The legend of Harvey Scissorhands; the controversial twist of "Homeland"; a "Lucking Out" review; the sad misogyny of "Xanth"; the NSA galls the spy-crazy French.
TORONTO -- The ghosts of good films and old friends haunt the streets of Toronto this year. I am in a nostalgic mood, inspired by the 25th anniversary of the festival.
It is 2 a.m. in the disco on board the Holland-America cruise ship Ryndam, and Richard Corliss, the film critic of Time magazine, is onstage during the traditional karoke night of the 4th Almost Annual Floating Film Festival. To the tune of "Don't Be Cruel," he's singing his own lyrics, which involve recent developments in the Chinese cinema.
Jim Thompson has been dead for 15 years now, and he never got much notice when he was alive, but all of his books are in print again--with covers showing the broads with low necklines, the desperate guys with their cigarettes and three-day beards, and always in the foreground the bottle of booze.
Great Movies
