’s 1946 masterpiece still exists.  (And for those who want a different slant on the story, there’s Alfonso Cuaron’s 1998 modern-day revamp.)  The industry feeds itself on a diet of […]

  KODACHROME (no distrib):  AKA that page of the indie movie playbook marked “Dysfunctional Family Road Trip To Redemption.”  Jonathan Tropper (This Is Where I Leave You) wrote the script, and it has his novels’ mix of damaged-man soap and rom-com.  This one features a dying dad (Ed Harris), who has the kind of incurable […]

  This was a Toronto Film Festival unlike any other, and not just because I “attended” it from the laptop in my house.  Toronto has become an important stop on the road to the Academy Awards, with 9 of the past 10 Best Picture winners premiering or screening there.  (Birdman was the exception.)  But no […]

  THE BOY AND THE HERON (GKids – Dec. 8):  Hiyao Miyazaki, a legend of animation (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke), had announced his retirement as a feature film director a decade ago, upon the release of The Wind Rises.  But at the age of 82, he’s returned with The Boy and the […]

> For anyone attending the Toronto International Film Festival that begins in just over 2 weeks, today was a crucial day:  the release of the Festival schedule.  (TIFF also announced some not-shabby final additions to its roster of titles, including Gus Van Sant’s Restless and Jonathan Demme’s third and latest Neil Young documentary.)   Now […]

  ON THE ROAD – Worth A Ticket – Kerouac’s Classic Is Beautiful and Atmospheric But Lacks Urgency ON THE ROAD, as a novel and now as a film adaptation, is so enmeshed with the mythology of the real-life people and events it thinly fictionalizes and with the many works, both documentary and fiction, it’s […]

  Earnest and low-key to a fault, Liza Johnson’s HATESHIP LOVESHIP might have felt more at home in the Narrative Competition at Sundance than in Toronto.  It has a dramatic recessiveness, almost a passivity, for much of its length, that makes it hard to see just what kind of story it thinks it’s telling.  Ultimately, though, it […]