Reviews

Ironically, MAGA movies are the sentimental snowflakes of cinema.

My favorite quality of a Tarantino movie is that somehow he gets me to care about the characters while the narrative is filled with irony treading upon satire, but never crossing the line.

Another reason why I think he's so great is that he has a way with violence. A lot of people were shocked and appalled by "Pulp Fiction" because we really felt those kills. It meant something when they happened.

Same with Bridget Fonda's kill in "Jackie Brown". Absolutely stunning moment.

My problem with "Django Unchained" is that the violence becomes generic. I can't believe I just wrote that. I couldn't believe I thought that about three-quarters of the way in.

The joy of this movie is in that first hour with Christoph Waltz using his quick wits to get out of two huge jams. His charms are so effective that we let it go that it would be totally implausible for him and Django to have gotten out of those two pickles alive.

And then the movie appears to be building us up to some kind of payoff that just isn't satisfying. It just sort of goes the way of most spaghetti westerns, with tons of people getting shot up real good, instead of being turned on its head in usual QT fashion.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the generic, cartoonish violence towards the end is that we're not fully invested in Django as a character. Schultz is the character we gravitate towards and the only face we're watching up there no matter what shot he's in. Django never breaks free from being just a mythical creature of sorts.

I thought Kerry Washington was wasted.

I'm sorry, but this movie just doesn't have the gathering power from scene to scene the way "Pulp Fiction", "Jackie Brown" or the two Kill Bills did.

This is OK QT, not great QT.

"This Is It" spoils us. It will no doubt go down as the film that got the closest to MJ's process and work habits.

That film makes "Bad 25" look especially like second-hand news, as an array of musicians, technicians, sound engineers and others weigh in on MJ's follow-up to the still-reigning highest-selling album of all time in "Thriller".

One by one, the songs on Bad are broken down into the stories of how they came to be produced, while it is noted throughout that at that point in his adulthood, MJ was becoming a savvy businessman.

I especially like the stuff from those who knew MJ at the time of the recording, while hangers-on Justin Bieber, Kanye, and Chris Brown all received boos at the Toronto screening during TIFF.

In "This Is It" we get right up close to the King of Pop, so having a doc with a bunch of people telling us about him just doesn't resonate as fully, and to my surprise, there is a lot of talking in this movie compared with the amount of music in it.

This is not a bad movie. It made me nostalgic for my youth and to want to hear these songs in full. And of course, MJ's passing has only increased the shivers I get when I hear that choir go, "man in the mirruh!", but as far as music docs go, this is pretty much par for the course.

From my thoughts about the film in my special Toronto coverage.

At Any Price

Iranian-American helmer Ramin Bahrani is fascinated with slices of American life that most Hollywood films today ignore. In his first three efforts, shot on shoe-string budgets in a neo-realist style familiar to fans of Middle East films of the past decade or so, we get absorbed into the everyday minutiae of his characters. There was the Middle East immigrant in New York City who runs his gift shop stand in Man Push Cart (2006), that resourceful Latino street orphan who works on a scrap-metal row behind old Shea Stadium in Queens in Chop Shop (2007), and the African cabbie in Goodbye Solo (2008).

At Any Price finds Bahrani exchanging neo-realism for a classic American style familiar to a bygone Hollywood era that produced Breaking Away (1979) and Silkwood (1983), while keeping intact his curiosity with everyday American life. Set in present-day Iowa with a pulse on our tense economic times, we follow enterprising farmer Henry Whipple (Dennis Quaid, in what may be his best performance), a tragic character who now secures the Willy Loman place in American movies that had been occupied for some time by Kevin Spacey's Lester Burnham in American Beauty (1999).

Whipple, as he loves to remind us, is the largest seller of seeds in seven Iowa counties, second only to Jim Johnson (Clancy Brown). His eldest son Grant, who he idealizes, is off mountain-climbing in the Andes while his party-boy younger son Dean (Zac Efron) races cars, leaving dad and mom (a powerful, understated Kim Dickens) to run the family business.

