View image Alejandro Polanco plays... Alejandro. Within the first 30 seconds or so of Ramin Bahrani's "Chop Shop," you know you're in good hands. I've written quite a bit about how much I loved Bahrani's debut feature, "Man Push Cart,"…
TORONTO, Ont. -- Sometimes in a smaller theater, away from the searchlights and the 24-hour fans making privacy impossible for poor Brad and Angelina, you find an independent film that is miraculous. Such a film is “Chop Shop,” by Ramin…
View image Emile Hirsch as Alexander Supertramp. A star is (re)born. Ladies and gentleman, writer-director Sean Penn has not ruined the story of Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, in his big-screen adaptation of Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book, "Into the Wild."…
TORONTO, Ont. -- I don’t know when I’ve heard a standing ovation so long, loud and warm as the one after Jason Reitman’s “Juno,” which I predict will become quickly beloved when it opens at Christmas time, and win a…
View image People. They can be quite beautiful. "Love comes in at the eye." -- William Butler Yeats -- and David Cronenberg ("Videodrome") Eric Rohmer has made a career out of chronicling the rituals of romance (and Romanticism), from the…
View image He's mad as hell... Tom Wilkinson has probably won an Oscar nomination for supporting actor in "Michael Clayton" before he ever appears on the screen. Or he should, anyway. But then, he should also be competing with (just…
TORONTO, Ont. -- It’s not often you see films that are perfect. I have just seen two of them here at the Toronto Film Festival, and two others that are extraordinary, and a documentary that is spellbinding. Do I love…
Re: "No Country for Old Men." I just want to get this out of my system right now, between movies: Fantasticsplendidsuperbterrificwonderfulamazingbrilliantmasterpiece. Unblurbable? If you're not exhilarated by this piece of filmmaking, then I don't know what you could possibly like…
View image Belén Rueda revisits "The Orphanage" of her youth. Or is it the orphanage that's revisiting her? As I was leaving the theater after watching Juan Antonio Bayona's "The Orphanage," still in the movie's thrall, I thought for a…
TORONTO -- If there was ever a director who seems in no danger of repeating himself, that director is Ang Lee. None of his films bears the slightest similarity in subject or tone to any of the others. No doubt…
Great Movies