Long Road To Toronto Lunch

Here we go… no Ammo in TO

I Was Writing…

… an elaborate explanation of why Dennis McDougal’s The Departed piece in Sunday’s NYT was such shite… but the computer ate my homework. Here is the short version…
Nicholson had two massive comedy hits in 2003.
Scorsese

Friday Numbers From Mojo

I don’t think Len Klady has returned from Toronto yet, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing his box office report until tomorrow…
I don

The Departed

I’m not going to say much about The Departed right now, exceot to say that Scorsese is trying a lot of new stuff, it is perhaps the funniest cop movie ever, and once he gets out of the too-long first act, this is Scorsese’s best work since Casino. In many ways, it is better than Casino, but really, I want to look again before writing much more.
DiCaprio makes his next step from The Aviator. Damon continues to ascend. Nicholson is terrifc, though not chewing as much scenery as you might expect, considering how broad Bill Monahan’s brilliant script is. And smaller roles by Wahlberg, Winstone, Sheen, and especially home run pinch hitter Alec Baldwin are something special to behold.
This might be a truly great movie. (A 15 mimnute trim of the first act would help.) And while, in “Old Scorsese” tradition, this is an unlikely Oscar Best Picture player, you never know. I would be chasing acting, writing, directing, and craft nods in a big way if I was WB.
ADDITION, Saturday – I probably should have written “funniest serious cop movie ever.” This movie gets deadly serious, but damn, it is funny.
I would not recommend seeing Infernal Affairs first. Spending the whole time comparing is not my idea of a good way to see any movie. Seeing it afterwards and putting together the pieces would be fun though.
I think Casino is not the strongest of Scorsese’s gangster movies, but it is part of that run for him and has some great, great work in it (some of his most memorable). This film isn’t like the early films at all. Scorsese has brought his bigger budget bag of tricks to this film. And it is not the slice of perfection that GoodFellas is… as beloved as that film is, I still consider it underrated. There is a mature assuredness in that film and Scorsese is pushing himself like a kid filmmaker here, which I love. But he has so much power talent behind him, all the flourishes are just that, delightful as most of them are. I don

Times Of Desperation, L.A.

Some days, I just have to shake my head and wonder, do John Horn and Patrick Goldstein, two normally honorable men who have sincere concerns about the quality of the newspaper they work for, have the balls to speak to their bosses about a huge misstep like the new

The Sheep Worm Turns

It took only 24 hours for all that heat around Black Sheep to evaporate into a puddle of sheep dip.
The Dependents seem to be pretty much in single line on this one… Shaun of the Dead was a category killer. Horror Comedy is not safe. To get the film to even $8 million, you need to spend on TV ads… which mean you need to get it to the high teens at least. And it is possible, as Shaun proved, to get good reviews and great geek buzz and not get to $14 million.
The distributors with money aren

The Truth About Toronto & Oscar

The stark reality of Toronto

Billy Joel Reviews Bobby

“We didn’t just hate Bobby
Left our ire burning
And our stomachs churning
We didn’t just hate Bobby
Oh we tried to fight it
But the film ignited”
The rest…

Tuesday Shorts

Give The Monkeys What They Want

TIFF Photorama 2

TIFF Photorama 1

Tuesday Morning TIFF Frustration

Some days you eat the snake. Some days the snake eats you.
If I were the publicist that pushed me to attend the Tuesday morning screening of Sarah Polley

Baa Baa Big Sale

The new

TIFF Monday Comin' Down…

Today and tomorrow burn the festival candle at both ends before things start slowing down considerably.
(Yesterday

TIFF Saturday Shorts

Word from Chicago is that Roger Ebert has moved into the rehab stage of his recovery in Chicago. Roger