A rich and textured story, this movie is less about building to a payoff than it is a soul-searching study of modern American values. What is astonishing is how Bahrani sees the glory of America and the trouble with her all at a level gaze. There may not be a better-directed sequence in American movies this year than one that takes place here at a race track where all of the major characters are assembled, singing the national anthem. Beneath its raw, physical appeal is a fundamental question about the price that is paid in the soul for winning at all costs at the detriment of your neighbor. This is a great American film.

What a captivating film this is. Gael Garcia Bernal is good as usual, an actor who just keeps getting better and better, in this movie that shows the campaign that ousted Pinochet from office from the p.o.v. of the ad guys who tailored each side's messages.

Good PR work that frames the debate and sets the narrative for the campaign wins political campaigns.

The movie is thoughtful, funny, absorbing. Quality all around. You don't need to know anything about Chile to get swept up by it, and if there are details you want to know, you can go read about it afterwards.

I especially liked that it looked like a documentary video and a time- capsule from that era. It seamlessly mixes stock footage with filmed stuff to give it a dated look.

See it.

A really stupid Canadian movie that is assembled from the wreckage of other bad movies that think they're so clever but really aren't.

Russell isn't Tom Cruise. Maybe he'd be good enough as Cruise's stunt double? He's just another himbo.

I hate that crap like this seems to get made so easily while good movies have to suffer an exhausting process of getting greenlit because of all the morons in the world today.

Eating candy and making out in the dark while ignoring this movie is the only reason it should be on around you.

The buddy cop thing can work depending on the talents of its actors, but these are all stand-in types who appear to have been promoted into leads.

There are good Canadian movies out there, so skip this one.

Caught this one at TIFF, and it was one of the best movies of the festival. Rodrigo Garcia directed "Nine Lives", which may be familiar to some audiences. That one was from 2005 and wove together a series of short vignettes. Garcia has a wonderful sensibility at portraying female characters in that one, and in "Mother & Child" he builds upon it even further as the movie centers around the theme of adoption and how it affects three adult women, played by Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, and Kerri Washington.

I suppose this will get the "chick flick" label upon it's release, but for any lover of good dramas with characters you can sink your teeth into, that shouldn't matter, and besides, when did it become unfashionable for grown men to see movies with attractive female stars in them? There isn't a false moment or a scene that doesn't ring true, and I found myself so involved in the particularities of all the characters we meet that it no longer mattered to me what happened next, it was more interesting to get inside the shoes and take a walk inside the lives of these characters, so well fleshed out by all the stars here. So many big movies from America often feature adults behaving like children, and so it's ultimately refreshing and quite moving to follow the characters in "Mother & Child" who are going through very adult problems and acting like adults throughout, even if sometimes they fall or crack or are flawed.

I think Bening and Watts, playing two very complicated and difficult women, should be nominated for Oscars. This movie takes material that could have been dumbed down and made into a TV movie of the week, but instead Rodrigo Garcia elevates the film by really listening to his characters. A wonderful movie, not just for women, but for all adults who like good movies, and for all film-goers who especially like "hyperlink" movies, that is, movies that deal with a multitude of characters while letting each of them take the wheel of the car. Terrific.

The Rwandan genocide has spawned a number of good films, from the docs "Shake Hands With The Devil" to "Hotel Rwanda", but none as personal and intimate and horrifying as this one.

"The Day God Walked Away" has two things going for it: a striking performance by singer Ruth Nirere as the Tutsi woman Jacqueline, and the direction by first-timer Philippe Van Leeuw that steers clear of commentary and simply shows. Jacqueline works as a domestic for a Belgium family, and in the film's opening scenes we see them preparing to flee the country as the looting and violence draws closer. Jacqueline is sent hiding in the attic in a scene that uses sound so disturbingly well to paint a picture of what's happening outside that the dread grips us and never lets us go. From then on we follow Jacqueline on her odyssey through the countryside, where she discovers the remains of her dead children, sleeps in forests, nurses a wounded man of her own tribe back to health, is fired upon by local Hutu militants.

