tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54862582012-01-27T01:02:40.613-05:00I see a lot of movies, and have an opinion on most of 'em.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.comBlogger11601100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-12190341688258312712012-01-27T01:02:00.001-05:002012-01-27T01:02:40.623-05:00

Huh, I haven't done an Oscar Nominations Reaction Entry in six years. I guess I've been better at handling things I can't control.The nominations have led to a little stuff popping back up at theaters - The Descendants and Hugo return to Fenway. A few other things that received nominations show up in town for the first time: Albert Nobbs, which features Glenn Close as the title character, a

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-80206210717668256412012-01-26T09:47:00.000-05:002012-01-26T09:48:18.424-05:00

This was going to be paired with something else: At first, Red Tails for both having predominately-black casts or A Dangerous Method, which I saw on the same night. But I really said all I had for them in the TWIT entry(*). Then I figured a "first love" pairing with Young Goethe in Love, but my work schedule made that one tough to catch during its one-week booking (and its not going to happen

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-32289575816148508192012-01-24T23:31:00.000-05:002012-01-24T23:34:26.000-05:00

Hey, it's been a while since we've seen China Lion open a film in Boston - Love in Space and My Kingdom back in September. Nobody manned up to get 3D Sex & Zen Extreme Ecstacy, and Magic to Win only played a few cities (5 screens instead of the usual 20-ish). It looks like we're going to miss All's Well Ends Well 2012, which is a shame. I don't know that it looks like a particularly good movie

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-84524535930553379782012-01-23T17:45:00.004-05:002012-01-26T10:00:50.211-05:00

Busy at work all week, but do not take the lack of tickets on Saturday for fear of a little snow. Hardy New Englander here.The snow did have a little effect on my Saturday, as there were only two of us at Japanese class instead of the usual five, and I'm guessing it kept a few people from the Chlotrudis Awards nominating meeting, leading to it running short and being practically over by the time

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-36007243920654010022012-01-21T09:06:00.001-05:002012-01-21T09:09:26.341-05:00

Man, if I would have finished this on the bus ride home yesterday, I could have actually said I was caught up with TWIT. Instead, I went and saw not one, but two movies at Kendall Square last night.Still, the plan is going to be to keep up with this in 2012, even if it means some late Sunday nights. For now, I'm closing out 2011 with this busy page:It's kind of amusing to see Monkey Business

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-51760829692218717252012-01-20T01:32:00.000-05:002012-01-20T01:33:14.653-05:00

So far, January has been a lot of nothing, but it turns out that it's just been waiting to blast us with stuff that is at least interesting from all sides - there's a fair amount that's worth seeing this weekend, and a lot that is trying to convince us it is.I'll admit it: I had a pretty big crush on Gina Carano when she was appearing on the revived American Gladiators a couple years ago, where

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-61646867813191202592012-01-19T23:43:00.002-05:002012-01-19T23:55:23.605-05:00

The program notes for the Brattle's Ginger Rogers tribute, "Backwards and in High Heels", note that even that title doesn't really do her justice. After all, the quotation it comes from (pointing out that yeah, Fred Astaire was great, but Ginger Rogers did everything he did backwards and in high heels) is not actually about her. Rather, it's about women in general, how they often have to work

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-85174215238697513582012-01-16T22:17:00.005-05:002012-01-16T22:26:30.774-05:00

Okay; new plan: This Week In Tickets goes up when I get to the office on Monday morning, because punctuality is cool when you do something on a regular basis.(Note: That sentence was written at 11:10pm Sunday night)(Yes, I know it would have done this a week ago. The calendar just came this week, because I had to buy it at Amazon, because I usually get them at Borders, and everyone else appears

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-80122425626049818412012-01-15T16:13:00.003-05:002012-01-15T21:45:12.703-05:00

3D had a strange, though somewhat predictable, 2011. In many ways, it was not just the continuation but the culmination of the medium's 2010: In that year, studios and exhibitors saw the enormous sums of money that Avatar made, in no small part because 3D both offered a compelling reason not to wait for video and a boost to the ticket price, and learned entirely the wrong lessons: Studios

