> It’s actually harder to come up with a manageable list of Honorable Mention movies than a Top 10, because there are so many films that are eminently worth seeking out and seeing, but perhaps a little bit flawed–sometimes too thin, sometimes too audacious for their own good.  It wouldn’t have been much of a […]

  JULIET, NAKED (no distrib):  Every Sundance has a title or two that isn’t particularly “indie,” other than by the fact that its stars aren’t hugely bankable.  These aren’t the films that set critical hearts aflutter, but they can be worthwhile all the same.  That’s the case with the likable Juliet, Naked, which continues Nick […]

      BATTLESHIP:  Not Even For Free – Watch a Transformers DVD Instead   For about half an hour, BATTLESHIP could fool you into thinking it’s not the movie you were expecting it to be.  It begins as the story of Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), a good-looking, unmotivated screw-up who lives with his straight-arrow […]

> At 7AM today (East Coast time), the Toronto International Film Festival opened its boxoffice for single ticket sales, package orders having been filled a couple of days ago.  As usual, the result was chaos:  if you were lucky enough to get onto the screen where selections could be made, hitting “Send” froze that page; […]

  IN THE SUMMERS (no distrib):  The winner of the Jury Prize in the US Dramatic Competition is a somewhat prototypical Sundance drama.  Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s semi-autobiographical story depicts four summers over about a decade spent by Eve and Violeta, children of divorce (played by various actors, culminating with Sasha Calle and Lio Mehiel) with […]

  SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD – Watch It At Home – Apocalypse Rom-Com Now   SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD marks the directing debut of its writer Lorene Scafaria, who until now has mostly been known as screenwriter of the marvelous 2008 Nick and Norah’s Infinite […]

  TOP FIVE:  No Current US Distributor or Release Date (but that will change very soon) – Worth A Ticket Chris Rock is generally considered among the greatest stand-ups of his generation, and it’s been clear for some time that he wants to move up to the next cultural echelon, the level of regard where […]

  Worth a ticket.   It’s a little mysterious that Michael Connelly’s trim, twisty crime novels have so rarely hit the screen. Perhaps it was the tepid reception received by Blood Work in 2002, unfortunately one of Clint Eastwood’s more dismal films of the last decade. Or just the usual horror stories of movie industry […]