But the movie is about so much more than those simple plot details. At it's heart it is a film not so much about a victim of unimaginable cruelty and indignity so much as it is about a proud and brave woman who wills herself to endure and rise above the madness, the despair, the nightmare of being terrorized. Ruth Nirere, like Charlize Theron in "Monster" or Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" or Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry", gives us one of those inspired performances that never once reminds us that we're actually watching an actor at work.

"The Day God Walked Away" is gut-wrenching and inspiring, and it takes just the right approach by seeing the genocide through the eyes of one character. This movie deserves to go on the final list of films nominated for best foreign language film.

"One Week" tries to be so many things, that it never settles down to do one of those things very well. It's a disease-of-the-week flick/relationship drama/road movie.

In a road movie, we've come to expect that the lead will meet an assorted cast of characters, mostly salt-of-the-earth types who impart wisdom on the hero and to the viewers. In "Into the Wild", there was genuine feeling in the sequences with the hippie couple and the old man, and when the kid decided not to make love to the girl, it rang true.

But in "One Week", the characters we meet on the road are all sympathetic to the degree that we get to know them, but they aren't given anything to do in their scenes with Ben except mostly to exchange long meaningful glances. The sequence with the woman in the forest rings false. The lonely cowgirl is a character we want to get to know better, but the film once again drowns her out in it's self-pity.

I don't like movies that are nudging me or begging me to like them every 2 minutes of the way, like a sad little puppy dog. "One Week" is like going on a date with someone who decides to talk more about how the date is going, than actually carrying on in the moment and experiencing the date, if you get what I mean.

I appreciate the wonderful Canadian scenery, even if the cinematography wasn't so good at times, and liked all of the actors too, but felt they were trapped in a screenplay that never really allowed them to step up and just be who they were, and it has everything to do with the movie not really knowing what it wants to be, except that it sort of wants to be "EVERYTHING" without succeeding at anything in particular.

I love movies that contain wisdom over "message" or "lessons", and for me, "Into the Wild" is a far richer journey, and "Wit" is a hundred times more wise and headstrong about terminal illnesses.

"One Week" is not a bad film, just an unfocused drama that drowns in self-pity.

Oh yes, and Tim Horton's deserves a good send-up. The one in this movie simply falls flat.

I hate to be the resident party-pooper, but I was left feeling cold by the end. For me, the gimmick wore off and I was left with a bunch of really sad lives, particularly the leads.

The entire relationship left me puzzled. I don't know about you, dear reader, but when they first meet and he looks 70 something and she's about 7, I just sort of felt that was awkward and not right.

There is some nice humor sprinkled all throughout, particularly from the aged residents of that house, and with the early scenes that introduce us to Benjamin. But as the relationship between Benjamin and Daisy transforms in the second half, it was harder to accept this big block of Hollywood cheese. Their scenes as they begin to get closer in age started to feel strained to me. There is a scene where Benjamin visits Daisy in New York, and it's just stilted and forced.

I really wanted to care more about this film, but I feel like it was more an interesting exercise than a real experience that leaves us with something.

For me, a 6 is where movies go that I liked in some ways, but that are near misses, and all the thick laying on of melodrama and bittersweetness finally just did the picture in.

For me, "Blood Simple", "Fargo" and "No Country..." live in a special Coen stratosphere. Then "Barton Fink", "Raising Arizona", "the Big Lebowski" and "the Man Who Wasn't There" belong in the next class. I'd have to put "Burn After Reading" somewhere in the lower to mid second-class group, but above "Intolerable Cruelty" and "Oh Brother".

I think that after making a such a serious and dramatic effort last year, they're just goofing off this year, and that's fine, they're allowed to do that. They've earned it. But it's not like this movie is really that good or anything. It's screwy and fun, sometimes works, sometimes doesn't quite. I especially liked Brad Pitt, probably because he's the only one showing some new colors here. It's like he started from scratch and built this guy from experiences he once had in high school.

"Burn After Reading" passes the time, but don't build this up too much, because it's mostly just a whole lot of goofing around that just holds itself together because of the talents of the Coens.

