BLACK AND WHITE – no current US distributor or release date – Not Even For Free BLACK AND WHITE was reportedly drawn from events in its writer/director Mike Bender’s own life, which makes it remarkable, on some bizarro level, that every single element of Binder’s script feels false and contrived.  Binder has been a […]

  A week at the Toronto Film Festival added up to 24 screenings–a decent pace, but not an outstanding one.  Blame some vagaries of the festival’s scheduling, and a baseline decision that Midnight Madness was too much midnight and maybe even too much madness.  The potential awards contenders I wasn’t able to get to included […]

  WILDLIFE (no distrib):  If you’ve ever felt sorry for youngsters who are cordoned off from their parents’ difficult relationships, and then blindsided by the consequences, Paul Dano’s directing debut advises that pity should really be reserved for those children who know all too much about what’s going on.  Dano’s austere and disturbing drama isn’t […]

  MARRIAGE STORY (Netflix – November 6 in theatres/December 6 streaming):  A film doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be great.  There may be no subjects more intensively depicted in movies and on television than marital break-ups and the miseries of divorce, yet Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story is so fully realized and brilliantly performed that […]

  THE FORGIVEN (Focus/Universal – TBD):  In 1963, Pauline Kael famously wrote a piece entitled “The Sick-Soul-Of-Europe Parties,” and almost 60 years later, if you add the US to the guest list, John Michael McDonagh’s The Forgiven presents a bash in the same vein.  McDonagh’s script, based on a novel by Lawrence Osborne, underlines in […]

  THEATER CAMP (Searchlight/Disney):  The odds are that a lot of people who’ll want to see a movie called Theater Camp are comfortable with the kind of ramshackle, hit-or-miss qualities associated with actual summer camp productions, and will likewise find plenty to enjoy in a movie that’s been made with more love and energy than […]

  THE BRUTALIST (A24 – TBD):  The most remarkable thing about Brady Corbet’s epic may be that it’s so enjoyable to watch.  The notion of a 197-minute saga (not including intermission) about Holocaust survivors and the crushing effects of capitalism practically screams “ordeal,” especially with the knowledge that Corbet’s last film was the cringingly pretentious Vox […]

    The Toronto Film Festival is on its way, and SHOWBUZZDAILY will be there.  The Festival, which runs Sept 6-16, today announced the bulk of its highest-profile titles, those that will screen in the Gala and Special Presentation categories.  Here, at a first glance, are some of the most promising: GALAS ARGO:  Against the […]