Monthly Archives: August 2010

Erik Childress over at Cinematical has done the brave thing and decided to rank the current Best Pic contenders. This isn’t a practice we recommend because there is just no way to tell what films will emerge, really, out of Toronto, Venice or the end of the year’s last gasp. Childress knows this and makes an attempt to actually give a real reading of what’s...

Two critics from Florida break out of the gate with early reviews for Eat Pray Love. We’ve never featured either of these guys, and the only reason I’m doing so now is because they’re the first to jump the gun. Two moderate thumbs up, one thumb a bit more wobbly than the other. Both agree that work from Julia Roberts and Robert Richardson is a pleasure...

Based on the 1985 film “Blood Simple” by the Coen Brothers, the historical thriller changes the Coens’ backdrop from a small Texas town to a small Chinese town in the Gansu province, but keep the plot intact: a jealous husband hires a professional to kill his adulterous wife and her lover. Naturally, things go awry and get bloody fast. Zhang’s...

Continuing to showcase The American as a vintage spy thriller, this featurette maintains the same gloss of prestige that we’ve seen carried through from the retro poster design. Even the timbre of the narration reminds me of the preview voice-overs intoned for esteemed espionage classics like Topaz and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (The American’s direct...

Generation Z movie. Pretty soon they’re going to have to start back at A. This film was written by the same author who wrote the book, Galt Niederhoffer, a woman producer and novelist. ...

ONTD graciously posted the photos of the upcoming hottie hopefuls for Oscar 2010. There is nothing quite like the taste of fresh young meat, is there? Just kidding. It is funny how every year they bring out another slate and they really do serve them up like fresh meat, don’t they? How else to capture the attention of an attention-deficit riddled culture? No...

Adrien Brody is currently shooting Detachment in New York (Queens and Long Island), a film that chronicles the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students as told through the eye of a substitute teacher. Brody stars opposite Marcia Gay Harden, red hot Christina Hendricks, William Peterson, Bryan Cranston, Tim Blake Nelson, Lucy Liu, Blythe Danner...

Thanks to chongweikk.com for forwarding the link to this Eat, Pray, Love video to an Eddie Vedder song. And Jennybee forwarded me this interesting (bitchmagazine.org, best URL ever) but, I think, off base article on the film (or perhaps, the book). The author makes many very good points about “priv-lit,” this idea that Oprah and her ilk are poisoning all...

The Hollywood Reporter, via Craig Kennedy, has announced that Nora Ephron will write and direct a Peggy Lee biopic. ¬†Reese Witherspoon already secured the rights and may star in the production, but is definitely producing, along with Marc Platt (Legally Blonde). ¬†Wouldn’t that be Oscartastic? This appears to be a Reese Witherspoon-driven project, meaning...

Premiering at Cannes over a year ago, Gaspar No√©’s Enter the Void has passed its window of opportunity for further awards consideration — as if any movie this avant-garde could ever come close or deign to care about the Oscars. As much as his Irreversible angered and troubled me, it left a raft of unresolved impressions that I’ve returned to examine...