What's with the low ratings for this movie? I saw this at the Toronto Film Festival, and people loved it. Is it that some audiences wanted a regular sports movie, with everything leading up to the big game? This follows Dominican ball players and their dreams of making it to the bigs. We go from the Dominican to small town Iowa, then to New York City in a movie that's pitch perfect the whole way. And it got everything right, from how small towns in America watch these young guys grow and progress, to how they're treated like animals when they face injuries or setbacks.

The actors are mostly unknowns, and they give the movie a documentary feel. I especially loved the old couple that takes one ball player in every year, and the minor league baseball manager, who is portrayed very fairly as a guy who pushes his players, but wants to see them make it.

This movie is a home run, pardon the pun, because it transcends the sports genre and becomes a movie about finding one's self worth, no matter where your career path takes you.

I believe that if you want something more from a sports movie than being just a past-time, you'll find it in "Sugar", from the team who directed "Half Nelson", another movie that was more concerned with characters and self-worth over silly plot requirements.

To the low scorers out there I would say don't judge a movie for what it's not, and really look at what it is. Because this is a special movie that never goes wrong.

The Toronto Film Festival was seen by some as not containing very many home runs, especially after the litany of great movies from last year, from "No Country...", "Juno", "Michael Clayton" to "Into the Wild" and "Atonement". But I submit that this year was top-heavy in foreign Oscar potential, from "Waltz With Bashir" to "Gomorra" to this wonderful drama.

Caroline Link is a first-rate director all the way now with this follow-up to "Nowhere in Africa". You watch this movie and you're sucked in after about 10 minutes and you have the feeling that the director is totally in control and everything is running on all cylinders.

This is a family-drama based off the novel "Aftermath", written by a north-eastern American and set in New England I believe, but taken to Germany where it plays just as well because the themes are universal. Not entirely unlike "Ordinary People", the movie follows an upper-crust family that loses their teenage son in an apparent hunting accident. We spend much of the time with his older sister, a dance/theatre student, and a professional middle-aged painter who lives alone in a studio-flat as he's commissioned by the mother to paint a portrait of the two siblings as a remembrance. Lilli, the daughter, played by Karoline Herfurth (one of the unfortunate victims in "Perfume") thinks the whole idea of this painting is insane. She's wise beyond her years, tough and engaging, precocious, but tests her sexual prowess in ways that cause her more aggravation once she gets the attention which show her physical age.

Her performance and the way she relates to the painter are the key in this movie, and they find they are kindred spirits, both nursing personal wounds. The parents are mostly distant, but every one of their scenes reveal a depth of feelings and signals, especially from the mother, that the younger son was the glue that held the family together.

I loved this movie. I loved every single scene, and there wasn't a wasted moment. It doesn't ever strain for melodrama but sees it's characters from a level gaze, revealing wounds and themes of loneliness and shame that are very maturely handled by director Link. Kudos as well for a very good music score that serves the tone of this movie excellently.

Watch for this movie in the foreign film category come Oscar time.

Okay, I'll start off right away by saying I'm a guy. I like good movies. I'm not one of those guys who won't go and see a "chick flick", because the thought of straight guys disliking the fact that a movie is about women and stars women is preposterous to me.

There are better and more challenging movies out there to see right now, but "The Women" is certainly more enjoyable than the "Sex and The City: The Movie" no matter how you slice it. I liked spending time with these "broads" because they were actually interesting while the SATC girls were flimsy and flighty, and their movie was filled with stupid dialogue and a good 40 minutes that we could have done without.

That "The Women" is scoring lower than SATC so far makes no sense to me, whatsoever. This is a pretty good movie.

I was really looking forward to "Is There Anybody There?" when I found a spot for it on my Toronto Film Festival schedule, what with director John Crowley making the wonderful "Intermission" a few years ago, and his latest "Boy A" proving he could do a great job with young actors as well. Those movies were smart and engaging, free of plot requirements, and more interested in character study.

But this movie is a disappointment, with a screenplay that doesn't know when to quit on trying to make the audience cry every two seconds with an over-abundance of "meaningful" looks, all coated in syrupy melodrama that never let's anything go without saying. This movie proves that you can have a good director and a legendary actor at the helm, but that without a good screenplay, the whole ship sinks.

