Amazing Grace played the closing gala at the Toronto film festival tonight, and the industry trade papers are divided on the film’s merits. Eddie Cockrell of Variety sort of likes it, and writes: Crisply told and sincerely thesped, “Amazing Grace” is a workmanlike costumer that distills Blighty’s long battle for the abolition of slavery and the personalities behind landmark antislavery legislation into a tidy story of conscience and perseverance. . . . Cautioning at the tail of the closing credit... Read more

Just a note to say I have now posted the full unexpurgated version of my interview with Jesus Camp co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, here. Read more

In anticipation of The Nativity Story, I’ve been going back and re-visiting earlier films about Jesus and Mary and making notes on how Mary, in particular, has been depicted. I might say more about these cinematic portrayals of Mary later, but for now, I just want to focus on one facet of them — namely, her age, or rather, the ages of the actresses who have played her. And I have posted the above image, from Cecil B. DeMille’s The... Read more

There is a new trailer up now for Mel Gibson‘s Apocalypto. Also, the New York Times ran a story a few days ago on the marketing challenges posed by this film, and it offered a few details about the film — such as the name of its protagonist — that were new to me: An action movie set in the dying days of the Maya civilization, the 15th century, “Apocalypto” was made in the Yucatec dialect without a single recognizable... Read more

I haven’t decided yet whether to get those new DVDs with the original versions of the original Star Wars trilogy — but someone named Travis B. just posted some interesting, and very disgruntled, comments about the video quality here. FWIW, the IGN.com reviews here, here, and here also conclude that the new DVDs are “a worthwhile purchase only for folks who love the movies unconditionally, do not own previous versions of the films on DVD, or worry as much about... Read more

Last year, I mentioned that there were two biopics on Antonio Vivaldi in the works — one to be based on a screenplay by Jeffrey Freedman, and the other to be produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s company. (Interestingly, it was once rumoured that the latter film would be directed by Thirteen director Catherine Hardwicke, but she has since moved on to The Nativity Story.) But it seems I completely missed hearing about a third film, Antonio Vivaldi: A... Read more

I don’t normally post pictures of my kids here, but this one is just too cute. I took the kids for a walk in the stroller today, and Elizabeth kept turning around and smiling up at me through the plastic “window” in the back. So I just had to take a photo. Things like this do make me wonder if she oughtta be in pictures. Read more

Apart from the fact that Peter Jackson has a few film projects lined up already — such as The Lovely Bones, which he plans to shoot next year — he may have a new reason not to hop on board MGM’s adaptation of The Hobbit: he has another dragon movie on his plate. The Hollywood Reporter, via Reuters, reports: Peter Jackson is eyeing his next fantasy series. The filmmaker has optioned “Temeraire,” a historical fantasy series by first-time novelist Naomi... Read more

Yesterday’s Variety on the success of Bon Cop, Bad Cop: The Montreal-shot bilingual action-comedy “Bon Cop Bad Cop” has become the second highest-grossing Quebec-made pic ever in its home province, with a box office haul of C$8.7 million ($7.8 million) after six weeks in Quebec cinemas. It just passed 2003 comedy “Seducing Dr. Lewis,” which grossed $7.5 million, and now trails only 2002 period drama “Seraphin: Heart of Stone,” the all-time local B.O. champ with ticket sales of $8.6 million.... Read more