Joaquin Phoenix’s Leonard Kraditor lives ensconced in his parents’ worried attention and doesn’t give the impression that his future beyond them is all that secure. When Vinessa Shaw’s Sandra enters, both intuit that they are being set up by their families, but there is a mutual attraction. However, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Michelle bewitches Leonard easily and […]
Hillary Titley
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Director James Gray in real time
James Gray agrees when he is told that a romantic drama, like his film Two Lovers, is a rare breed in mainstream film. On the phone from his office in LA, he explains that the ridiculous behaviours that come with being in love are better suited to comedy than serious drama. So, how did Gray […]
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Movie Review: The Soloist
There is always real sincerity behind the twitchy, sardonic facade of Robert Downey Jr., and that helps sell The Soloist. Downey’s character, LA Times columnist Steve Lopez, writes about and befriends Jamie Foxx’s Nathanial Anthony Ayres Jr., a homeless man with a gift for music. Downey’s sincerity conveys the frustration of assisting someone like Ayres, […]
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Sixty-second cinema
Every spring the Atlantic Filmmakers’ Cooperative rolls out the proverbial red carpet to celebrate its most recent crop of new one-minute filmmakers. Two-thousand-and-nine brings the 10-year anniversary of the One Minute Film scholarship program, and a special screening dedicated to showing off some of the more successful one-minute films. The co-op was initially born in […]
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Duplicity
Julia Roberts, capable as always in light comedy, meets her match in Clive Owen, who usually eyes his female costars with glowering puzzlement, but operates in Duplicity with genuine warmth for Roberts. Tony Gilroy, who wrote and directed the phenomenal Michael Clayton, lightens up and writes and directs this slight spy comedy. The movie is […]
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One Week
Joshua Jackson has always been an amiable and knowing presence and One Week, from writer/director Michael McGowan, cleverly upends his personae by gut-punching his character, Ben Tyler, with a cataclysmic cancer diagnosis and sending him out along the Trans-Canada Highway to find the meaning of it all. One Week is endearingly oh, so Canadian, finding […]
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Neil Gaiman’s glory
Those that are familiar with Neil Gaiman’s fanciful, fairytale, dreamy, literary oeuvre are equally familiar with the various cinematic incarnations of his work. But the most significant is the upcoming Coraline, directed by The Nightmare Before Christmas‘ Henry Selick, followed by 2007’s Stardust by Matthew Vaughn (director of Layer Cake and a producer of Guy […]
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New in Town
Every now and then, deep thoughts make it into the most half-hearted, formulaic ventures. The initial conflict between the two lovers of New In Town, Renée Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr., culminates in a screaming match over the founders of the USA: were they captains of industry or robber barons? Eventually, complex arguments about nation […]
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He’s Just Not That Into You
As if gaining dating advice was tantamount to cracking mathematical code, the women of He’s Just Not That Into You learn to heed the signs of disinterest from the men in their lives and move on to greener pastures. Fair advice, but the ensemble cast never indicates any sense of growth or wisdom in their […]
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Shooting Frost/Nixon
Another big-screen Richard Nixon arrives this week in the form of Frank Langella. He stars in Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, entering the widening canon of cinematic incarnations of the 37th American president. IMDB.com contains an extensive list of Nixon as a character in film and television, portrayals ranging from the earnest—Beau Bridges in the 1995 TV […]
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Savage Grace
[image-4]Published October 16, 2008.Savage GraceDirected by: Directed by Tom Kalin (IFC Films)Reviewing this movie is an exercise in saying “unsettling” in numerous ways. If anything that happens in Savage Grace is accurate, then the tone of the film—at once dream-like and off-putting—is more about being true to the characters than making the audience feel comfortable […]
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Wheaton’s world
If you picked up an Atlantic Film Festival guide this year and perused the selection of Atlantic Shorts programs, you probably saw the name “Jeff Wheaton” a lot. Aside from his own film Construct + Conflict, Wheaton had his name attached to four other Atlantic Shorts as a cinematographer. He is humble and good-natured when […]