> See also: THE BIJOU @ TIFF:  FIRST TITLES ANNOUNCEDTHE BIJOU @ TIFF:  FESTIVAL TITLES, ROUND TWOTHE BIJOU @ TIFF:  O CANADIAN TITLES! The Toronto International Film Festival prides itself on being one of the more comprehensive in the world, and today a slew of additional titles were announced for next month’s TIFF.  After the […]

> Worth A Ticket:  Superheroes Behind the Camera, Too. The most substantial movie of the summer so far is, depending on how you calculate, the fifth in a comic book series, a prequel or a reboot.  X-MEN:  FIRST CLASS arrives with its own secret weapons, namely a smart script, a well-chosen cast, some genuine thematic […]

  David Ayer’s END OF WATCH brings a new wrinkle to the “found-footage” genre by using it in a cop movie.  LAPD Officer Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) wires a camera to his uniform, and constantly photographs what’s going on while he’s on the beat, supposedly to generate footage for a documentary he wants to put […]

  THE BURIAL (MGM/Amazon – Oct. 13):  A yarn that’s also a true story.  Jeremiah O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones) was the owner of a family-run, regional Mississippi business that for decades had offered funeral services and burial insurance to its customers.  When Jeremiah’s finances took a turn, he made a deal with a conglomerate headed […]

>Those interested in the disconnect between old-line film critics and audiences need look no farther than “In Defense of the Slow and the Boring,” a column in today’s NY Times.  In it, chief Times critics Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott each write about the worth of films some find unduly slow-paced, like The Tree […]

As soon as Robert Redford had enough clout to start generating his own movies, he began starring in and often producing some of the best politically-themed films of the 1970s, including The Candidate, Three Days of the Condor and All the President’s Men.  Laudably, in this latter portion of his career, he’s continued to be one of the […]

  PASSING:  The actress Rebecca Hall has taken a big swing in her writing/directing debut.  Her film Passing, based on the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, embraces ambitious, difficult themes with sensitivity and expertise.  The story concerns Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga), one-time teen friends who run into each other after several years […]

> In just her second feature film as a director (her first was 2006’s Oscar-nominated Away From Her), Sarah Polley demonstrates that she’s already a filmmaker with rare grace and sensuality in TAKE THIS WALTZ, which premiered tonight at the Toronto Film Festival.  Blessed with yet another superb lead performance by Michelle Williams, Polley’s film […]