MCN Originals Archive for September, 2010
DVD Wrap: Robin Hood, (Untitled), Good, Experiment, Stripped Naked … and more
Just Wright Queen Latifah wants us to think of Just Wright as a modern version of Cinderella, this time staged against a backdrop of the National Basketball Association. It’s not a bad comparison, really, even if director Sanaa Hamri and writer Michael Elliot don’t seem particularly interested in repeating any of that classic fairytale’s basic…
Read the full article »DVD Geek: Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg
An excellent documentary about the talented comedienne, Gertrude Berg, who wrote, produced and starred in her own comedy series, first on radio and then very early on television, essentially inventing the family situation comedy for TV in the process, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, has been released by Docuramafilms and New Video.
Read the full article » 3 Comments »Wilmington on DVDs: Robin Hood, Charade, Playing for Time, Forbidden Planet, The Secret Behind Their Eyes … and more
PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Robin Hood (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.; Ridley Scott, 2010 “To live outside the law, you must be honest,“ Bob Dylan once sang (in “”Absolutely Sweet Marie,“ from “Blonde on Blonde“). And that’s the credo that permeates most of the many, many screen incarnations of Robin Hood of Sherwood…
Read the full article »DP/30: State of the Union – Christine Vachon, producer
The queen of Killer Films, Christine Vachon, sits on a corner in Toronto with David Poland and talks about the indie industry, where she’s at (including a 5-part mini-series for HBO, Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce) and where we all might be going. (Watch out for passing buses!).
Read the full article » 35 Comments »Frenzy on the Wall: Surprise! Oliver Stone is Chasing Controversy
When I was a young film fan, Oliver Stone was one of my favorite filmmakers. I watched films like Platoon, JFK, Wall Street, and Natural Born Killers during my days in junior high. Later on, films like Salvador, Born on the Fourth of July, Talk Radio, and The Doors were often in my rotation of…
Read the full article » 3 Comments »Confessions of a Film Festival Junkie: Perspectives
C’est fini le fete international de film de Toronto. To be honest, the eleven days of the somewhat revamped Toronto International Film Festival are a blur. Three or four films a day, three or four hours of writing a night, one reception, innumerable dangling conversations and what do you get. The best I can come…
Read the full article » 1 Comment »TIFF 2010: It’s a Wrap
Another year of TIFF has officially wrapped, the awards have been announced, and everyone’s gone home. It was a really great fest this year with a solid slate, although I can’t say I disagree with those who feel the fest would benefit from cutting their slate a bit to be a little more discriminating. I…
Read the full article » 4 Comments »Catfish directors Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, star Nev Schulman
DP/30 – The dynamic trio of filmmaker/subjects from the Sundance sensation Catfish talk with David Poland about how and why they made the film.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Weekend Box Office Report – September 19
Though The Town was clearly out-pacing its competition in advance ticket sales, tracking pundits pegged the latter day Ridgemont High antics of Easy A as the box office leader for the frame. Devil was expected to be very close behind the duo.
Read the full article »Never Let Me Go, screenwriter Alex Garland & novelist Kazuo Ishiguro
DP/30 – A chat with the two wordsmiths behind Never Let Me Go, screenwriter Alex Garland & novelist Kazuo Ishiguro
Read the full article »Friday Estimates – September 17
The Town appears to be a bit ahead of Easy A as we head into Saturday, with Devil and Resident Evil: Afterlife battling it out for the show position.
Read the full article »Box Office Hell – September 16
As Easy A and Ben Affleck’s The Town battle it out for the top of the box office charts, our pundits seem to have some disagreement over how the weekend numbers will balance out.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: The Town, Easy A, Never Let Me Go, Mademoiselle Chambon, and Catfish
There’s not a role here that could have been played better, not an actor, including the much-dissed Ms. Lively, who could have been cast better (though, for old time’s sake, we might have liked to see Matt Damon as Jem). I think both this movie and the withering Gone, Baby, Gone (from Lehane) prove director Affleck loves his actors and tries to do his best by them. He’s also pretty damned smart about local color and atmosphere.
Read the full article » 4 Comments »TIFF Review: Dirty Girl
I put Abe Sylvia‘s Dirty Girl on my maybe list primarily because it’s set in late ’80s Norman, Oklahoma, and I am an Oklahoma Girl. I put it on my definite list when the Weinsteins bought it the other day, because love the Weinsteins or hate them, they tend to have good taste in their…
Read the full article » 8 Comments »TIFF Dispatch Day Six: Catching Up
Time to lighten things up a bit, after that last dispatch, eh? As we near the homestretch, this has been a really good fest for me. In a lot of ways I feel like this fest represents a bit of a coming full circle for me from last year’s devastating fest-spent-in-a-hospital bed, which was all…
Read the full article »DVD Geek: City Island
Do not touch the ‘Eject’ button during the first 20 minutes of City Island, a wonderful film about a dysfunctional family that has been released by Anchor Bay Films. You may be sorely tempted to cut the movie short at the beginning, because to set things up it regurgitates seemingly tiresome stereotypes—the husband and wife, played by Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies, fighting; the son in his bedroom surfing porn; the daughter leading a secret life—but there is then a terrific and quite unexpected plot turn.
Read the full article »TIFF Review: Another Year
Mike Leigh is one of those rare directors you can almost always count on to deliver something good, interesting and completely original. His latest film, Another Year, is tonally very different from the last film he had at Toronto, Happy-Go-Lucky, (actually, to be more precise, I’d say it’s tonally different from much of his previous…
Read the full article »TIFF Review: Passione
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of John Turturro‘s Passione, which is screening at TIFF in the Special Presentations category, but I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised by this engaging, colorful, music-drenched journey into the musical culture of Naples. The documentary is about as non-traditional structurally as one could imagine (and I mean…
Read the full article » 5 Comments »TIFF Review: I Saw the Devil
I was on my way to the Susanne Bier film today when a couple of friends talked me into going to see I Saw the Devil instead. I asked one of them to quickly pitch me on why I would want to see it, and he pitched it thusly: Did you like The Good, The…
Read the full article » 10 Comments »Wilmington on DVDs: Casino Jack, My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done?, Breathless, Crumb and more …
Alex Gibney‘s Casino Jack and the United States of Money is the amazing, genuinely scary and totally sobering story of Jack Abramoff, the supreme Republican lobbyist/dealmaker/moneyman, and also the poster child for a decade crazed by greed and contemptuous of rules, regulations and the problems of the common man and woman.
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