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-67872238514517192342012-01-13T00:44:00.000-05:002012-01-13T00:45:51.551-05:00

Ah, January. A month of dumping stuff that may be junk, expanding platform releases, and other curiosities.Let's be optimistic and start with the expanding awards hopefuls. I'm surprised that The Weinstein Company's PR firm hasn't been added to my spam filter for all the crap they've been sending me about The Iron Lady over the past few weeks. Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher (and Jim

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-86670635410530434302012-01-11T09:40:00.003-05:002012-01-11T09:45:21.594-05:00

A busy couple of weeks, getting ready for Christmas. Not that I put up lights or anything, but the niece population has doubled, and while they don't necessarily have a lot in common, it turns out that they all like presents.Also, cold makes it hard to get up in the morning.Table of contents:12 December 2011 - 18 December 201119 December 2011 - 25 December 2011Stubless: Saint, seen 18 December

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-392201663805614232012-01-10T00:32:00.001-05:002012-01-10T00:33:50.971-05:00

And so we come to the end of ArtsEmerson's Katharine Hepburn series (see previous entries here, here, and here). It's been a fun ride, seeing these movies in 35mm with pretty deent crowds, and I kind of wish I'd had time to see The African Queen, but December can be madness, and I do have Blu-ray on my shelf...Anyway, I half-jokingly referred to the December leg of this program as "the spinster

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-69269657193634205302012-01-09T14:07:00.001-05:002012-01-09T14:08:51.099-05:00

These two movies have probably been reviewed to death, and there's other stuff to get to if I ever want this blog to be close to caught up, but having reviewed all three Swedish Millennium movies, as well as a metric ton of Sherlock Holmes flicks, well, it would be silly not to give these more than just TWIT capsule treatment.(Note: Seeing that Scott Weinberg is going to be writing Asylum's next

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-27885539312176417832012-01-06T00:42:00.000-05:002012-01-06T00:43:41.564-05:00

A little bit of motion this week than last. Not much, though.The main opening at the multi/megaplexes this week is The Devil Inside, which has a cast of unknowns doing exorcisms. It very nearly slipped in under the radar almost completely, given the near-complete lack of trailers and reviews I've seen for it. It plays in Somerville, Fresh Pond, Fenway, and Boston Common.Two more interesting

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-27626707902333968122012-01-05T23:37:00.001-05:002012-01-05T23:40:23.144-05:00

If I were really clever, I would likely have made The Adventures of Tintin my last movie of the year for 2011, just to say I finished one year and started the next with new Spielberg films. Looking at previous TWIT posts, this pairing is a step up from last year's Phantom of the Paradise and True Grit '10, well ahead of the 2009/2010 pairing of A Single Man and Broken Embraces, and even further

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-81037343331535695062012-01-02T15:49:00.004-05:002012-01-02T16:34:20.125-05:00

A week or two seeing a lot of movies here, a foreign-language class there, and suddenly I find myself ridiculously far behind on the blog. Let's see how quickly it's possible to catch up!Table of contents:24 October 2011 - 30 October 201131 October 2011 - 6 November 20117 November 2011 - 13 November 201114 November 2011 - 20 November 201121 November 2011 - 27 November 201128 November 2011 - 4

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-3112685682273789322012-01-02T00:01:00.000-05:002012-01-02T00:03:18.540-05:00

There's a good entry to be written about the three very specific places where these films take place, but it's been the better part of a month since I saw some of them and would like to get to plowing through a few other things. So let's pretend I did before I start binging on TWIT stuff, okay?Amintiri din epoca de aur (Tales from the Golden Age)* * * (out of four)Seen 3 December 2011 at the

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-48631635326557398522011-12-30T10:37:00.000-05:002011-12-30T10:38:49.904-05:00

There is so little opening/expanding into Boston this coming week that you might as well just read last week's entry. Only the repertory venues have any notable changes:The Brattle Theatre finishes up their "Backwards & in High Heels: A Tribute to Ginger Rogers" series today with a double feature of The Gay Divorcee and Swing Time, two of her more famous collaborations with Fred Astaire.

