I lived in Poland for about a year when I was six years old, and I have always made a point of catching whatever Polish films are on offer whenever the film festival comes around, starting with Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy (1993-1994). But I have never made much effort to look into the history of Polish cinema, apart from watching a handful of Kieslowski’s other films, such as Blind Chance (1987), which I saw while doing background research for... Read more

I never did blog the other Maurice Pialat films I saw, so I may as well catch up now. You may recall that the series began with an early film of his that showcased his talent for directing children, which I enjoyed, followed by a couple of mid-career films that focused on illicit sexual behaviour, which I didn’t really get into. That duality continued in the latter part of the series. Soon after producing his first feature film, Pialat produced... 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 $385,540 — N.AM $385,540 — 100%Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith — CDN $26,007,192 — N.AM $308,805,000 — 8.4%Crash — CDN $3,431,785 — N.AM $40,966,000 — 8.4%Monster-in-Law — CDN $5,864,600 — N.AM $70,385,000 — 8.3%Kicking & Screaming — CDN $3,893,502 — N.AM $47,511,000 — 8.2%The... Read more

Just a handful of news links here. 1. Oh, pooh. Looks like Revenge of the Sith went and broke another record by making $300 million in 17 days, thus beating the 18-day record set by Shrek 2 last year. So it just might gross over $400 million in its initial run after all — and if it did, it would be only the fifth film to do so, following 1997’s Titanic, 1999’s The Phantom Menace, 2002’s Spider-Man and 2004’s Shrek... Read more

Today I finally plugged a big huge gap in my film journals. Today I watched The Birth of a Nation (1915), one of the first major hits of American cinema, a milestone in the development of cinematic technique, and the centre of a political and cultural controversy that continues to this day. In a way, it’s amazing I had never gotten around to this film before. I remember looking at a photo from the production of this film many times... Read more

Three more news items. 1. Max Baer Jr., who played Jethro in The Beverly Hillbillies, is upset that Cinderella Man, directed by the guy who played Opie on The Andy Griffith Show, makes his father look like an “ogre” who brags about the men he has killed in the ring, reports the New York Daily News. Says Baer: “That’s a lie. . . . My father cried about what happened to [Baer ring victim] Frankie Campbell. He had nightmares. He... Read more

One of the most intriguing films I have seen in recent years is Los Angeles Plays Itself, Thom Anderson’s nearly three-hour exploration of how films have inadvertently documented the evolution of that city over the past century, and how films have distorted the true history and geography of the city through carelessness, indifference or a yen for conspiracy theories. In anticipation of the film’s return to the Pacific Cinematheque next week, here is the blurb I wrote when I saw... Read more

Three recent items on controversial religious movements (if we can consider the Jedi following “religious” that is…). 1. The New York Times reports that Paramount Pictures just might pull the plug on Mission: Impossible 3, which is supposed to start filming in six weeks, because Tom Cruise has been talking about Scientology (and Katie Holmes) too much during interviews in which he is supposed to be talking about his upcoming Steven Spielberg movie, The War of the Worlds. I’m not... Read more

Just a couple more news bits. 1. The Hollywood Reporter says Woody Allen’s Match Point has a distributor now, and it’s DreamWorks, the studio that scored Allen’s biggest box-office success in years with Small Time Crooks (2000) — his top-grossing directorial effort since Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) — and then let him go after his follow-ups The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), Hollywood Ending (2002), and especially Anything Else (2003) turned out to be among his biggest flops since... Read more