EDGE OF TOMORROW:  Watch It At Home – Needed To Hit Reset One More Time There’s a lot of inventiveness in EDGE OF TOMORROW, which combines the premise of Groundhog Day with a War of the Worlds-like plot–certainly more than the usual for a mega-budgeted Hollywood summer action movie.  That keeps it compelling for […]

  THE SUNLIT NIGHT (no distrib):  The last thing one would have expected from the director of the genuinely scabrous Wetlands was a follow-up that seems to trying to meld NY Jewish comedy with the kind of enchanted romcom spirit of Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero.  But that’s what David Wnendt has given us, and the […]

  THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN:  Not At Any Price – Should Have Been Pruned   When Disney decided to make THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN, it probably shouldn’t have put the word “odd” in the title.  Although I suppose it’s preferable to “weird” or “mildly creepy.” Timothy Green is the story of […]

> Mary Harron’s career has previously included such fascinatingly transgressive films as I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page, which is the only sensible explanation for the inclusion of her new, dreadful sub-CW gothic thriller THE MOTH DIARIES in this year’s Toronto Film Festival. Diaries, which Harron adapted from a (reportedly […]

  SAVING MR. BANKS:  Buy A Ticket – Positively Supercalifragelisticexpialidocious SAVING MR. BANKS , which screened at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles last night before opening in theaters next month, is a moviegoer’s dream of Hollywood popular art, superbly melding history, personality, humor, sentiment and glitz with little fault or sign of strain.  […]

  THE BUTLER:  Worth A Ticket – Superb Acting Elevates A History Lesson THE BUTLER, in its form and earnestness, recalls the days of prestige TV movies and miniseries that used to be associated with the Hallmark Hall of Fame and network sweeps periods (and which now exist only as a vestige on pay-cable, mostly […]

  The writer/producer/director John Wells made his reputation as the showrunner of ER, and he’s known as one of the most consistent, professional producers in the network business, with impeccable shows like The West Wing and Third Watch to his credit.  In recent years, though, he’s been spending a lot of his time in the more rambunctious world […]

  MOTHERING SUNDAY (Sony Classics – Nov 19):  Eva Husson’s film, adapted by Alice Birch from a Graham Swift novel, has many of the rote trappings of prestige costume drama.  We’re back in the English countryside, during the interim between World Wars.  Class distinctions are very much at the center of things, as manor-born Paul […]