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-28072386367441365082011-12-26T17:17:00.001-05:002011-12-26T17:18:33.969-05:00

I'd like to say I had something particularly clever and insightful to say about Henri-Georges Clouzot here, but I have to admit - I only went to these two shows, and I didn't spend much time reading up on the filmmaker, his life, and career. It's an interesting one, though, from his apprenticeship in the German film program (part of what led to him being considered too close to the Vichy regime

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-33490508314441578952011-12-21T00:29:00.001-05:002011-12-21T00:30:54.794-05:00

I could do with new movies being released in theaters every two days, although the smaller venues being at half-strength isn't the greatest trade-off.Opening Wednesday 21 December: Three new movies open this Wednesday, although a couple have already gotten a head start. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol has already opened on the premium screens, but on Wednesday it makes it to the standard

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-47111778179555553672011-12-20T22:14:00.001-05:002011-12-20T22:16:29.860-05:00

Every year, I mean to write up reviews of Fantasia screeners I missed; every year, I fall short. There's also a tradition of "Fantasia in December/January - a great way to make the long wait between them seem shorter!" This year, I swear it's going to happen, not just because there have been a couple of cases where I've found good hooks (Ocean Heaven paired semi-logically with 1911; Sint is a

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-6839061854919336982011-12-16T13:25:00.000-05:002011-12-16T13:27:07.820-05:00

Christmas is coming! That means a short week for this column, as it'll pop up early next week to cover the new movies opening on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. It also means that the lines between what opens in the multiplexes and what opens in the boutique houses gets blurred all to heck, with the IMAX guys confusing things a little further as they try to sort of a logjam on the premium

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-84623741283024478272011-12-15T09:50:00.003-05:002011-12-15T09:54:42.680-05:00

I've been taking a Japanese language course for the past few weeks, but I would have been seeing both of these movies anyway. The House of Bamboo preview played before just about every ArtsEmerson screening for a month (right after the one for Adam's Rib), and I don't know how effective it was considered back in 1955, but I found myself lapping it up. Sure, there's a bit of kitsch to it 55

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-52666307934189022942011-12-13T00:26:00.001-05:002011-12-13T00:28:51.742-05:00

I got sent an email offering me a screener of Victim a year or so ago, and because the subject matter sounded like the sort of thing I kind of dig, I asked. Never arrived, and I didn't figure out how to watch it of xfinity's website while it was there. From what scattered reviews I read, it didn't seem like I was missing much.It popped up on a couple of streaming services again a month or so

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-50273753411284658172011-12-11T13:05:00.001-05:002011-12-11T13:06:56.399-05:00

Hopefully the other programs at the Boston Asian-American Film Festival were good; I couldn't commit to the whole festival, but it seems to be run by good people who were able to get filmmakers present for every screening. The films I saw were solid enough, although I don't know if I'd necessarily see either of them without this sort of push.It's kind of a shame, though, that it's sometimes hard

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-45141420653899423652011-12-08T22:53:00.001-05:002011-12-08T22:56:36.712-05:00

New movies this weekend! Doesn't look like they're good new movies, but that just means gives you another chance to see Hugo.The two new movies are New Year's Eve and The Sitter; both come from directors who have been doing a good job of burning through any good reputation they had. Garry Marshall's movie is a sort of follow-up to his last, Valentine's Day. Like that one, New Year's Eve is a

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-76803309354890032172011-12-08T10:05:00.001-05:002011-12-08T10:06:33.545-05:00

This was the second leg of ArtsEmerson's three-month Katharine Hepburn retrospective, and I must admit to enjoying this program of collaborations with Spencer Tracy a bit less than the first set. In her 1930s movies, Hepburn was a force of nature that demanded people either accept her as she is or get out of the way. Even the dizzy dame of Bringing Up Baby or the woman about to marry out of

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-35119690762879069462011-12-06T23:07:00.002-05:002011-12-06T23:11:17.928-05:00