The film follows an early 40 something couple and their young son who run a great big house that serves as a sort of retirement home for an assortment of great English character actors of the last half century, whose senility is made very entertaining because of their name recognition. Michael Caine enters the picture as a man who was once a performer and a magician, but who is losing it in his old age and checks into the place. Now, decide this for yourself if you check this movie out: Do you think that the couple in charge of this house is even qualified to do that kind of work? They seem clueless as to the rigors of the everyday details of taking care of seniors, and indeed, the movie doesn't possess the knowing of that job, or the ability to translate it in a way that seems plausible, which is surprising to me since the story is apparently inspired by real events.

This is a movie that will be liked by the same crowd that liked "Jack" or "Patch Adams" or maybe even "the Cider House Rules", all movies that are top-heavy with sentimentality and over-the-top acting, movies that act like little puppy dogs who just want to be liked at every turn. I saw exactly 50 movies at the Toronto Film Festival this year, and this one was in my bottom 5.

A disappointing miss for John Crowley and Michael Caine.

This is the only movie I've ever gone to see twice at a film festival. It played in Toronto at the 2000 film festival, and my friend and I talked about it for hours afterwards. It's an invigorating movie, based on the play by Ira Lewis, about two bohemian guys, approaching 50, adrift in the early 80's, yet stuck in the past.

It's a "talkie" movie that could play on a double-bill with "My Dinner With Andre", a two-hander about a book Pacino has written and the first encounter with his friend, played by Jerry Orbach, since the Pacino character has lent it to him. But it's about so much more than that: it's about writing, dreaming, the creative process, relationships, loneliness, poverty, and finally, values. There isn't a moment that we're not involved with these two guys as they negotiate their relationship. The script crackles with life and wit, observation and nuance. Pacino first directed the great documentary "Looking For Richard", about how to approach staging a Shakespeare play. And here in "Chinese Coffee" he proves once again that he has a natural ability to tell a story in a completely fresh and interesting way, free of the constraints and pettiness of a routine plot.

If you're an actor and you haven't seen this movie, than shame on you, this one will have you going for days. And you'll return to it, too. It's a buried treasure in a great career for Pacino. I can't recommend it any higher.

I'm surprised to see only a 6.8 rating for this movie. This movie stands the test of time, and now it's become one of my favorite "comfort" films that I seem to watch again every single year. It works equally as a romantic comedy and a political drama, and every character is given time to be who they are instead of as tools of a plot. Richard Dreyfuss plays the foil in this story as the Republican candidate for President, and thinking about the current election cycle, he actually seems to evoke John McCain in a sort of uncanny way, but he's not just a villain, he's an aggressive candidate who wants to win in a political landscape where the sitting President, played by Michael Douglas, finds his job to be in jeopardy with okay but not very good polls.

There's so much to like here; Annette Benning just glows in her role, and it's very skillful how the movie modulates a fine balance between seeing her in her job and as a love interest. I liked the moments between the President and his daughter, which seem so much fresher than more routine movies about regular people and their kids. And of course, the political stuff in the movie is terrific, and it's smart without condescending to us, and plays on a level that even the least politically inclined can still get into.

I have a list on "My Movies" that is called the "Overlooked" list, and this one is on it; it's still great after over a decade.

I too saw this movie at it's premiere in Toronto, and it was one of the most intimate experiences of the 51 movies I saw at the festival. For those unfamiliar with Daniel Lanois, he's that humble Canadian musician best known for producing acts ranging from U2, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Peter Gabriel and Emmylou Harris. He's a fine musician in his own right, creating earthy and soulful music that defies and transcends any one specific genre. "Here Is What Is" is a 90 minute film documenting the creative process of music making that is shot mostly on digital, but breaks free of conventional film-making as the look of the film, from grainy to surreal to black & white, evokes mood and atmosphere and tone and allows us about as close as we can get to that moment when nothing becomes something.

