Posts Tagged ‘film review’
 

 

AFI FEST REVIEW: “Saving Mr. Banks”

  SAVING MR. BANKS:  Buy A Ticket – Positively Supercalifragelisticexpialidocious SAVING MR. BANKS , which screened at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles last night before opening in theaters next month, is a movi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Film Review: “The Book Thief”

  THE BOOK THIEF:  Watch It At Home – A Nazi Germany Fairy Tale THE BOOK THIEF is about as heartwarming and easygoing as any story could be that’s narrated by Death and touched by the Holocaust.  That’s...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Ender’s Game”

  ENDER’S GAME:  Watch It At Home – Breaks The Rules, But Doesn’t Win the Game You don’t often see a $110M (plus marketing) YA adventure, intended to kick off a new movie franchise, as resolutely o...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “The Counselor”

  THE COUNSELOR:  Not Even For Free – A Deluxe Pedigree, But Only Cut-Rate Nihilism The first “uh-oh” moment in THE COUNSELOR comes early, perhaps 10 minutes in.  We’ve barely been introduced to R...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “Blue Is the Warmest Color”

  BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR:  Buy A Ticket – A 3-Hour Deep Dive Into A Character’s Soul BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR is relentlessly, sometimes suffocatingly intimate.  By that I don’t mean its celebrated,...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Philomena”

  In recent years, the… let’s call it mature audience has been a profitable one, making moderate hits of films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Quartet.  This holiday season, the title of choice fo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “The Last of Robin Hood”

  THE LAST OF ROBIN HOOD is an odd miss, a sliver of movie history that seems to have all the right elements but never quite jells.  The title refers to Errol Flynn, legendary swashbuckling star of The Adventures of Rob...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Under the Skin”

  A film festival is certainly the place for a feature-length semi-linear flow of unscripted dialogue and bizarre imagery if anywhere is, so welcome to UNDER THE SKIN.  The writer/director Jonathan Glazer has gradually b...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “August: Osage County”

  The writer/producer/director John Wells made his reputation as the showrunner of ER, and he’s known as one of the most consistent, professional producers in the network business, with impeccable shows like The Wes...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Tracks”

  There’s no cutesiness to be found in John Curran’s film TRACKS, a bracingly non-Disneyfied true-life nature tale.  In the mid-1970s, a young Australian woman named Robyn Davidson decided to walk across almo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Third Person”

  There is a reason, or at least an argument, for why almost everything in Paul Haggis’s THIRD PERSON feels synthetic and contrived–but I can’t make it here, because doing so would expose the film’...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “You Are Here”

  If there were no credits on the new comedy-drama YOU ARE HERE, it would almost be inconceivable that an audience member would imagine it coming from the typewriter of Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men.  It’...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her”

  THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY: HIM & HER is an extraordinary feature debut for its writer/director Ned Benson.  Indeed, it’s so remarkable that it comes close to not needing the modifier “debutR...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Dallas Buyers Club”

  DALLAS BUYERS CLUB is more Erin Brockovich than Brian’s Song, and that’s why it works so well.  Jean-Marc Vallee’s film, written by Craig Borten and Melisa Walack, is too angry to be sentimental. �...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Can A Song Save Your Life?”

  Less intimate but perhaps even more irresistible than his micro-indie smash Once, John Carney’s follow-up CAN A SONG SAVE YOUR LIFE? plays a similar tune with broader orchestrations.  The city this time is New ...
by Mitch Salem