I’m not sure what I expected coming into NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. It’s directed by The Coen Brothers, but they’ve been on a bum streak lately (neither INTOLLERABLE CRUELTY nor THE LADYKILLERS did much for me). It’s based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy, but I thought the adaptation of ALL THE PRETTY HORSES…
Reaction: HERE IS WHAT IS
There are two types of “Rock Docs”: the linear and the creative. The linear is by far the most popular – soundbites and interviews stitched with still images of album covers and chords of greatest hits (for example THE USA VS JOHN LENNON). Then there is the creative – the type of film where the…
Get In Line
After that first box-office miss I suffered trying to get a ticket to PERSEPOLIS, I’ve actually been doing very well with picking up tickets as I go. Here’s a small secret – the Best Bets list isn’t nearly as complete as you’d think. In the past it was academic – if a movie showed up…
Reaction: LUST, CAUTION
Confession time: when you are so tired that you fall asleep on the couch – and don’t even remember getting into bed, you probably shouldn’t start the next day with a slow-simmering foreign film. I’m not going to actually rate LUST, CAUTION in this reaction piece…but there are a few things I can tell you…
Reaction: JUNO
I will catch up before the day ends…I will catch up before the day ends… Sorry – just having a Stuart Smalley moment here, at least this reaction will get yesterday’s experiences over and done with. So the last movie of the night was JUNO (****), the latest film by director Jason Reitman. Reitman’s THANK…
Power to the People
Observations On a Sunday MorningIf you were out and around some of yesterday’s Film Festival screenings, you may have noticed a collection of protesters. I’m not sure exactly who the group was, but they were clearly against films that glamorize smoking. Fair issue, but what started bugging me was how they chose to protest. They…
Reaction: BATTLE IN SEATTLE
Starting my Film Festival with PERSEPOLIS, THE ORPHANAGE, and CONTROL was something similar to seeing a baseball game where the three lead off batters hit home runs. It was with great expectations then, that I walked into my first show at The Ryerson – Stuart Townsend’s BATTLE IN SEATTLE (* * *). The film is…