Voynaristic Review
Hannah Montana: The Movie
by Kim Voynar

Yes, Hannah the superstar is cool, but it's Miley the real girl who makes the whole thing interesting, and the creators of this film lost a great opportunity to explore more deeply what's really the most engaging aspect of the series -- the conflict between Miley the girl and Hannah the superstar, which should be so much deeper and more interesting than a series of cheap "she's got to be in two places at once!" stunts.

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Wilmington on Movies
Observe and Report, Hannah Montana: The Movie, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Gigantic, and Sin Nombre
by Mike Wilmington

The movie is pretty funny all the way through, and Faris, as a mean little makeup shop slut named Brandi is hilarious, but it also leaves a bad taste in your mouth. (To be honest, so did Paul Blart.) Having your comedy hero be an actual semi-psychotic on a macho trip and vengeance kick is a daring move (though it smacks of Adam Sandler), and so are the pathological depths to which some these characters sink. Cinematically, it’s just okay.

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Voynaristic
What's the Truth About Objectivity in Documentaries?
by Kim Voynar

As for myself, I'm not sure there is such a thing as pure objectivity in documentary filmmaking -- or really, in any art form. In fact, I'm no longer even convinced that there's such a thing as an "objective truth" to capture at all, regardless of the intent one has or the media used; every event has myriad points of view, and even if you capture the truth as one given subject sees it, aren't you still missing the pieces of other perspectives that would add up to the whole?

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MCN DVD
Yes Man

Yes Man is familiar right down to much younger woman who encourages him to persevere, when his conviction starts fading. Here, that woman is played by Zooey Deschanel, an actress who could warm the heart of a snowman. Her free-spirited Allison is as positive in her daily life as Carrey’s Carl Allen was negative, before he bought into the principles of a stern self-help guru played by Terence Stamp. Despite the lack of originality, Carrey’s a strong enough actor to keep the minds of most viewers focused on his on-screen antics and not the holes in the script.

Also ... Bedtime Stories, The Day the Earth Stood Still, No Country for Old Men and more ...

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Wilmington on DVDs
Doubt, Alexandra, The Last Metro, Fallen Angels, No Country for Old Men ... and more
by Michael Wilmington

Sister Aloysius has a worthy, and wordy, foe/debater in Father Flynn, who will not go quietly into the sexual/sacred hell she‘s prepared for him. And he has surprising aid, and support, from the boy’s mother, the long-suffering and worldly-wise Mrs. Miller (Viola Davis, in a scorching scene with Streep) and eventually from Sister James herself. That’s the drama, and it is a drama. You may think you have Doubt all figured out, but you’re probably wrong. Even after the climax, doubts will linger. And they should. That’s the conflict -- and Doubt has genuine moral and spiritual clash to show us, with formidable performances by great actors.

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The Ultimate DVD Geek
Quantum of Solace
by Doug Pratt

Not even James Bond sweats the details any more. The completely absurd-looking hotel that is stuck in the middle of nowhere and is destroyed in one of the film's climaxes, as one learns in the supplementary features on the Two-Disc Special Edition, is a genuine hotel, catering to astronomers who are visiting the nearby observatories in the Chilean desert, but in the movie there is no reference to the observatories and it is just an outlandishly fancy building with no apparent purpose except to be an object of destruction.

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Frenzy on the Wall
Catching Up
by Noah Forrest

I remember reading in one of William Goldman's books that when he writes a main character he annotates the character type with something like "he's Gary Cooper" or "he's Humphrey Bogart" to explain in a few words what the character should feel like. And I can't imagine writers doing this with, say, an actor like Sean Penn, because Penn is so different in each role, but I can imagine a writer using "he's George Clooney" or "he's Clive Owen" to define a certain type of masculinity he intends a character to evoke. Like Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant, Owen tends to overlay each character he plays with a distinct sense of himself in a way that many actors can't, or don't.

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Weekend Report
by Leonard Klady

Tracking had been torrid for Fast & Furious, which reassembled the original cast of the souped-up franchise. Fandango had the film taking 53% of its advance ticket sales and industry estimates predicted it would bow somewhere between $50 million and $55 million, or slightly less than last weekend’s launch of Monsters vs. Aliens.
Weekend Estimates (Full List)

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Digital Nation
ShoWest Sampler: Animation, 3-D and the New Woody Allen Film
by Gary Dretzka

Larry David plays a misanthropic physicist – and, of course, Allen’s newest alter ego – who gives up his research after a divorce and failed suicide attempt. After dinner, one night, he’s confronted by a blond waif who’s run away from her Mississippi home and is in desperate need of a meal and couch on which to sleep. Even though Evan Rachel Wood’s character touches all of his raw nerves, they embark on the unlikeliest of relationships. Things get even crazier when the girl’s estranged parents (Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley Jr.) arrive in New York, a year later, separately, and experience culture shock. Often hilarious, Whatever Works is set for a June release.   

