A Hollywood Reporter article on the recent trend of marketing films to Christians includes this surprising tidbit near the end: Marcos DeMattos, vp at Gener8Xion Entertainment, a new firm which plans to release films that appeal specifically to those audiences, says Christians should be aware of being exploited for studio gain — particularly when Buena Vista also releases considerably more secular adult fare under its Miramax arm. “In Christendom, double-minded endeavors are not well-regarded,” he says. DeMattos sees his company... Read more

I just came across this article from the May 2 USA Today on the upcoming Narnia movie. It prompted a few random thoughts. 1. The film is described as “PG-rated”, but in fact, the film is not yet finished and therefore the MPAA has not yet listed any rating for it. Still, having said that, I expect the filmmakers have aimed for a PG rating, and not a PG-13, just as the makers of the Harry Potter films and the... Read more

C.S. Lewis once said no book was any good to him until he had read it twice, and I often say that this is how I feel about films. Alas, in my line of work, I am frequently called upon to offer opinion after carefully reasoned opinion when I have seen the film under discussion only once, and I must often compose my thoughts within mere days if not hours of that one viewing; and thus, I am often apprehensive... Read more

I can never say his name without feeling like the victim of an “I was born on a pirate ship” style schoolyard prank, but anyway… The Cinematheque is running a retrospective on the films of Maurice Pialat right now, and since he produced only ten feature films and one TV mini-series (plus a handful of short films that are not on view), it shouldn’t be too hard to catch most of his works before this month is over. I knew... Read more

Thanks to Dave Buckna for pointing me to “Dr.” Ted Baehr’s latest missive, this time on the alleged biases and historical inaccuracies of Kingdom of Heaven. Buckna states: It would be interesting to compare the number of historical inaccuracies in “The Kingdom of Heaven” with the number of historical inaccuracies in “The Patriot”. Funny, I don’t recall anyone in the U.S. Christian media writing anything about “Brits Get a Bad Rap in The Patriot.” Buckna then links to this classic... Read more

Four months ago, I noted a Studio Briefing item on the recent boom in Russian movie-ticket sales, which stated: “The most popular film of the year was a sci-fi thriller titled Night Watch, which set a record for a Russian Film, $30 million. The highest-grossing foreign film in Russia was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which took in $14 million.” As a sci-fi buff, I was intrigued to hear of this film — which is... 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. Sin City — CDN $9,116,660 — N.AM $72,209,000 — 12.6%A Lot Like Love — CDN $2,006,601 — N.AM $18,792,000 — 10.7%The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — CDN $3,629,744 — N.AM $35,119,000 — 10.3%The Interpreter — CDN $5,562,310 — N.AM $54,082,000 — 10.3%Sahara — CDN $5,968,285 — N.AM $61,337,000 —... Read more

I got hooked on the Lemony Snicket books while preparing to watch last year’s film (my review), and today my dad pointed something out to me — one possible anagram of “Emily Dickinson” is “Lemony Snickiid”, which is pretty darn close to you-know-what. Interesting, no? He got this idea from Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, in which one character apparently likes to spell things backwards, and thus finds that “Emily Dickinson” becomes “No Snikcidy Lime”. The similarity between that and Lemony... Read more

Apparently the Chronicles of Narnia trailer wasn’t the only one that debuted during the broadcast of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets last night. There was also the trailer for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the middle chapter in J.K. Rowling’s projected seven-part series. It doesn’t reveal all that much, but it does look pretty good, and I like the way it begins by showing how the three main actors have grown up over the course of... Read more

If you didn’t catch the trailer for the upcoming Narnia movie during the ABC broadcast of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets earlier tonight, don’t worry — a French version of the trailer is already online here — oh, wait, now there’s an English version of the trailer here. I am cautiously optimistic about this film, but I have to say the battle scenes look like they might be a little over-the-top for this particular storybook — and keep... Read more