I've been mentioning it in the last couple of Next Week in Tickets entries (as I try to catch up on what's going to be an enormous This Week/Month/Long Time in Tickets), but there is a ridiculously good selection of family-friendly films out right now, and by the end of December we'll get Tintin directed by Steven Spielberg and We Bought a Zoo by Cameron Crowe. So, parents who take their kids to

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-69305125594003548182011-12-02T12:20:00.000-05:002011-12-02T12:22:31.591-05:00

There is so close to nothing coming out this week that we might as well just link back to last week's. But, there's screenings at rep theaters and a few new releases, so let's see what's showing up before just looking at catching up.Some of the "new releases" are more along the lines of "very short runs", comprising just Friday and Saturday. The Brattle, for instance, will feature Tales from

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-78012276075351619582011-11-23T00:45:00.002-05:002011-11-23T00:48:27.886-05:00

Four-day weekend (without Japanese class, even!), two AMC Gold Tickets left on my desk by my employer earlier in the week, memberships and passes for other local theaters at the ready. Let's see what you've got for me, Hollywood!If my nieces lived here instead of in Portland and their parents were the type to brave Friday-after-Thanksgiving crowds to do their Christmas shopping, I would totall

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-65038775283439676392011-11-18T00:54:00.001-05:002011-11-18T00:56:00.861-05:00

Short-ish column this week - not only do new movies open next Wednesday, there aren't really a large number opening, though some are on a bunch of screens.I refer, mainly, to The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1. That, folks, is a lot of punctuation. I could make all the usual jokes, but I've got no actual standing to do so. You know if you're down for this or not; if you are, I count at

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-19120328807836108012011-11-17T20:51:00.001-05:002011-11-17T20:52:30.615-05:00

Yes, I know I just posted a preview-oriented entry yesterday, but IFFBoston had a preview for this one at the Coolidge on Tuesday, and though I don't know exactly when it's coming out, having the word out about it being fantastic seems like a good thing.(When is it coming out, anyway? IMDB says next Wednesday, 23 November 2011, but the local rep theaters don't have it down for then. More

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-5941717638769457342011-11-16T09:34:00.002-05:002011-11-16T09:36:37.848-05:00

There was going to be another preview on this post (or the next), but I missed out on Sunday's ArtsEmerson member screening of The Muppets. Funny thing was, I told other people about it. If I ever find out that I lost my seat to one of those people, I'm going to be kind of annoyed. Not hugely so, since they probably brought little kids, but a little (more at myself than the other person). I

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-82654703963821495762011-11-11T14:40:00.002-05:002011-11-11T14:44:57.216-05:00

This week, I bought membership to both ArtsEmerson's film program and MoviePass; let's see how they're going to get used.I believe J. Edgar is the first time that Clint Eastwood and Leonardo DiCaprio have worked together; it's a biography of the notoriously driven and paranoid head of the FBI. He's certainly got the potential to be a fascinating subject, although Eastwood admittedly isn't on a

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-84695806930978141542011-11-08T22:08:00.000-05:002011-11-08T22:09:38.798-05:00

And so the Chaplin retrospective runs its last shows at the Paramount. Would it be unduly selfish of me to hope for another return to the Boston area, even though they've already played at the Museum of Fine Arts and Somerville Theatre? There's still a few I haven't had a chance to see on the big screen yet and a couple more places that would seem happy to book them.I jest a bit, but seeing

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-60348312298721825462011-11-04T14:25:00.001-05:002011-11-04T14:27:08.215-05:00

No "This Week in Tickets" this week, not for lack of material, but actually for so much seen that I had no time to write. This week looks a little quieter, so I should have time for a double-sized TWIT next week.The movie getting on a lot of screens this weekend is Tower Heist, with Ben Stiller as an apartment concierge scheming to rob the occupant of the penthouse suite, as that guy's Ponzi

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-70188909203264806012011-11-04T11:13:00.001-05:002011-11-04T11:14:54.896-05:00

