I just realized something. I think I bought my first-ever non-English DVD today. I know, I know, it’s awful that a cinephile like me should have gone without any foreign-language films for so long. But I have always tended to shy away from bare-bones DVDs of any language, just in case the films are re-issued some day with all the bells and whistles we’ve come to expect; and the handful of foreign-language special-edition DVDs that I have been interested in... Read more

Here’s a groaner that had somehow never occurred to me before. Jeff Overstreet’s blog includes a link to this interview with Douglas Gresham, the stepson of C.S. Lewis who is overseeing the film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, hopefully the first of several Narnia movies. And somewhere on that page, the interviewer asks this question about the film’s director: What has it been like working with Son of Adam (Andrew Adamson) and the rest of the... Read more

I happen to be in the middle of researching a story on the arrival in Canada of video services that edit films to make them more “family friendly” — and lo and behold, there just happens to be an editoral on the subject in today’s Wall Street Journal. I am, as often happens, of two minds on this particular topic. In general, I oppose the impulse to make all films “family friendly,” and I agree with Pop Culture Wars author... Read more

Just a quick link to the OC Weekly‘s latest story on the soon-to-be-premiered Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher; this time it’s basically an interview with Lonnie’s ex-wife Connie and director David Di Sabatino. BTW, FWIW, I think that longer Q&A; I keep promising will be up some time early next week, but I’ll post the link when it comes. Read more

Just a note to say my review of the new version of The Amityville Horror is up at CT Movies. I had not realized until a couple days ago that the film was directed by the same man, Andrew Douglas, who made Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2003), a documentary that I almost saw at last year’s festival, but missed. Now I wish I had seen it, of course. For some reason, this reminds me of how Joe Berlinger —... Read more

Thanks to my colleague David F. Dawes for pointing this out to me. Apparently the first feature-length Italian film was an adaptation of Dante’s Inferno released way back in 1911 — and now it is available on DVD, with a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream. Check the trailer here — the effects are very impressive! Read more

Don’t know if it comes through, but I’m going for a Star Wars style “the saga is now complete” tone with that title there. Anyway, in all my years of trawling the internet, I have come across only one person whose enthusiasm for film adaptations of the Bible rivals my own, and that is Matt Page. So thanks to Matt for tipping me off to the fact that a teaser for the Visual Bible’s Gospel of Mark is now available... Read more

I do not subscribe to ScreenDaily.com, but I do subscribe to their newsletter, so while I cannot access or quote the content of this article, I can quote the summary from the newsletter: VON TRIER, SCHERFIG TEAM FOR ERIK NIETZSCHELone Scherfig is set to direct semi-autobiographical script written by Lars von Trier. Scherfig was, I believe, the first woman to direct a Dogme95 film — said film being Italian for Beginners (alas, my review does not appear to be online)... Read more

Just a few links to reviews here. I didn’t care much for The Assassination of Richard Nixon when I saw it four months ago — it’s an interesting film in some ways, but some of its political elements seemed like a stretch to me — and it’s been interesting, as the film has slowly rolled into and out of theatres here and there, to see other writers put into words why it didn’t work for me. In the New Republic,... Read more