> Worth A Ticket; A tasty croissant from Woody Allen. Woody Allen interrupts the opening credits of his new comedy MIDNIGHT IN PARIS to insert a montage of lovely Paris locations.  I mention this because after more than 40 years and as many films, the rules of Woody-land seem as fixed and immutable as the […]

  The writer-director Mike Cahill has staked out a unique piece of narrative territory for himself.  In both Another Earth and his new I ORIGINS, which debuted at Sundance last week (and won the festival prize for best science-based work), he explores the point where factual science meets not just science fiction, but something more metaphysical, an area […]

  When push came to shove, a choice had to be made between The Birth of A Nation and “the farting corpse movie” (AKA Swiss Army Man), and your faithful narrator has to confess that he went with the former, so apologies for that.  There are other films, as well, that I would have liked […]

> Worth A Ticket; This franchise has been working out. Over the past few years, DreamWorks Animation has been emerging a bit from its place as the jokey, insubstantial sidekick to Pixar’s superhero studio.  How To Train Your Dragon was a thoroughly enjoyable surprise, and even though Megamind had its share of pop culture parody, […]

  WORTH (no distrib):  A dry but fascinating angle on the story of 9/11, Worth centers on the real-life Ken Feinberg (Michael Keaton), an attorney with a very specific expertise:  he and his firm calculated and negotiated compensation payouts to victims and survivors of disasters, in order to settle suits brought for their losses.  In […]

  DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT (Amazon):  Despite some Christopher Nolan-esque splintering of time, Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot is one of his more conventional films.  Van Sant wrote the script himself, after years of development (originally, Robin Williams was to be the star) that resulted […]

> TEN YEAR, which premiered tonight at the Toronto Film Festival, is one of the few festival movies that has the feel of a potential hit.  This is because, apart from its hugely engaging cast and, to be sure, some effective writing and directing, it’s really not a “film festival” movie at all, but a […]

  A STAR IS BORN (Warners – October 5):  Bradley Cooper, making his directing debut, decided to do the equivalent of a first-time weightlifter starting out with a 400-pound barbell.  It isn’t just that A Star Is Born is one of the most iconic Hollywood classics (this is the fifth version, counting What Price Hollywood?, […]