Just a few news items to start your week, here … 1. It’s official: the Associated Press reports that, after 18 weeks of declining revenues, 2005 now holds the record for the worst box-office slump since analysts began keeping detailed track of such things; the previous record, of 17 weeks, was set in 1985, the year of Back to the Future. Presumably the fact that six of the top ten films are sequels or remakes has nothing to do with... Read more

In honour of the American Supreme Court’s stupid decision allowing cities to seize private property on behalf of private developers, I am linking to my review of The Castle (1997) — an Australian comedy about another case of “compulsory acquisition” — for ChristianWeek, plus my interview with Michael Caton, the film’s star, for the Vancouver Courier. Read more

Last month, I mentioned I was working on an article about Billy Graham movies, and I said my editors weren’t paying me enough to watch all of them. Well, it looks like I’m doing my obsessive, completist best to watch as many of them as possible anyway! Almost all of the feature films produced during World Wide Pictures’ first quarter-century can be watched online, and I’ve spent the past week watching them and making notes. Here are some brief, brief... Read more

Thanks to upcoming work and family obligations, I don’t know if I’ll have time to catch much more of the Cinematheque‘s Pasolini series; but I did make a point of seeing his Freudian, semi-autobiographical version of Oedipus Rex (1967) last night. The opening and closing scenes take place in the 20th century, but the bulk of the film, which was shot in Morocco, takes place in some sort of transcultural mythic past. The friend with whom I saw the film... Read more

During my student journalism days, I long ago got used to the fact that my interviewees would sometimes joke that I had a perfect name for the job. But until today it had been a while since I heard anybody make such a quip. Well, while looking for one of my online articles just now, I came across this GreenCine Daily page from a couple weeks ago, which links to my interview with Brian Flemming; and after mentioning my name,... Read more

The Pasolini series continues! I don’t know if I’ll have the stamina to catch all the other films that are part of this retrospective, but I figured I should at least see the films he made immediately following The Gospel According to St. Matthew. The sources disagree on when, exactly, Love Meetings was produced, but it seems Pasolini filmed this documentary all over Italy while scouting locations for Matthew and, if the IMDB is to be trusted, released it to... Read more

My review of Herbie: Fully Loaded — the new Lindsay Lohan, um, vehicle — is up at CT Movies today. Before seeing this film, I took it upon myself to attend the preview screening for the new Hilary Duff movie, The Perfect Man, just so I could keep up on the latest developments on both sides of the Duff-Lohan divide. Suffice to say both movies are pretty lame, but the Lohan at least isn’t anywhere near as stupid as the... Read more

The news stories that have caught my eye have been piling up the last few days, so here’s a batch of ’em. 1. Studio executives wonder why they are facing the worst box-office slump in years. The weekend box-office receipts have been down from the equivalent weekends last year for 17 weeks in a row, which ties the record set in 1985; and 2005 is shaping up to be the worst year for movie attendance, which is measured not in... Read more

The Pasolini retrospective continues! Three films — two short, one feature-length — were shown at the Cinematheque last night. First, there was Part One of La Rabbia (1963), Pasolini’s fourth directorial effort and the first half of a larger film that paired his Marxist take on world events with the right-wing views of another director, Giovanni Guareschi. It’s basically a 50-minute collage of newsreel footage that denounces various atrocities committed by the western world, particularly where Africa is concerned; and... 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. C.R.A.Z.Y. — CDN $1,174,331 — N.AM $1,174,331 — 100%The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants — CDN $2,747,950 — N.AM $30,203,000 — 9.1%Mr. & Mrs. Smith — CDN $8,743,094 — N.AM $97,961,000 — 8.9%The Perfect Man — CDN $476,578 — N.AM $5,478,000 — 8.7%Madagascar — CDN $12,785,756 — N.AM $147,195,000 —... Read more