WAVES (A24 – November 1):  Trey Edward Shults’ third film (after the micro-budgeted indie Krisha and the horror movie They Come By Night) manages the remarkable feat of feeling both experimental and grounded, as propulsive as an episode of Euphoria without that show’s smug affectations.  There isn’t a lot of plot, and what there […]

  THE MAGNIFICENT 7 (Village Roadshow/MGM/Columbia/Sony – Sept 23):  Cinema survived in 1960 when Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece The Seven Samurai was transformed into an American western, and it will survive this new adequate but uninspired remake of the remake.  Despite a script co-credited to True Detective‘s Nik Pizzolatto (with Richard Wenk), and a promising match-up […]

  THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU (Warners) – Opens September 19 – Worth A Ticket Jonathan Tropper’s very successful day job is writing seriocomic novels about families and romance that are distinguished by their male protagonists–the ground he trods is similar to Nick Hornby’s, but without quite matching Hornby’s freshness of approach or wit.  […]

  THE CHILDREN ACT (no distrib):  It’s not intended as disparagement to Ian McEwan’s novel and screenplay adaptation, or to Richard Eyre’s film, that THE CHILDREN ACT feels much of the time like it could be the pilot for a high-toned television series featuring Emma Thompson as a compassionate jurist specializing in family law who […]

  THE WONDER (Netflix – November 16):  In the time of Ireland’s Great Famine, 11-year-old Anna (Kila Lord Cassidy) claims to have survived for 4 months without eating even one bite of food.  Is she a miracle, possibly a saint in the making, or a sham?  The elders of her small town have the girl […]

> TIFF’s Midnight Madness program is exactly what you think it is:  10 flat-out, unapologetic genre movies that premiere each night at midnight in front of a raucous crowd at the 1200-seat Ryerson Theatre.  In any given year, the Madness may include unexpected gems like last year’s Insidious and 2006’s Borat, interestingly weird pictures such […]

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 […]

  In recent years, the… let’s call it mature audience has been a profitable one, making moderate hits of films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Quartet.  This holiday season, the title of choice for this niche is likely to be PHILOMENA, a literate tearjerker that Harvey Weinstein unveiled at the Venice and Toronto film festivals. Based on a true […]