Just time for a few items that came up today; no time yet to catch up on the various other items that have come up lately. 1. The first footage from The Golden Compass is now available here, and it looks pretty good. Indeed, I am excited. And I am also distraught, because I know where this story is leading. 2. The Associated Press picks up on the news that Disney may or may not release Song of the South... 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. Shooter — CDN $1,559,422 — N.AM $14,501,000 — 10.8%300 — CDN $17,297,757 — N.AM $162,354,000 — 10.7%Premonition — CDN $3,312,905 — N.AM $32,191,000 — 10.3%Reign over Me — CDN $820,695 — N.AM $8,000,000 — 10.3%Bridge to Terabithia — CDN $7,671,339 — N.AM $78,881,000 — 9.7%Dead Silence — CDN $1,126,393 —... Read more

Shooter is one of those action movies that is so cynical about the state of the world, it leaves you feeling dirty on your way out of the theatre. The film makes a number of very explicit references to the Iraq War and issues related thereto, and it is not too hard to suppose that director Antoine Fuqua is essentially apologizing for his earlier film Tears of the Sun (2003), which came out at the beginning of the Iraq War... Read more

My review of Pride is now up at CT Movies, as is my review of The Last Mimzy. Read more

Amazing Grace opens in Canada tomorrow, so today the Globe and Mail ran an interview with director Michael Apted: Slim and handsome at 66, Apted is testy about many things, in a game and charming way. He doesn’t like Toronto’s weather. Born in working-class London, he long ago abandoned the cold for California, where he currently heads the Directors Guild of America. In his DGA role, he’s annoyed by runaway Canadian film productions. He’s even more annoyed by U.S. and... Read more

Unless there was a screening for The Hills Have Eyes II — a sequel to last year’s remake of the 1977 original, but not, I hear, a remake of the original 1985 sequel (got that?) — and nobody told me. Read more

Many movies have been made about Jesus and his followers over the years. But I can think of only one Hollywood film that was based on one of his parables … and that film is Richard Thorpe’s The Prodigal (1955), which starred Edmund Purdom as a young Hebrew named Micah and Lana Turner as Samarra, a character described by Turner herself as “the high priestess of Astarte, goddess of the flesh.” I have never actually seen this film, nor has... Read more

CanWest News Service — in a story that appears in the Financial Post, the Vancouver Sun, and probably elsewhere too — picks up on the news that Stephen Frears is in talks to direct The Burial: A controversial U.S. court case that led to one of Canada’s most spectacular corporate collapses of the 1990s is headed for the big screen. The Oscar-nominated director of The Queen is reportedly set to give David-and-Goliath treatment to the story of how a Mississippi... Read more

The Nativity Story came out on DVD today — just in time for the Feast of the Annunciation, which is this coming Sunday — but prospective buyers might want to wait a little longer. CT Movies editor Mark Moring posted an interview with director Catherine Hardwicke and producer Wyck Godfrey today — and along the way, he mentions that New Line Cinema plans “to release a two-disc special edition just before Christmas.” Why am I not surprised? I guess it... Read more

Time for another batch — some new, some catching up. 1. Variety reports that Screen Gems is talking to Stephen Frears, of The Queen fame, about directing The Burial: Story concerns Willie Gary, who was one of 11 children in a family of migrant workers. He became a multimillionaire attorney, fighting for the working man against huge corporations. Pic will focus on a $500 million settlement he won for the owner of a small chain of funeral homes in Mississippi... Read more