That’s my wife’s reaction to the trailer for Serenity, the upcoming big-screen follow-up to the short-lived sci-fi series Firefly. She always liked the fact that space was silent on the TV show, as indeed it is in real life. But apparently it won’t be in the movie. FWIW, she’s a bigger fan of the show than I am, but then, she’s got the Joss Whedon background, via Buffy, whereas I do not. I have refrained from saying anything about this... Read more

Last night, I saw XXX: State of the Union, in which Ice Cube takes Vin Diesel’s place as a criminal with attitude who is recruited almost against his will to become a secret agent (instead of replacing the girls in every movie, as the James Bond series did, this series replaces the agents themselves!). Then, this morning, I saw Crash (the new Paul Haggis film, not the old David Cronenberg one!). These two films have almost nothing in common. But... Read more

Wow, good news! I just got the newest Pacific Cinematheque program, and apparently we are about to be treated to “the most comprehensive retrospective of [Pier Paolo Pasolini’s] work ever presented in Vancouver”! This, of course, will include The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), widely regarded by many as the best film to be based on the gospels so far; even Mel Gibson paid it homage by shooting his own The Passion of the Christ (2004) in the same... Read more

I’m a sucker for films about adult brother-sister relationships, partly because they are so rare. I also happen to like nearly every Mike Leigh film I have seen (especially Secrets & Lies, which is partly about an adult brother-sister relationship!). So it was only natural that one of my favorite films at the Vancouver film festival three years ago would be a Danish comedy (dramedy, perhaps?) called Minor Mishaps, which was written and directed in a Leigh-like manner by Annette... 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. Le Survenant — CDN $340,959 — N.AM $340,959 — 100%Sin City — CDN $8,217,384 — N.AM $67,267,000 — 12.2%Sahara — CDN $4,622,103 — N.AM $48,919,000 — 9.4%A Lot Like Love — CDN $676,265 — N.AM $7,743,000 — 8.7%The Interpreter — CDN $1,983,530 — N.AM $22,809,000 — 8.7%Guess Who — CDN... Read more

Terry Mattingly has an interesting column up now on the question “Should Jews believe Judaism is true?” The column is based on David Klinghoffer’s new, and apparently controversial, book Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History. Mattingly’s column includes this interesting tidbit: What Klinghoffer finds disturbing is that the doctrinal lessons of Passover are incomplete without those taught by Shavuot, a holiday that comes 50 days later. Shavuot recalls the revelation of the Jewish law —... Read more

Jeff Overstreet has seen the trailer for the upcoming Narnia movie, and he reports this bit of unexpected news: The big breaking news concerning this though is that Bryan Cox is NOT going to be the voice of Aslan. Got this straight from the head of Disney voice casting. Cox *was* cast, but then he came in to do the lines and, because he had recently lost 40 pounds, his girth was significantly reduced, and that has affected his famously... Read more

As I mentioned when I posted the link to my review of The Interpreter, I had to get the review done within hours of seeing the film, and I did this while I was a little under the weather, so I didn’t put quite as much thought into it as I might have liked. I do recall thinking, as I neared the end of the review, that I had spent so much time analyzing the performances and other aesthetic points... Read more

My sister once said her favorite movie of all time is Hobson’s Choice (1954). And my own third-favorite movie of all time is an obscure British film called The Family Way (1966), which has never been released on VHS or DVD in North America, despite having a fairly impressive pedigree; it was written by Alfie playwright Bill Naughton and its score, by Paul McCartney, was the first-ever solo Beatle project. What do these movies have in common? Sir John Mills... Read more

Still fighting this really bad cold that hit me a couple days ago. It’s making writing very difficult. I spent some time last night hacking an interview down from well over 3,000 words to something less than half that length, but that sort of task is more methodical than creative, and it doesn’t require too much brainpower. Coming up with new things to say, though — ah, that requires a clear mind, which I currently do not have because it... Read more