Not quite the knock-out that some other cross-over fan films have been, but fun nonetheless. Is there no end to these things?Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly. 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. The Last Kiss — CDN $1,171,955 — N.AM $8,446,291 — 13.9%The Illusionist — CDN $3,503,060 — N.AM $27,592,197 — 12.7%The Black Dahlia — CDN $1,767,999 — N.AM $17,270,675 — 10.2%The Covenant — CDN $1,989,856 — N.AM $20,183,768 — 9.9%All the King’s Men — CDN $350,909 — N.AM $3,672,366 — 9.6%Jet... Read more

The Associated Press reports: Actor and director Mel Gibson visited two Oklahoma towns this week to attend screenings of his new movie, “Apocalypto.” Gibson did not make a public appearance during screenings held at the Riverwind Casino in Goldsby and Cameron University in Lawton. At the entrance of the casino — where the film was shown Friday to a mostly American Indian audience — reporters were kept behind partitions. He arrived at Cameron on Thursday morning wearing a mask and... Read more

Further to my earlier post on Mary in the movies, I would like to focus just a little on the depiction of Mary and Joseph in the two major film adaptations of Lew Wallace’s novel Ben-Hur. As always, click on the images below to see larger versions of them. The 1925 version was made near the end of the silent era, and of its 143-minute running time, it devotes about 15 minutes to the Nativity. After the film establishes the... Read more

You may have heard that Uwe Boll, the infamous director of crappy video-game movies, has challenged his critics to a few rounds in the boxing ring; and you may have heard that he already gave one of these critics a pounding, two weeks ago in Spain. Now the Vancouver Sun reports that Boll — currently in town to shoot Postal — will take on four of his critics today, in a match taking place “between martial arts events at the... Read more

Planning my moviegoing schedule for the Vancouver film festival is tricky at the best of times — like a game of Sudoku in which there is no right answer — but it’s proving trickier than usual this year. For one thing, we have kids now, and I’m not sure how much time I should allocate to coming home and taking them off the wife’s hands. OTOH, this is the last festival before my wife goes back to work and I... Read more

There are several new films opening today, and of the ones I have already seen, my favorite by far would have to be Confetti, a comedy that apparently came out in its native Britain four months ago and has since opened in Australia and Germany, as well. I found the film a pleasant surprise when I saw it a few days ago. The film is an improvised mockumentary — not unlike the films of Christopher Guest — about a wedding... Read more

My review of All the King’s Men is now up at CT Movies. Read more

Yowzah. This is from the latest issue of Variety: It’s back to the classroom for Warner Independent Pictures. Signaling topper Polly Cohen’s first major buy, the specialty arm has snapped up film rights to Tom Perrotta‘s forthcoming book “The Abstinence Teacher,” beating out several other suitors. Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa (“Little Miss Sunshine”) are producing through their Bona Fide Prods. The duo have a longtime relationship with Perrotta, having produced “Election” and the upcoming “Little Children,” both based on... Read more

I only heard about this today, but apparently Eamonn Bowles, the president of Magnolia Pictures, issued a statement on Monday regarding the buzz among evangelicals concerning the documentary Jesus Camp, which his firm is distributing: “We’re frankly surprised and a little disheartened by the efforts of prominent members of the evangelical community to clamp down on JESUS CAMP. Whether or not the children and camp depicted in the film represents the ‘mainstream’ of the Evangelical movement is beside the point:... Read more