The DVD Wrapup: X-Men: First Class, Hanna, The Arbor, Henry’s Crime, Scarface, Straw Dogs, Madea, Police Story …

X-Men: First Class: Blu-ray Let’s assume that the producers of “X-Men: First Class” had a very good reason for not naming the latest chapter in the franchise “X-Men Origins: First Class.” Like “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” it provides some of today’s most popular superheroes coherent back-stories and new cast members an opportunity to carve niches for…

Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classics. The Sacrifice/Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

  Four Stars Sweden: Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986 (Kino/Kino Lorber) In the mid-1980s, Andrei Tarkovsky, the greatest Russian cinema artist of the post-war era, traveled to Sweden to make what proved to be his last film, The Sacrifice. He was only in his 50s when he went to Sweden, but Tarkovsky, son of the famous Russian…

CONFESSIONS OF FILM FESTIVAL JUNKIE: Toronto 2011

There are some festivals that pivot abruptly from being a film geek favorite to an industry whistle stop. Historians cite the 1989 screening of sex, lies, and videotape as just such a turning point for Sundance. It wasn’t simply a rabid audience response (it was crowned their favorite but failed to nab the jury award)…

Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. Hanna

(Also Blu-ray) (Three and a Half Stars) U.K.-U.S.: Joe Wright, 2011 (Universal) Hanna, an action film for people who love action movies and also for some who don’t, is Kick-Ass and The Bourne Identity filtered through Pride and Prejudice. And I don’t mean that as a knock. Director Joe Wright, who made the 2005 Keira Knightley…

Myths About Box Office The NY Times Insists On Perpetuating

There is no way that Mr. Barnes could go to look at this summer and spin it as negatively as he has unless he and his editors had decided on the answer before they started writing the story. You don’t have to say it was great summer (though it was pretty great). But if this was a shitty box office summer, there will NEVER be a good one.

The Weekend Report: September 5, 2011

The Help wins the weekend with an estimated 0% drop and almost 50% more than the #2 film, The Debt. After that, a newbie sandwich around a $162 million all-ape filling.

And – The Summer Studio Market Share Chart

TIFF ’11 Preview: Real to Reel

There are 26 films in the Real to Reel section of TIFF this year, of which I’ll be able to catch maybe five or six. As always, it’s hard to tell by the catalog descriptions which films you’re going to love and which you aren’t; in 2009, I wouldn’t have necessarily had The Topp Twins…

Two Doc Reviews – Crazy Horse & Paul Williams Still Alive

One is classic documentary form… no voice over… no director in the movie… beautifully shot and edited reality about an interesting subject. The premise of the other is that the director thought a star he once loved was dead and found out otherwise.

Wilmington on Movies: Shark Night 3D

  Shark Night 3D (One Star) U.S.: David R. Ellis, 2011   COMIN’ AT YOU, DUDES! HERE I AM! CHOMP! CHOMP! TEAR! RIP! SCARED YET? YOU WILL BE! YOU WILL BE! AAAAAAAWWW! CHOMP!!    Who the Hell are you? I’m the Big Shark in Shark Night 3D! I’m the guy that rips off everybody‘s heads…

3-Day Labor Day Estimates

Preliminary numbers give summer season 2011 a slight 5% box office boost from the prior year with an estimated $4.18 billion tally. That translates into about a 2% dip in admissions with Warner Bros. getting the season box office crown with more than $1 billion in revenues.

Wilmington on Movies: Sholem Aleichem Laughing in the Darkness

Sholem Aleichem Laughing in the Darkness (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.: Joseph Dorman, 2011 Let me tell you about this fellow Sholem Aleichem, or Solomon Rabinowitz, or Rabinovich, or whatever his name is: the very famous Jewish writer of long ago whom this documentary fellow Joseph Dorman just made the movie about. Yes, I’ve seen…

Review: The Artist (spoiler-free)

Not everyone will love it, but for those who do, it will be a lot like falling in love. You can’t really express what it is you feel, but you feel it so powerfully, you can’t ever imagine not feeling it… or even feeling it less.

Review: Contagion (spoiler-free)

As Out of Sight flipped the romantic comedy and Erin Brockovich flipped the do-gooder movie and Ocean’s XX riffed on the rat pack flick, Contagion drives Steven right into Irwin Allen territory, where he uses all of his craft and collaborators to make a film that never feels like the schlockfest it could well have been.

TIFF ’11 Preview: Contemporary World Cinema

This is always one of the hardest categories for me at TIFF because there are so many titles from around the world, and there’s usually nothing to go on but a catalog description in helping to determine which of them might end up breaking out and being a “buzz” film at TIFF, and which will…

Friday Estimates, September 2, 2011

Sharks and Spaceships and Debt, OH MY! None of it can get close to The Help, which is showing remarkable legs for yet another week.

The Gronvall Files: One Day, One Singular Director: An interview with Lone Scherfig

Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig enjoyed her international breakthrough in 2000 with Italian for Beginners, a Dogme 95 film that was both a critical and box office success. Her first English-language film, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002), was a quirky meditation on life, love, illness, and death, set in Edinburgh; audiences who were able to…

Wilmington on Movies: A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

  A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (One Star) U.S.: Alex Gregory & Peter Huyck, 2011 I don’t want to come across like a prude, but the new Jason Sudeikis sex comedy A Good Old fashioned Orgy is pretty much a bad, newfangled mess. Try as they might, writer-directors Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck can’t make…

TIFF ’11 Preview: Special Presentations

There are a lot of films to choose from at TIFF, and with only 20-30 I’ll have time to see and write about, I have to be a little choosy. Here are some of the films from the Special Presentations section of the Festival that are on my “want to see these” list. SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS…

TIFF’11 Preview: Galas and Masters

Next week the Toronto International Film Festival will kick off, and cinephiles, film critics and industry folks will be running amok all over downtown Toronto, rushing to get to screenings and saying things like, “Hey, I’d love to chat, but I’m rushing to get to the new Cronenberg! Catch you for drinks later?” And sometimes…