My daughter has really begun to stretch her musical muscles lately; among other things, she loves to sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ as loudly and phonetically as she can. Her latest obsession has been Touch the Sound (2004), a documentary that my wife brought home from the library a few days ago. The film is directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer — who also directed Rivers and Tides (2001), which made my top ten list a few years back — and, while... Read more

Last month, it was reported that Olivia Wilde was going to star in the Judd Apatow-produced “biblical comedy” Year One as Princess Inanna, a love interest for the Jack Black character whose name, according to Wikipedia, happens to be identical to that of “the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare.” Then, two weeks ago, it was reported that Hank Azaria was joining the cast as a guy named Abraham. You mean, that Abraham…? Could be. Today, Wilde told... Read more

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Be Kind Rewind — CDN $471,946 — N.AM $4,050,655 — 11.7%27 Dresses — CDN $7,660,000 — N.AM $73,108,983 — 10.5%Step Up 2: The Streets — CDN $4,190,000 — N.AM $41,238,093 — 10.2%Definitely, Maybe — CDN $2,100,000 — N.AM $21,814,805 — 9.6%Juno — CDN $12,410,000 — N.AM $130,431,948 — 9.5%No Country... Read more

I hadn’t planned on exposing my kids to Pixar so early in life — why not wait until they can “appreciate” it more, I figured — but the other kids at church today were watching Toy Story 2, so what could I do. Then, tonight, while watching the Oscars with my family and some friends, I saw the clips from Ratatouille. Gadzooks. What incredible leaps Pixar has made in nine years. I’m curious now to see if Toy Story 3,... Read more

The problems with the Academy’s Best Foreign Language Film category go way, way deeper than the fact that 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar this year. Robert Koehler, who sometimes writes for Variety, explains why in an informative rant that went up yesterday at FilmJourney.org. Read more

A few days ago, ABC News posted its own story on Jesus, the Spirit of God, the Iranian film and mini-series that tells the story of Jesus from a Muslim point of view. The story is a Q&A; with director Nader Talebzadeh, who reveals that the film is based partly on sources other than the Bible and the Koran: LS: So, when it comes to Jesus, the message and the reverence are there. NT: Yes. LS: But the virgin birth,... Read more

In a long-ish article on recent developments at Universal Studios, Variety lets slip the news that Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass have agreed to make a fourth Bourne movie. But what kind of story could they possibly tell? The whole premise of the series is that “Jason Bourne” is the alias of a rogue secret agent who has no memory of his earlier life — but by the end of the third film, both Bourne and the world at... Read more

Nearly three months ago, I began my review of Juno by charting a progression across three of last year’s films — Waitress, Knocked Up and Juno — in which the protagonists get progressively younger while the characters’ reasons for keeping their babies get increasingly, for lack of a better word, “pro-life”. The protagonist in Waitress barely gives abortion a second’s thought; in Knocked Up, friends and relatives tell the protagonist to get an abortion, but for no explicitly articulated reason,... Read more

No Country for Old Men — the top-grossing film ever produced or directed by the Coen brothers, beating Bad Santa (2003) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) respectively — is the odds-on favorite to win the Oscar for Best Picture this Sunday. So I would just like to note that, for the past few weeks, the Miramax Films ‘For Your Consideration‘ website has been linking to a blog post of mine on that film, under the category ‘Notes on... Read more

Time to play a little catch-up; some of these items are getting old. 1. Cameras have started rolling on The Vintner’s Luck, the film that re-teams Whale Rider (2002) director Niki Caro with her leading lady, Keisha Castle-Hughes. As I mentioned here nine months ago, the new film is based on a book about a decades-long relationship between a winemaking peasant in 19th-century France and an unconventional angel named Xas. Jeremie Renier is playing the winemaker, and Castle-Hughes his wife;... Read more