HUMAN FACTORS:  Is Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors intended as a political allegory?  The married couple at its center are the German Jan (Mark Waschke) and the French Nina (Sabine Timoteo), and there’s a plot point about whether the ad agency they run will take on a political party as a client.  If that’s the […]

  HONK FOR JESUS.  SAVE YOUR SOUL (no distrib):  Scandal-ridden mega-churches aren’t exactly fresh territory for screens big (The Tears of Tammy Faye) or small (The Righteous Gemstones), with tones that range from wildly comic to solemn.  Adamma Edo’s feature debut doesn’t have much to add to the subject, but it does have Sterling K. […]

  THE ZONE OF INTEREST (A24 – TBD):  Jonathan Glazer has only directed 4 feature films in his 23-year career (the most recent was Under the Skin a decade ago).  His latest, The Zone of Interest, is a work of formal brilliance, although unlikely to be to the taste of mainstream audiences.  So rigorous and painstaking in its […]

  These haven’t been glory days for the Toronto Film Festival.  The WGA/SAG strikes dampened the vibe, of course–of the 27 films I saw at TIFF, only 4 screenings featured appearances from the cast.  Beyond that, for whatever reasons, TIFF also wasn’t favored by the studios with some of the major releases that instead opted […]

THE WILD ROBOT (DreamWorks Animation/Universal – Sept. 27):  Chris Sanders’s movie is a fairly captivating if unsurprising family entertainment.  In the future, when a plane with a cargo of robots crashes off the coast of an island, the survivor is Rozim 7134 (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o)–you can call her Roz.  She’s programmed to aid humans, […]

  Sundance is sometimes thrilling, but it can also be an ordeal.  Especially when the films are good, but not great.  And even more so if you arrive with limited tickets, and are left to the tender mercies of the Wait List lines (which, given Sundance’s idiosyncratic approach to Wait Lists, requires standing on each […]

> CW has announced the line-up for its 2011/12 regular season finales, as well as a late-season premiere: First to exit will be ONE TREE HILL, which winds up its 9 seasons on April 4 with a 2-hour special. On April 17, RINGER will be done for the season (and maybe longer).  Starting April 24, […]