Seeing movies in Canada sometimes has its privileges. True, we were stuck with the digitally-censored American version of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), rather than the original European version. On the other hand, when Louis Malle’s Damage (1992) had to be recut so that it could get an R rating south of the border, we got the uncut NC-17 version up here, and some people even came up from Seattle to see the film here in Vancouver. Now, the... Read more

I caught 49 Up — the latest in the series of films that Michael Apted has shot every seven years since the 1960s, documenting the lives of a dozen Britons — at the Cinematheque a few nights ago. The only other film in this series that I have seen is 28 Up (1985), and since it does not appear in the film journals that I have kept since 1989, I can only assume I saw it even earlier than that... Read more

Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons and the proud parent of a newborn baby girl — he already has two sons — says he fears he is “slip-sliding into full-blown fuddyhood”: When Matthew was born in 1999, I remember spending a cold Saturday afternoon that fall nesting in the basement living room of our Brooklyn apartment with the newborn baby. The Scorsese film “Goodfellas” came on cable, and I was excited; I hadn’t seen it since it had been released... 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. Trailer Park Boys: The Movie — CDN $3,021,892 — N.AM $3,021,892 — 100%Marie Antoinette — CDN $716,387 — N.AM $5,300,000 — 13.5%The Prestige — CDN $1,530,394 — N.AM $14,818,000 — 10.3%The Departed — CDN $7,533,700 — N.AM $77,148,000 — 9.8%Open Season — CDN $6,470,518 — N.AM $69,602,000 — 9.3%Man of... Read more

I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) on the big screen for the first time in ages tonight, and loved it. I could say lots about this film, but most of it’s already been said, by others and by me. One thing did leap out at me, though, which had never occurred to me before. And that is the parallel between the opening sequence, in which Indiana Jones prepares to replace an idol with a bag of sand, and... Read more

Just one more teeny tiny footnote regarding The Little Mermaid (1989). You may recall that this film is mentioned in Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code — though not in Ron Howard’s film adaptation thereof. As I wrote in one of my reviews of that film: One of the amusing things about the book is how shamelessly it throws together every bit of “evidence” it can muster—from classic paintings to Disney cartoons—to convince the reader the world is full... Read more

Reuters reports that Lights in the Dusk — the concluding chapter in Aki Kaurismäki’s “Finnish trilogy”, “unemployment trilogy“, or “loser trilogy”, depending on who you talk to — may or may not be a contender for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was, in fact, submitted by Finland as the nation’s official entry, but Kaurismäki nixed that, saying that he had not given his approval to the submission, and now the Academy has begun “a dialogue” to... Read more

My review of Flicka is now up at CT Movies. That’s me below at the junket, which took place last week on the farm where the film was shot, just outside Los Angeles. That photo was taken by David Bruce of Hollywood Jesus, who always seems to be fiddling with a camera when I take his picture: Read more

Just a reminder to my fellow Vancouverites (and anyone who might be visiting our fair city) that the VanCity Theatre on Seymour & Davie — only four blocks from my apartment, whee! — is showing a brand new 25th-anniversary print of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) this coming week, and for some reason they’re putting it on a double-bill with Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). Read more

Variety reports that Randall Wallace — screenwriter of Braveheart (1995; my comments) and Pearl Harbor (2001; my review), and director of The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) and We Were Soldiers (2002; my article) — has been tapped to write the script for Atlas Shrugged starring Angelina Jolie. And why did he take the gig? Writer-director Randall Wallace wasn’t about to shrug off the chance to adapt Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” for the bigscreen. . . . Wallace, who... Read more