It is also a strikingly sincere film about a man who really seems to love what he does irregardless of fame or glory and the movie sees this man without a hint of ego or guile. Indeed, in the footage of Lanois working with U2, he seems more like a kid in a candy store. We meet some of the talented artists he's worked with over the last few decades, including his fellow U2 producer Brian Eno as they work on that band's new album, and we're treated to some very good sequences with drummer Brian Blade. I'm thinking particularly of that scene when Lanois is charting a course through a song with Blade and as Lanois explains the movement of the song in broad physical terms, the scene is edited with footage of the two creating the song practically out of thin air and mutual trust.

"Here Is What Is" is precisely that, and then grows into something more fascinating: what appears to be a simple idea about capturing perhaps an interview or a few scenes of making music turns into a musical journey of ideas and feelings; from nothing to something, to something that touches on the holy. A musical journey that is a fusion of rock, jazz, blues, pop with flavors from deep in the heart of the bayou, this movie is for anyone who feels that music can be anything, that it can soar and search, that it can evoke melancholy and happiness simultaneously. This is a gem of a movie that will win people over one at a time and offer deep and gratifying rewards to anyone curious enough to seek it out.

I seriously don't understand why this movie isn't connecting with some people. It finished well at the box office on it's first weekend, but besides that point, what a great movie! I knew nothing about the story beforehand. I like Hollywood films, documentaries, indies, foreign films, whatever. I love fantasy/adventure movies, but I usually like them when there is more than just the escape factor. I liked the Harry Potter series; but it's all fun escape and whimsy. I was not a lover of the LOTR series. I felt that those movies were really, really long B movies that they kept trying to pass over on us as qualified A movies because of way too much emphasis on meaningful moments and melodrama and self-importance.

The Golden Compass, for me, rises above the rest because it's not only a swift and fantastic adventure film, but it's really about something. It's for everyone, not just kids. I think most of the negative reviews I've read are just wrong and cynical. And I think that's because so many people think that religion and politics should not be brought up in an "entertainment". The underlying themes of many reviews is, "Please don't make us think!", and that's too bad because this is clearly one of the best movies of the year.

First, it's a beautiful movie to watch and I like that the use of special effects are effective and efficient without being too good, if you know what I mean. Having said that though, there are sequences and little moments that leave you breathless, like when Lyra's daemon embodies a rat and races down a table, jumps off, and quickly morphs into a butterfly when Lyra's got to hide in a closet. And I especially loved the idea of the "daemons" and how they are used in the movie as a sort of sub-conscience and a close confidant of the characters, especially the children, who are precisely at an age where they demand truth and ask big questions and are beginning to flirt with the power of their free will.

Some have said that movie rushes along too quickly. I'm glad for that. This movie is very economical, and it leaves you grasping at points, but I love it because it isn't aware of itself. Unlike LOTR, it has no idea that it's really about epic themes. The characters simply move along, following their values and acting upon their natures.

I was in heaven when the song that plays over the end credits was written and performed by Kate Bush. It clearly reminds us of some of those great songs from other adventure films like Annie Lennox's song in Bram Stroker's Dracula, Tina Turner from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and that song for the Never Ending Story.

Dakota Blue is a find. She's smart and precocious, never poses or panders to us, and fills out the role superbly. It came as a surprise to me how much I was choked up several points in the film when she extends empathy to one of the character's in particular, when she could have chosen to just move on, and how she expresses gratitude in a late scene in the movie.

Read the bad reviews, and then read the good ones, and then go see this movie for yourself. It'll entertain and thrill you, but more than that, it will curiously conjure up feelings of your youth. Exhilarating!

This movie is just about perfect. I love how it starts as a genre movie and then transcends into something deeper and soul-searching. Some people just don't like Paul Haggis, but I'm not one of them. I think he's very smart here; he has no political point of view, he handles Charlize Theron perfectly, and the movie forces everybody to think about the troops in a way that isn't simply political rhetoric. I love that Tommy Lee Jones feels the way so many dads do. He's never been better. Watching the police work happen is interesting on it's own, but I like that Charlize Theron is just out to do the job correctly and just shrugs off the chauvinism coming at her from her department. The movie could've gone somewhere with that, but instead just quietly lets us in on it and moves on.

