Posts Tagged ‘film review’
 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “You Are Here”

  If there were no credits on the new comedy-drama YOU ARE HERE, it would almost be inconceivable that an audience member would imagine it coming from the typewriter of Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men.  It’...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Labor Day”

  LABOR DAY is a beautifully performed, well crafted Harlequin romance.  As such, it’s a shock coming from writer/director Jason Reitman (based on Joyce Maynard’s novel), one that goes in a completely differen...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “The Skeleton Twins”

  Star power makes all the difference  in THE SKELETON TWINS.  Craig Johnson’s dramedy (written with Mark Heyman) takes place in fairly commonplace territory, especially at Sundance:  siblings bound together, whe...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “The Martian”

  Ridley Scott’s THE MARTIAN is the jaunty sci-fi offspring of Apollo 13 and McGyver, Scott’s least self-important movie in years and not coincidentally his most enjoyable.  Drew Goddard’s expertly craft...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

AFI FEST Film Review: “Inside Llewyn Davis”

  INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS:  Buy A Ticket – 1960s Folk Music A La The Coens INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, which screened as the Closing Night presentation of the AFI Film Festival in advance of its regular run next month, is Joe...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “London Road”

  LONDON ROAD may have seemed marginally less odd as the stage musical it originally was.  No matter how naturalistic a play may be, the mechanics of theatre make it somewhat stylized, and that may have brought the show&#...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “A Tale of Love and Darkness”

  Natalie Portman certainly hasn’t made it easy for herself with her debut as a writer/director, A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS.  The film, which premiered at Cannes (but tellingly, doesn’t yet have a US distribu...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “Blue Is the Warmest Color”

  BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR:  Buy A Ticket – A 3-Hour Deep Dive Into A Character’s Soul BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR is relentlessly, sometimes suffocatingly intimate.  By that I don’t mean its celebrated,...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “Spotlight”

  Awards season is Darwinian, often placing two titles in direct competition that have only general traits in common.  Last year we had the British biographies The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game, which might ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Rush”

  The writer Peter Morgan is a whiz at boring into little-remembered (and in the US, sometimes little-known) crannies of recent history and scooping out the rich drama inside, with scripts like The Deal, Frost/Nixon and Th...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

AFI FEST REVIEW: “Saving Mr. Banks”

  SAVING MR. BANKS:  Buy A Ticket – Positively Supercalifragelisticexpialidocious SAVING MR. BANKS , which screened at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles last night before opening in theaters next month, is a movi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Prisoners”

  The prevailing atmosphere in Denis Villenueve’s PRISONERS will be familiar to anyone who’s been watching cable TV drama for the past few years.  Gloom, grief, hopelessness, helpless rage–it’s h...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto 2014 Review: “Top Five”

  TOP FIVE:  No Current US Distributor or Release Date (but that will change very soon) – Worth A Ticket Chris Rock is generally considered among the greatest stand-ups of his generation, and it’s been clear f...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “The Last of Robin Hood”

  THE LAST OF ROBIN HOOD is an odd miss, a sliver of movie history that seems to have all the right elements but never quite jells.  The title refers to Errol Flynn, legendary swashbuckling star of The Adventures of Rob...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”

  As I was saying… THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG:  Worth A Ticket – The Long Road Continues, But This Time On A Better Path Jumping at once to the most pressing matter–which is more than its trilog...
by Mitch Salem