Posts Tagged ‘film reviews’
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “Lucy In the Sky”

  LUCY IN THE SKY (Fox Searchlight/Disney – October 4):  Lucy In the Sky may be Noah Hawley’s first feature film, but he’s already establishing himself as quite the overdirector.  Hawley’s X-Men o...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto 2014 Mini-Reviews

  As has been generally reported, this year’s Toronto Film Festival wasn’t a dominant one, lacking the kind of overwhelming favorites that The King’s Speech and Argo have been in recent years.  Some potentially majo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “R#J” & “A Glitch In the Matrix”

  R#J:  Every generation gets its Romeo & Juliet.  In Carey Williams’ R#J, the words of Shakespeare are only occasionally heard.  Instead, these extremely up-to-date Capulets and Montagues communicate almost ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Just Mercy,” “Pain & Glory,” “The Personal History of David Copperfield” & “Varda By Agnes”

  JUST MERCY (Warners – December 25):  As the release date suggests, this is a straight-down-the-middle Oscar play, and it may have some success in that arena (although Warners will also be campaigning for The Goldf...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Causeway” & “The Menu”

  CAUSEWAY (Apple – November 4):  After a decade as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, there was reason to wonder whether the Jennifer Lawrence who first came to prominence with the Sundance movie Winter’...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Reviews: “Worth,” “Dream Horse” & “Uncle Frank”

  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 negotiate...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE 11 BEST 10 FILMS OF 2014 and Other Movie Thoughts

  There was a distinct feeling in 2014 that movies–the business and art of mainstream American film–reached a kind of tipping point.  The industry seemed to collectively hit that moment in its flight when so m...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Land,” “Together Together” & “Marvelous and the Black Hole”

  MARVELOUS AND THE BLACK HOLE:  Goodhearted YA comfort food.  Kate Tsang’s feature debut is about 13-year old Sammy (Miya Cech), who has become surly and rebellious toward her father Angus (Leonardo Nam) and siste...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Dolemite Is My Name,” “My Zoe” & “Briarpatch”

  DOLEMITE IS MY NAME (Netflix – October 4 in theatres/October 25 streaming): Putting aside his strong dramatic turn in Dreamgirls, it’s been an incredible 20 years, dating back to 1999’s Bowfinger, since...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Reviews: “Shirley,” “Surge” & “The Climb”

  SHIRLEY (no distrib):  Josephine Decker’s film isn’t really a biography of the horror writer Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House, The Lottery), played here by Elizabeth Moss.  The script by Sarah Gu...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Capsule Reviews

  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 a...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “First Date” & “Pleasure”

  FIRST DATE:  Your regard for First Date is likely to directly relate to your nostalgia for the low-rent action comedies and Tarantino imitations of the 1990s and 2000s.  Those comedies were marked by idiot plots that p...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Knives Out” & “A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood”

  KNIVES OUT (Lionsgate – November 27):  Rian Johnson’s delectable reinvention of the old-fashioned puzzle whodunnit wears its convoluted plotting on its sleeve, weaving and circling about so that when you thi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Reviews: “The Father,” “Nine Days” & “The Glorias”

  THE FATHER (Sony Classics – TBD):  It’s probably foolhardy to start making predictions about next year’s Oscars when this year’s haven’t even been handed out yet, but it’s hard to ima...
by Mitch Salem