Adventureland	-	-
Fast & Furious	-	-	-	-
The Escapist	-	-	-	-	-
Gigantic	-	-			-
Paris 36	-	-	-	-
Sugar	-	-	-
Silent Light	-	-		-
Monsters Vs. Aliens	-	-	-
The Haunting in Connecticut	-	-	-	-
Goodbye Solo	-	-			-
I Love You, Man	-			-
Sin Nombre	-		-	-

The Gronvall Files: Interview
Cary Fukunaga Makes His Name with Sin Nombre
by Andrea Gronvall

"In terms of the philosophy of the cinematography, the goal was not to innovate, but to hark back to older times. What we really wanted to do was shoot photojournalism style. Not documentary style, but photojournalism style in the sense that if we wanted a shot to work, it would have to tell the whole scene within that shot. And in terms of treatment of the image, we wanted—also like photojournalism—to shoot Kodachrome, [which] doesn’t exist anymore for 35mm, so we had to shoot negative stock and then try to approximate that with our post process."

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Wilmington on Movies
Fast & Furious, Silent Light, Sugar, Adventureland, and Paris 36
by Mike Wilmington

But the fact is that nobody transcends their vehicle in this movie. These vehicles are untranscendable. This script is undrivable. These speeches are unspeakable. The best performance in Fast & Furious is given by the Dodge Charger, or maybe the 1972 Ford Gran Torino or the F-Bomb Camaro or the 1987 Buick Grand National. The cars have the most charisma, and the keenest psychology. They also have the best lines. I hope they get their own movie soon, maybe one as well-written as Pixar’s Cars.

"'Never set out to make a masterpiece,' Steven mused in later years. 'Just let it happen—if it will.'"
David Thomson On Steven Bach

Boxing, Sex And Madness: Foundas Referrees Tyson & Toback

"Families with autistic children can bring their own gluten- and casein-free snacks, and the kids are welcome to dance, walk around, shout or sing during performances."
AMC's Sensory Friendly Films, Initiative To Show Pics To Autistic Children

"Bong's films are intensely talkative, their dialogue hilariously profane, scatological, ridiculous, and scathing, but we could easily follow them without a sound track."
Gary Indiana Considers Director Bong Joon-Ho's Three Features

"It seemed like a tremendous opportunity to access a whole new level of burgeoning talent that we haven’t been able to access."
Killer Films Adds A Digital Collaboration

The Fatal Flaws Of Garth Drabinsky, Convicted Fraudster, Fallen Cinema Baron And Livent Impresario

A Round-Up Of Observations On B-Bob Thornton's Recent Doofusness

"I get these occasional letters from Lucasfilm saying that 'we regret to inform you that as Return of the Jedi has never gone into profit, we've got nothing to send you.'"

Best Film Twists Of All Time?

Is This The State Of Arab Film?

Isabella Rossellini On Her Expiring Bee, Orgasmic Snail And Angst-Ridden Limpet

Talk About The Passions: A Jesus Double Feature

Starlog Mag Goes Out Of Print

"As horrible as it is to be closeted, from a political point of view, it’s great training because you have to spin and it’s sort of how it is in politics."
Kirby Dick's Tribeca Preem, Outrage, To Open Door On Closeted Politicians

Is It A Bad Idea To Release Mike Judge's Extract On Labor Day Weekend?

France Rejects Stringent Internet Anti-Piracy Bill

John Waters Meets The Art Grannies

The Artistic "Secrets" Of The Director Of Let The Right One In

"We had a table reading. This was not a secret, it's not like anyone tricked anybody, but it was bold and cool because it does push boundaries. We were fortunate getting to make a comedy like this. It takes you places you wouldn't expect to go."
Dark Funny? Funny Dark? Observe? Report?

Glenn Kenny On Editing David Foster Wallace For Premiere

Woody Allen Gives Deposition In Suit Against American Apparel

UK's First Buddhist Film Festival To Feature Dead Man And Donnie Darko

"Who does one have to f--- to get off that masthead?"
Rupert Everett Has An Uncensored Thing To Say About Graydon Carter

Postering Taking Woodstock
And - Trailering Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

"As of Sunday, Bart is no longer in control of his world. But look around: What journalist is?"
Eight Years On, Amy Wallace Updates Her Take On Variety's Peter Bart
And - Her 2001 Piece That Got Him Suspended (Briefly)

11 Filmmakers Are 2009 Guggenheim Fellows, Including Kelly Reichardt, Ramin Bahrani, Julia Loktev

Is There Too Much Music?

