View image Song Kang-ho ("The Host") and Cannes 2007 best actress Jeon Do-yeon in "Secret Sushine." The use of pastel blues and pinks in this movie is... disturbing. Lee Chang-dong's "Miryang" ("Secret Sunshine") begins with a CinemaScope view of a…
TORONTO, Ont. -- “The Walker” is another of Paul Schrader’s “man in a room” films, and his best film since “Affliction” (1997). It’s a fascinating character study with as fine a performance as Woody Harrelson has given, and certainly the…
TORONTO, Ont. -- Everyone, including me, was under the impression that Kenneth Branagh’s new film “Sleuth” was a remake of the 1972 film. Same situation: Rich thriller writer is visited in his country house by man who is having affair…
View image There are movies being shown in six or eight theaters in the building on the left. That's all I know. (photo by Jim Emerson) Film festivals allow you the opportunity to see movies without knowing much of anything…
View image You see it or you don't. Toronto's is an international film festival, and naturally the films are shot in locations all over the world. But one thing so many of the best films in this year's fest have…
View image The negotiation. When it comes to grim accounts of healthcare issues and bureaucracy in Romania, photographed in long takes with a hand-held camera, the 2007 Cannes Palme d'Or winner "4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days" plays like…
Armin Mueller-Stahl at the head of the table, head of the family You are going to hear a lot about this, so I may as well begin with it: There's a fight scene in David Cronenberg's Russian mob thriller "Eastern…
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."…
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