AFTER EARTH:  Not Even For Free – The Smith Family In Outer Space In AFTER EARTH, Will Smith plays Cypher Raige, an emotionally austere father who withholds affection from his son because of his doubt that the boy is capable of walking in his own celebrated footsteps.  It’s such a bizarre decision for a […]

  DALLAS BUYERS CLUB is more Erin Brockovich than Brian’s Song, and that’s why it works so well.  Jean-Marc Vallee’s film, written by Craig Borten and Melisa Walack, is too angry to be sentimental.  Set during the 1980s, it tells the story of Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey, in a career-highlight performance), a hard-living, homophobic Texas electrician and rodeo rider […]

  ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES:  Watch It At Home – Fun But Overextended Silliness ANCHORMAN 2:  THE LEGEND CONTINUES runs 119 minutes, which is rather too much of a not-bad thing (the original Anchorman, in 2004, was a brisk 94 minutes), but it pales in comparison to the accumulated length of the marketing campaign […]

  BLENDED:  Not Even For Free – A Bad Sitcom Episode, 4 Times As Long On the Adam Sandler Movie Pain-o-Meter (patent pending), the new BLENDED ranks about midway between the not-so-bad Just Go With It and the soul-crushing horror of That’s My Dad and Jack & Jill.  It’s Sandler wearing his sentimental, romantic hat, […]

  Marc Abraham, for his second film as director (prior to that, he was a veteran producer), has chosen his second consecutive mid-20th-century biography, following 2008’s Flash of Genius with I SAW THE LIGHT, which premiered tonight at the Toronto Film Festival and will open in theatres in November.  The life of country music star […]

  ON CHESIL BEACH (no distrib):  Ian McEwan’s longish novella/shortish novel has been adapted by McEwan himself into a fluid and extremely English film, the first feature directed by stage director Dominic Cooke.  The main action takes place during the honeymoon night of Florence (Saorirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle) in 1962, with copious flashbacks […]

  BOY ERASED (Focus/Universal – November 2):  Joel Edgerton’s film is the second of the year concerning gay conversion therapy, and its tone is far more conventional than The Miseducation of Cameron Post.  Lucas Hedges plays Jared Eamons (this is a fictionalized version of a true story), son of southern pastor Marshall (Russell Crowe) and […]

  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 […]