Samoa Sour On Milk

The Man Who Launched Quentin Tarantino

A Spoiler-Ridden Consideration (Starting With Its Headline And Link Name) Of Maybe The Most Startling Rogen-Faris Scene In Observe And Report

"We have a knack in Britain of making movies which are not only very bad but bad in an odious way, self-indulgent and self-regarding, knowing and cute, all false sentiment and mirthless humour. Bridget Jones' Diary sets the tone."
Notes From A Disenchanted Movie Lover

The Problem Of Canadian Movies And Further Calls For CanCon Cinema Quotas

Cieply On Brad Silberling's Good Luck With La Brea Tarpits (Overlooking Miracle Mile, The LBT Movie Of All Time)

"You blew it. And now you're angry. Well, gentlemen—and that's pretty much all I see before me: angry, old, white men—you have no right to anger. Instead, you are the proper objects of anger. The public should be angry with you for the poor stewardship you have exercised over the press and its service to society. You lost the future of news."
Screed Of The Day
And - Past Exec Editors Frankel And Raines Muse If NY Times Can Reinvent Itself One More Time

An L.A. Cabbie's Possibly Apocryphal Tale Of Motoring Orson Welles To Musso & Frank's

What Was Playing Grauman's Chinese April 8, 1928?

Trailering Robert Rodriguez's Shorts
Plus - His 9-Minute Debut Short, Bedhead

Paris Turns Into Tativille For A Sorta-Centennial For Jacques

France's Hard-Case Attempt At An Anti-Film Piracy Law Explained

Levy Remembers His First Look At The Matrix, 10 Futurist Years Ago

Ebert Pens A Thank-You To Bill O'Reilly About The Sun-Times Being Elevated To His August "Hall Of Shame" And Recollects Squeaky The Chicago Mouse

Jon Voight Looks Back To Midnight Cowboy

García Márquez Says, Non, He's Still Baking His Cakes

Erasing James Franco

Handicapping Peter Rice's Move From Searchlight To Fox TV

Michael Crichton's Computer To Publish Two More Novels

Al Pacino Grows Up To Be Napoleon

Star Trek Premieres At Fantastic Fest Via Paramount's AICN Web Marketing Arm

Francis Coppola Is 70
Plus - Jason Sanders On Coppola Now

Kumar Goes To White House
Kal Penn Takes Break From Acting To Join Obama Administration

Blockbuster Close To Bankruptcy?

"The Future Of Movies: George Lucas Was Dead Wrong"

What Media Moguls Make

Le Cinema De Food Court

The Real Shawn Levy Asks, What Hath Fast & Furious Wrought On The Roads?

Star Trek Preems In Sydney

Atkinson On The Joys Of American Avant-Garde Film

Cieply And Barnes Banter Biz With Bumped Bart While Promoting Little-Read Site Of Former Timeser & Elevating Narrow-Focus DHD To Trade-Killer Status

Olympics 2012 Spend Bites UK Film Council

Remake Machine Heats Up

Friedman Firing Official

Digital Piracy Congressional Hearing Not Upbeat

"Let's be honest. Some of the theaters still (stink). Exhibitors are the most important people in the industry. All of the magic happens in the two hours people are sitting in the theater. I want them to make the moviegoing experience as special as they can, because that's what burns in people's memories."
Michael Bay Is Up For Better Cinemas

Rourke Sez Iron Man 2 Insurers Kept Him Out Of The Wrestlemania Ring

Barnes Seeks Those Down On Up

"When the scene was shot, I was lying there thinking, ‘This is wrong on so many levels. There is no way Warner Bros. is going to keep this in.’ I’ve done my share of studio stuff that’s wrong and never got into the movie—male nudity, semen, a few boobs. But there it is. My parents have something to look forward to."
Anna Faris Talks The Technical Side Of Performance

"We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories."
AP Set To Sue Online News Aggregators

WB Not Happy About Hindi BenButton

Edelstein Gets Real About Neo-Neorealism

Coy Watson, Jr., 96, Silent Era Child Star

Anne-T Reports Variety Kicks Bart Upstairs At 76; Timothy Gray New Majordomo Of Long-Lived Trade Sheet

"Reports of my death have been extremely exaggerated."
Roger Friedman Comments

"Wouter was part of a family that cared deeply about our world, our culture and cinema that mattered."
Cosmopolitan Taste-Maker And Champion Of Asian And Other World Cinema, Wouter Barendrecht, 43, Co-Chairman Of International Sales And ProdCo Fortissimo Films, Blessed With "Exquisite Taste In Weird Movies," Dies Suddenly
And - Fortissimo Release Reports Heart Failure In Bangkok