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. Blood Diamond — CDN $8,354,294 — N.AM $52,618,000 — 15.9%Children of Men — CDN $4,253,476 — N.AM $30,749,000 — 13.8%The Queen — CDN $5,218,143 — N.AM $41,241,000 — 12.7%Pan’s Labyrinth — CDN $1,564,315 — N.AM $16,253,000 — 9.6%Smokin’ Aces — CDN $1,230,774 — N.AM $14,262,000 — 8.6%The Pursuit of Happyness... Read more

The newest issue of BC Christian News is now online, and with it, my film column, which consists mostly of my top ten list for the past year. The paper also includes a print version of my interview with Alex Kendrick, director of Facing the Giants. Read more

Following up on my last post, I got curious about something. When was the last time that no movie at the Academy Awards was nominated in more than six categories? Wikipedia has a page listing all the films that have had ten nominations or more, and I am going to assume that none of those films had more than three redundant nominations — in other words, I am going to assume that all of them had the potential to win... Read more

I spent most of the past four days feeding and changing the babies, so I haven’t had time to read or think all that much about the Oscar nominations that were announced last Tuesday, apart from noticing some of the weird details that everyone else has noticed. For example, how can Children of Men be nominated for “film editing” when the one thing about the film that impresses even its detractors is its constant use of long, unedited shots? Or... Read more

Last year, I noted that no movie since Ordinary People (1980) has won the Academy Award for Best Picture without at least being nominated for Best Film Editing. This year, only two movies have been nominated for both Best Picture and Best Film Editing: Babel and The Departed. Make of that what you will. Read more

I’ve posted a few items here on The Invasion, the latest remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), ever since I first heard about it in July 2005. Now, the Associated Press reports that Nicole Kidman was sent to the hospital today after a car crash that took place while shooting a scene in which her character tries to escape “zombielike characters”. Gadzooks, are they still shooting this movie? The film’s IMDB page, which was apparently last updated October... Read more

Here’s one of the more amusing stories about censorship gone too far, courtesy of the Associated Press: So much for God and country, at least during some in-flight showings of the Oscar-nominated movie “The Queen.” That’s because all mentions of God are bleeped out of a version of the film given to some commercial airlines. Even in these politically correct times, censoring references to God in the film wasn’t a statement of some kind. Rather, it was the mistake of... Read more

Reuters reports that some British Muslims don’t seem to like how their faith and/or ethnicity is portrayed in the media: “There is no such thing as a Muslim good guy,” said Arzu Merali, co-author of a report by the Islamic Human Rights Commission that argued that movies played a crucial role in fostering a crude and exaggerated image. The commission’s study, based on soundings taken from almost 1,250 British Muslims, also found that 62 percent felt the media was “Islamophobic”... Read more

My interview with Alex Kendrick, the director/co-writer/star of Facing the Giants, is now up at BC Christian News; a shorter version will run in the paper that comes out this weekend. And just for the record, I don’t think the film is as bad as some of the reviews south of the border led me to expect. In fact, I am rather impressed with it, on the level of “production values” at any rate, when I consider that it was... Read more