TORONTO, Ont. – A wealthy novelist named Andrew Wyke is alone in his isolated mansion when he receives a caller. This is Milo Tindle, the man who boldly boasts of being the lover of Wyke’s wife. The two engage in…
View image An extreme close-up -- up Thomas Jefferson's nose, that is. Wee Roger O. Thornhill and Eve Kendall are in long shot. For the Close-Up Blog-a-thon at The House Next Door: When is a long shot a close-up? When…
View image For the Close-Up Blog-a-thon at The House Next Door: Someone is trying to kill Dr. Sidney Shaefer (James Coburn). Hell, it seems like just about everybody is trying to kill him -- or spy on him or abduct…
View image What're you lookin' at? Now playing, October 12 - 21 at The House Next Door: The Close-Up Blog-a-thon! House publisher Matt Zoller Seitz had this great idea: Your piece could be as simple as a series of frame…
Woody Allen (foreground, center) in "Stardust Memories." Regarding issues raised by Brian De Palma and "Redacted" (see below): Here are two frame grab from Woody Allen's 1980 feature "Stardust Memories," a United Artists release. The movie is a Felliniesque comedy…
Q: In your review of "Trade," about child sexual trafficking, you raise the issue of how or why such a serious subject should be made "entertaining." I believe you answered that question in your last line when you stated that…
View image Performance? Art? Consider: If a filmmaker like, say, Brian De Palma, had used actual images of dead and injured Vietnamese war casualties in one of his fictionalized, semi-pseudo-documentary features like "Greetings" (1969) or "Hi, Mom!" (1970), would he…
View image Franklin, Blanchett, Whishaw, Bale, Ledger, Gere: None of these characters is named "Bob" or "Dylan." Nobody's life and work has been analyzed, interpreted, scrutinized for possible meanings and clues, quite like Bob Dylan's. One key tale in Dylan's…
UPDATED 10/16: Here are brief reviews of all the Chicago Film Festival movies we have seen, in alphabetical order, written by Bill Stamets and Roger Ebert. More will be added as we view them. For a full CIFF schedule, go…
From Daniel Cauthorn, Brooklyn, NY:
Great Movies