Well, bummer - by the time I get these two written up, they're good and gone from the Boston area. I knew that was going to be the case with The Big Year, as I wound up seeing it on its last night at the Arlington Capitol (after it had moved there from Somerville), and knew it was likely near the end for The Guard - it opened in Boston in early August, had a pretty good run for a little movie,

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-20950044644982921652011-11-03T12:33:00.001-05:002011-11-03T12:33:52.692-05:00

There were probably only a half-dozen of us in the theater for Saturday's 3D screening of RA. One, although I don't know how much of that is down to interest in the movie, not particularly caring to see it in 3D - especially considering that it only ran that way for the 10pm show, which would have made for a really late night for kids - or the fact that it was snowing outside despite October not

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-85236328678372629762011-10-28T10:39:00.001-05:002011-10-28T10:42:27.494-05:00

It's Halloween weekend! Let's push the big releases down a little bit and see what's off-beat and scary!The Brattle Theatre goes super-old-school with their Silent Screams series this weekend, showing off (mainly) some early and justly famed early horror. Friday night offers up The Golem (with a pre-recorded soundtrack by Frank Black) from 1920 at 8pm and the recent period-style silent

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-65365846973480939162011-10-27T23:05:00.001-05:002011-10-27T23:07:27.459-05:00

10am movies, a really World Series that is pretty exciting despite the lack of Red Sox involvement, and a desire to grill one last time before winter shut that down for good account for a reasonably slow week for me at the cinemas:Plus, I picked up a new laptop on Saturday so as not to use my work machine for everything and got to playing with it. Technically, anything I create on that machine

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-90539506085716317432011-10-27T21:10:00.002-05:002011-10-27T21:11:27.798-05:00

You know what amused me about this movie that is really not funny in an objective sense? The gloves worn by the ringmaster character, as they are the exact sort of gloves worn by Mickey Mouse. They are pure white, have two slits and a button on the back, and seem to give an exaggerated roundness to his hands and fingers. I wish I had a screen capture, because it's not nearly as amusing just

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-60515409763351962622011-10-26T22:34:00.000-05:002011-10-26T22:35:11.166-05:00

This is the second movie I've seen at the Coolidge-hosted "Talk Cinema" series, and as with Eye-Opener and CineCaché flicks, some of what I write about in the review is not insight I've reached unaided. And, as usual, I had a bit of a "hey, don't say anything about the movie before it starts" reaction to Ty Burr's intro. It's not just Burr, of course - every entry in one of these screening

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-55402972970875383192011-10-26T08:50:00.001-05:002011-10-26T08:53:45.655-05:00

Oddly enough, in the week since seeing this, I've seen two separate movies that could potentially be a good thematic pair: Like Crazy, another movie about young people in love, and Unhappy Birthday, another gay-skewing movie from the UK (though horror rather than romance). Unfortunately, this one has felt like it took far too long to write, so... Time to move on.Well, one other thought: I do

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-25317665451998510502011-10-21T15:29:00.000-05:002011-10-21T15:30:34.882-05:00

It's a good thing that I'm not opting to go nuts with the horror movies this October, because Hollywood is really not doing much to help - an unwanted remake a week ago and a quick-turn-around franchise release this week. As much as I normally think Magnolia/Magnet does a good job, I kind of think Tucker & Dale vs Evil might have killed if it had been pushed into a genuine wide release. It's

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-73443002960235471682011-10-21T08:16:00.004-05:002011-11-04T14:25:24.335-05:00

A busy moviegoing week:Did I deliberately miss the bus last Thursday because it's much easier to make it downtown for screenings of Margaret and Love Crime (on their last day in town) when working from home in Cambridge than it is from the office in Burlington? No. But seeing as Thursday has been the usual day on which folks at my company are encouraged to telecommute, it's not a bad

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-18167057167802990382011-10-19T23:26:00.000-05:002011-10-19T23:27:10.752-05:00

I wish I'd thought of it earlier, but next October, I think I'm going to try and do a "screwball-comedy-a-day" thing on eFilmCritic. Either just act like everybody always spends the month of October watching goofy slapstick movies, or push it as "after reading 'goriest deaths' lists on other sites, come to us for a Marx Brothers chaser!"Heh.A couple other things that aren't really part of the

