Posts Tagged ‘film festival’
 

 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY LA FILM FEST REVIEW: “Ruby Sparks”

  RUBY SPARKS:  Worth A Ticket – A Narrative Feat   Woody Allen is one of the most influential figures in modern independent film, but his ghost is usually evident in the many romantic comedy-dramas we get each...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: “Hick”

> Derick Martini’s HICK is like a Sundance movie that took the wrong indie-film exit and wound up in Toronto.  For whatever reason, Toronto’s film festival tends to find itself with fewer stories of young peopl...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: “The Moth Diaries”

> 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 n...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: Festival Titles, Round 2

> The Toronto Film Festival has announced its second helping of titles for next month’s worldwide gathering of film professionals and fanatics.  These may be less star-studded than the last group of films announced, ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: Midnight Madness – “The Incident”

> As has been reported, there really was an ambulance outside the Ryerson Theatre in Toronto after the midnight premiere of Alexandre Courtes’ THE INCIDENT, there to rescue at least one person who had fainted during the m...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY @ TORONTO: “In the House”

Francois Ozon’s IN THE HOUSE is a delicious examination of the pleasures and dangers of addictive narrative.  Storytelling (and corresponding tricks of cinematic structure) has been an interest of Ozon’s throughout...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE BIJOU REVIEW “The Descendants”

>   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 w...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: Fernando Meirelles’ “360”

> If Arthur Schnitzler had only been a member of the WGA in 1900, when he wrote the play La Ronde, and he’d had the benefit of the format rights guild members receive today, he and his descendants would be very rich indee...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “The Forgiven,” “Dashcam” & “Montana Story”

  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 Mich...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY @ TORONTO: “Great Expectations”

At this point in movie history, it’s beside the point to ask why we even need a new film version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS when David Lean’s 1946 masterpiece still exists.  (And for those who want a different slant on ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE BIJOU REVIEW: “50/50”

> 50/50:  Worth A Ticket –  A Genuinely Feel-Good Cancer Comedy With The Big C renewed for its third season on Showtime, the concept of a comedy getting laughs from the experiences of a cancer patient is no long...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY @ TORONTO: “Something In the Air” and “Ginger and Rosa”

Toronto this year provided two notable portraits of teenagers growing up in a time of political turmoil, Olivier Assayas’s SOMETHING IN THE AIR and Sally Potter’s GINGER AND ROSA. Assayas’s film is about th...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “The Last Word” & “Thoroughbred”

  THE LAST WORD (Bleecker Street):  Shirley MacLaine does the irascible codger thing.  She’s smart enough not to overplay the very familiar hand she’s been dealt by screenwriter Stuart Ross Fink and director ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: Madonna’s “W.E.”

> One of the enduring questions of Madonna’s illustrious quarter-century career is how someone so brilliant in managing every other facet of her persona has consistently made such terrible decisions when it comes to movie...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE BIJOU @ TIFF: “The Deep Blue Sea”

> If you were going to describe the films of Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives, The Long Day Closes, The House of Mirth) in one word, that word would not be “dynamic.”  Or “kinetic.” ...
by Mitch Salem