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 […]

  LOVE, BROOKLYN (no distrib):  Roger (Andre Holland) is a successful magazine writer who’s hung up on his latest piece, because it requires him to come to grips about how he feels regarding the Brooklyn bourgeoisie of which he’s a part, and the gentrification that’s taking increasing hold of the borough.  Is disruptive change something to […]

> Like any showbiz stripper, the Sundance Film Festival has left its most notable revelations for last:  after releasing its Competition Entries and its Midnight and Other Fringe Titles, today the Festival announced its highest-profile Premiere films, both scripted and documentary.  They seem a bit lower-key than usual this year, with stars and filmmakers notable […]

  Steve McQueen (the filmmaker) doesn’t take it easy on audiences.  His first feature Hunger provided an excruciatingly detailed look at the fatal hunger strike of the Irish convict Bobby Sands, and he followed it with Shame, a cooly unsexy portrait of the ravages of sexual addiction.  His new film 12 YEARS A SLAVE is […]

  DISOBEDIENCE (no distrib):  Sebastian Lelio’s adaptation (with Rebecca Landiewicz) of Naomi Alderman’s novel is one of the surprises of the festival.  It would be perfectly reasonable for the idea of Rachel McAdams as a Chassidic woman to bring back memories of Melanie Griffith in the camp classic A Stranger Among Us (and at least […]

  BELFAST (Focus/Universal – Nov. 12):  Kenneth Branagh’s semiautobiographical film walks a path laid by many great works by master filmmakers, including Fellini’s Amarcord, John Boorman’s Hope and Glory, and Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma.  Compared to those, Belfast is a relatively minor work, yet quite enjoyable on its own terms.  The setting is 1969, as “the […]

>   THE DESCENDANTS:  Worth A Ticket – Flawed But Heartfelt It’s taken an unaccountable 7 years for Alexander Payne to follow up Sideways, the biggest hit of his career,  with THE DESCENDANTS, which will hit theatres in time for a serious awards season push in late November.  Sideways and Payne’s earlier Election are two […]

  A DANGEROUS METHOD:  Watch It At Home – A Visit to Dr. Cronenberg’s Clinic   Throughout his career, David Cronenberg has been fascinated by twin compulsions:  the aberrant and the repressive.  The former was at the forefront of what are still his most celebrated films a quarter-century later, squishy biological horror movies like Videodrome […]