There have been many very good movies the last few years about Iraq-related themes, but I don't think there is a film that captures the feeling of the national mood as good as this one. It's drained of melodrama and just sort of moves forward on really good performances of the whole cast, who all act according to their natures instead of because of stupid plot requirements.

I've just finished watching this movie for the fourth time. It just gets better and better. One of things I love about it is that you just can't compare it to most anything you've ever seen. It sort of belongs in that small-town category of mid-level to independent American films like "You Can Count On Me"; it's about family, about growing up even if you're already an adult, about the differences in attitudes of blue staters to red staters. Every character is so alive in their own way. They behave precisely according to their values, but in a way that we don't really see anyone acting. Amy Adams got an Oscar nomination for her performance that is guaranteed to win you over the second you meet her. She has big curious eyes and wears her heart on her sleeve and appears to be one of the guileless characters we've come across at the movies in a long time. This is a movie you can really wrap yourself in and where the emotion comes from how we get to know these people, instead of any phony situations that make everybody behave melodramatic like in lesser movies or TV. It's smart and heartwarming; can't recommend it higher.

This movie proves two things: 1), a documentary really can be about anything, and 2), movies aren't always what they're about, but how they are about, as Ebert puts it. This movie begins by retracing the early video game craze of the early 80's, and it focuses on the 20 year plus record-holder of the highest score ever for 'Donkey Kong'. His name is Billy Mitchell, and he's the Michael Jackson or the Wayne Gretzky of the video gaming world. We learn of other players who helped to define the era, one who no longer plays but gives much of his time away by refereeing video game competitions. Perhaps all that would've made for an interesting doc in it's own right, but in walks Steve Wiebe, a pretty normal guy with a wife and two kids, and we learn how he got into video gaming after a handful of setbacks in his life. As it becomes clear to us that Wiebe is an amazing player in his own right, politics enter the picture and we end up with a fascinating study about the nature of people that gets beyond simple competitiveness and digs a little deeper into the psyches of how we perceive our own selves. I'm so happy to have run into this title. You don't have to be interested or know anything about video games to really care about this movie.

This docu-drama about the WTO riots in Seattle in 1999 is made in the same style as "Bloody Sunday", "United 93", and "Battle for Haditha": it just shows events in real time without comment. We follow everyone here from the ground up; the protest groups, the cops on the street, their commanders, city officials, a news reporter, and innocent bystanders. Maybe the scenes with the news reporter are the least fleshed out, but that's a fairly minor complaint for a movie that is very involving and entertaining and thought-provoking. Woody Harrelson and Charlize Theron are very good, as usual, and Michelle Rodriguez is perfectly cast. One of the big surprises here is Andre Benjamin, from Outkast fame, who delivers a fine supporting performance; he's irreverent but very smart. Ray Liotta is very effective as the mayor, and the film does a great job of seeing the complexities in elected officials as he struggles to please all sides; he is looking for the protesters to behave while also wanting the WTO to address important issues.

The audience I saw this with at the Toronto Festival gave it an ovation that lasted all through the credits. In terms of pure audience satisfaction, this movie was up there with "Juno" and "Body of War" and "Eastern Promises" as the fan favorites.

I also saw this at Toronto, and visually speaking, this movie is one of the best looking films of the year. This director's first film was the great "House of Sand and Fog" and here he confirms how talented he is. Uma Thurman hasn't been better as she plays a woman who is now well into adulthood, living in the small town that she grew up in, with a professor husband and a little girl. I love the way Perelman uses flashbacks here to inform us about Thurman as a teen. In many films, flashbacks can yank us around and cut tension, but here Evan Rachel Wood is so good that the two characters are seamlessly interwoven in a way that we are treated to a complex character study of a grown woman who is driving herself mad with regret and anxiety and guilt. There's nothing more fascinating than watching conflict that is internal rather than external, and Thurman here is so good, I hope she is remembered come Oscar season.

Just a solid movie in every way. Good score from James Horner, the guy who did the music for "A Beautiful Mind" and "House of Sand and Fog", equally lovely scores in their own right.