Lois Maxwell has died in Australia at age 80. She was suffering from cancer. Though she appeared in over 50 films, it is the role of Miss Moneypenny in the long-running James Bond franchise for which she’ll be remembered to movie fans. The men who played Bond would come and go, but for over 20 [...]
Filed under: News, Obituaries | 2 Comments »
“Wanna see my view of Paris?”
This post sort of contains Hotel Chevalier spoilers at the end, but I’ll warn you.
As you know, Wes Anderson’s short film Hotel Chevalier was made available for free on Apple’s iTunes last Tuesday. This was good news for people disappointed to learn that Fox Searchlight had opted not to include [...]
Filed under: Opinion | 9 Comments »
I don’t really want to be a links clearinghouse where I spend all my time culling the internet for interesting tidbits to pass along. For one thing, there are tons of sites that already to a better job of that than I could ever hope to and for another I’d rather spend my time watching [...]
Filed under: Miscellaneous | 10 Comments »
The Kingdom (2007)
It’s Thursday so this must be another Weekend Forecast. In my humble opinion, unless you live in New York, there isn’t much new to see here.
New in wide release:
The Kingdom. Americans investigating a bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Seems to be a slick action thriller with terrorists, the Bad Guys du Jour. Not [...]
Filed under: Upcoming | 8 Comments »
Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon confront the loss of their son in
Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah (2007)
To the extent that Paul Haggis’ new film In the Valley of Elah works (and it does work despite my admitted prejudices against the writer/director), much of the success can be credited to Tommy Lee Jones [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 11 Comments »
Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson in The Darjeeling Limited
Part two of the slow-to-roll-out Fall/Winter forecast brings us to October. This isn’t a comprehensive list, just the things that look notably good, bad or ugly. The ones that are the most promising are starred. As always, release dates are courtesy of ComingSoon.net and are [...]
Filed under: Upcoming | 6 Comments »
Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts in Eastern Promises (2007)
To outward appearances, the new film Eastern Promises is merely a simple and entertaining crime thriller. As we’ve learned to expect from director David Cronenberg however, there is more here percolating just below the surface. It’s in the details where Cronenberg’s real interests lie and, like his [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 8 Comments »
Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) walks away
from the world and Into the Wild (2007)
Based upon the book of the same name by Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild tells the true story of Christopher McCandless who, after graduating from Emory University in 1990, donated his life savings to Oxfam International and then set off on a two [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 10 Comments »
Mr. Jolie stars in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(Limited Release)
The wide releases this week are pretty bad so let’s start off with four limited releases that are opening wider this weekend. Read last week’s forecast if you’ve forgotten what they’re all about:
Eastern Promises. Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen. Directed by David Cronenberg. Good one. [...]
Filed under: Upcoming | 2 Comments »
Director Sean Penn and author John Krakauer
9/18 LA Premiere of Into the Wild (2007)
(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Last night at the Los Angeles premiere of Sean Penn’s new film Into the Wild, I had a small glimpse behind the curtain of the movie marketing machine for the first time. What did I see? Another curtain actually. This was [...]
Filed under: Essays | 3 Comments »
