Heads up, Vancouverites. Sunday nights will be movie nights at Granville Chapel this August, and I have been asked to introduce Denys Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal (1989) and to help kick off the discussion afterwards — which I also happened to do last year at Cornerstone’s Flickerings festival. That will be on August 21. Rumour has it the other films may include more recent fare like Hotel Rwanda (2004; my review), The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Passion... Read more

James Doohan, the Vancouver-born actor and former soldier who lost a finger while taking part in the D-Day invasion 61 years ago, but who is most famous for playing Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery Scott on Star Trek (and in one episode of The Next Generation), passed away today. He was 85 years old. Rest in peace, Scotty. Read more

This can’t be serious — but Google currently lists seven different news items to the effect that Drew Barrymore wants to make a sequel to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982; my review), the film that made her famous when she was only six years old: Drew Barrymore and director Steven Spielberg are in talks to make a sequel to Hollywood classic ET. Barrymore is anxious to resume her role as Gertie Elliot, but only if Spielberg, who directed the first film,... Read more

Check out Mark Steyn’s obituary for Ernest Lehman, one of the great Hollywood screenwriters (The Sweet Smell of Success, North by Northwest, etc.). Among his observations: Lehman had his off-days. There’s one small change he made to The Sound of Music that always irks me: in the stage version, Hans the postboy — the guy who’s 17 going on 18 — is a loyal and enthusiastic Nazi but, at the crucial moment, he misleads the party bigshots and thus permits... Read more

My review of The Island — the first Michael Bay action flick to be produced without Jerry Bruckheimer — will be up on Friday. In the meantime, check out this interesting paragraph from The Hollywood Reporter‘s review, by Kirk Honeycutt: What’s troubling from a political point of view is that these filmmakers have, perhaps unwittingly, delivered a film certain to give succor to the religious right. In this ethical horror story, scientists experimenting with human genetics to advance medicine and... Read more

It’s fairly easy to catch up on classic or acclaimed directors like Kubrick and Tarkovsky, because they didn’t make all that many films. But Ingmar Bergman is one of those directors who has churned out so many films over the years — many of them classics in their own right — that you could attend multiple festivals or retrospectives devoted to him and still miss some of his essential works. The Pacific Cinematheque has hosted at least two major Bergman... Read more

Remember Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Seeking Locations in Palestine for The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), the ultra-rare documentary that I was fortunate enough to see (and blog) when it came to the local cinematheque last month? It turns out Ayreen Anastas, a video artist born in Bethlehem who is now a “primary organizer” with the 16 Beaver Group in New York, has produced a follow-up called Pasolini Pa* Palestine, which will be shown at the BJCEM‘s biennial gathering of... Read more

1. Forget the Russell Crowe rumours — following an announcement at Comic-Con this past weekend, it looks like Liam Neeson will be the voice of Aslan after all. 2. Reuters reports that AMC Theatres is refusing to show a documentary called The Aristocrats. I can understand why. I saw it a few weeks ago and “dirty jokes” doesn’t begin to describe what comes out of the stand-up comics’ mouths. 3. The New York Times reports on the rise in religious... 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. Aurore — CDN $1,104,579 — N.AM $1,104,579 — 100%Mr. & Mrs. Smith — CDN $16,640,318 — N.AM $168,092,000 — 9.9%Wedding Crashers — CDN $3,104,407 — N.AM $32,225,000 — 9.6%Madagascar — CDN $17,319,538 — N.AM $183,875,000 — 9.4%Batman Begins — CDN $15,787,825 — N.AM $182,726,000 — 8.6%War of the Worlds —... Read more