Yesterday I read this in an article in the British Guardian newspaper:
"Twelve of the last 13 people condemned to death in Harris County, Texas were black. After Texas itself, Harris County is the national leader in its number of executions.
"Over one third of Texas's 305 death row inmates - and half of the state's 121 black death row prisoners - are from Harris County.
Why not fold documentaries into my list of the "Best Films of 2011?" After all, a movie is a movie, right? Yes, and some years I've thrown them all into the same mixture. But all of these year-end Best lists serve one useful purpose: They tell you about good movies you may not have seen or heard about. The more films on my list that aren't on yours, the better job I've done.
That's particularly true were you to depend on the "short list" released by the Academy's Documentary Branch of 15 films they deem eligible for nomination. The branch has been through turmoil in the past and its procedures were "reformed" at one point. But this year it has made a particularly scandalous sin of
• Toronto Entry #2I have not quite become jaded. Sometimes I fear that I am so familiar with movie formulas that some films don't have a fair chance. Then I go to see Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" and it tells a story that would have been familiar in the late 1920s, when it is set, and I begin by admiring its technique and am surprised to find, half way through, that I actually care how it turns out.
HOLLYWOOD - It could be any office in a bungalow on a Hollywood back lot, but three things say it belongs to George Burns. There is a photograph of Gracie Allen on the wall, a large cigar humidor on the desk and a coffee mug that says "God."
