Just a quick note to say that my reviews of Dark Water and March of the Penguins are now up at CT Movies. FWIW, with regard to the latter film, one point I remember thinking of making, but forgot to write down, was that I kind of hope the Penguins DVD will include both the original French soundtrack (which was ridiculously anthropomorphic, by all accounts) as well as the English one (narrated, in a more objective fashion, by Morgan Freeman). Read more

The first Terminator came out in the ’80s, Terminator 2 came out in the ’90s, and Terminator 3 came out in the ’00s — and, as I noted in my review of that last one, each film reflected the unique political and cultural mood of its decade quite well. Now, alas, it looks like whoever owns the sequel rights is going to ruin my one-film-per-decade analysis by rushing a fourth film to production in the next few months — and... Read more

Many thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet for linking to the brand new trailer for The Exorcism of Emily Rose, an upcoming film, based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, about a priest who is tried in court for the death of a woman he tried to exorcise. The true story took place in Bavaria, but the film will probably take place in the United States; any resemblance to recent events in Romania is, presumably, purely coincidental. The film is directed... Read more

The Guardian, in its recent story on the “stealth marketing” of the upcoming Narnia movie — whereby schoolchildren will receive promotional materials for the film in the guise of educational materials — passes on this interesting piece of news: [Walden Media head honchos Cary] Granat and [Michael] Flaherty also had a meeting with deputy prime minister John Prescott, in relation to plans surrounding a biopic, planned for release at the end of 2006, of William Wilberforce (Prescott is, like Wilberforce,... Read more

Two upcoming movies have prompted two new DVD re-issues. Actually, one of them isn’t really new at all. If Amazon is to be trusted — and I’m not sure it is — apparently the 1980s BBC version of The Chronicles of Narnia won’t be coming out in the United States until next Tuesday, though it has been available in Canada for quite some time. True, DVD Empire — to pick just one other online vendor off the top of my... 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. Mr. & Mrs. Smith — CDN $13,880,576 — N.AM $143,584,000 — 9.7%Madagascar — CDN $15,485,054 — N.AM $170,800,000 — 9.1%Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith — CDN $32,022,988 — N.AM $365,496,000 — 8.8%Batman Begins — CDN $12,873,237 — N.AM $151,146,000 — 8.5%George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead... Read more

Alas, my header doesn’t rhyme, but a week or two ago, the stores here had their “half-way to Boxing Day” sales, and this reminded me that we are now half-way through the year and, thus, half-way to that point when I will have to come up with a list of my top ten movies. And the pickings are looking kind of slim, so far. There are a few, and only a few, movies that I consider shoo-ins: Batman BeginsBorn into... Read more

I finally got around to watching the Matrix trilogy (1999-2003) with some friends last night. We watched just the three films — no cartoons, no video-game clips, no bonus features — and I was actually quite pleased to see how consistent they all were on an aesthetic level. Even though the first film was produced independently of the other two, and on a smaller budget, the series as a whole is closer to The Lord of the Rings than, say,... Read more

I gather My Summer of Love has been out in Britain for a while, and might even be on video there now, but it just opened this past weekend in Canada. I caught it at a press screening a week and a half ago — and since I didn’t jot my thoughts down at the time, my memories of it have already faded somewhat since then — but I do remember thinking it was an interesting little flick, at least... Read more

Just another handful of items here… 1. I’ve added some comments to my War of the Worlds post. 2. Elbert Ventura writes on ‘Roger Ebert’s rise to mediocrity‘ in The New Republic. FWIW, one of the major exhibits in his arsenal is Ebert’s review of the Adam Sandler version of The Longest Yard, which is an interesting conversation piece in its own right. 3. Tony Gilroy is going to write the third Bourne movie, reports FilmStew.com; he also wrote The... Read more