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-18896342134941867972011-10-19T14:39:00.000-05:002011-10-19T14:40:30.613-05:00

A grain of salt with which you may wish to take this review: I missed the first five minutes or so of the movie after miscalculating the length of the one I saw before it in Somerville, mishearing whether a train was C or E, and then needing to take a shuttle bus from Kenmore to Coolidge Corner. In retrospect, the 66 bus might have looked a little better (which is saying something!).So,

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-69312052450278058872011-10-18T21:16:00.001-05:002011-10-18T21:19:11.545-05:00

The Brattle had a quick three-night "Peter and Alice" series, apparently tied into a Harvard Bookstore event that they hosted before this screening. I wish I'd managed to get to the other nights, as Tuesday was Hook and the P.J. Hogan version of Peter Pan (neither of which I've managed to see) and Thursday was the 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland and a 1983 film about Alice Liddel and Lewis

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-70735834937604494762011-10-14T22:22:00.000-05:002011-10-14T22:23:44.651-05:00

Man, you go from a free screening of an American movie from a major studio's boutique arm that has standees in the multiplexes to charging ten bucks for an independent Russian movie from a tiny distributor, and suddenly the crowd goes from a full house to about a dozen of us. A shame, because Silent Souls is pretty good.As per usual with CineCaché reviews, this one contains some insights that I

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-75052619113416945312011-10-13T15:00:00.002-05:002011-10-13T15:08:06.943-05:00

Have I opened one of these with "it's 1980s remake weekend!" yet? It feels like I have, which means that there was another weekend in the last couple years with two noteworthy remakes opening, which is kind of nuts. I'm not as anti-remake as some - I like the idea of classic stories being reinterpreted for new generations in theory, but geez...The remakes are of Footloose and The Thing, and I

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-20268109702040444352011-10-12T18:39:00.001-05:002011-10-12T18:41:09.297-05:00

Since this was a relatively quiet week in which I wrote up a blog post for everything I saw, this is more or less a collection of pointers and excuses for there not being more:No ticket: Ocean Heaven (screener DVD in my living room on 7 October, about 7pm-ish)Quiet week at the movies for a couple of reasons: First, Sunday was Dagny's Birthday (Observed), in which the Seaver clan heads to Maine

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-11762267773061559642011-10-12T08:33:00.000-05:002011-10-12T08:34:20.370-05:00

Janus Films has been shuttling a collection of restored Charlie Chaplin films around the country for about a year and a half now, and ArtsEmerson's Paramount Theater is actually their second time landing in Boston (they were at the Museum of Fine Arts last summer). They'll be playing Saturdays through the end of October, generally pairing a short and a feature as they did last weekend (at least,

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-17430533135085351152011-10-11T09:06:00.000-05:002011-10-11T09:07:18.179-05:00

Has Donnie Yen got a new romantic comedy that can be fit in this category? Yes, but it's not out yet, so we'll stick with these two action stars and their new, less physically intense movies.There's no denying it; the big action heroes are getting older. Jet Li and Jason Statham were the younger guys in the cast of The Expendables, but Li has actually stopped doing certain kinds of martial arts

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-76700482025179635992011-10-07T12:15:00.001-05:002011-10-07T12:16:49.211-05:00

It's a relatively quiet week, with the major releases interesting but not essential, although there is plenty else worth checking out, including one of the best from this year's IFFBoston.The festival alumnus would be Littlerock, which will have a very short run in the Paramount Theater's screening room courtesy of ArtsEmerson. It follows a Japanese girl who winds up hanging around a California

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-69492622523270718522011-10-06T23:01:00.001-05:002011-10-06T23:03:30.852-05:00

Ah, a busy weekend of seeing movies. The week was mostly consumed with watching the end of the Red Sox' kind-of-amazing collapse. Exhausting sports fandom, but I recovered enough to treat myself a little on my birthday weekend:Let me tell you, I did not eat well those days - lots from the concession stand, and the snacks for the 2pm show on Sunday were too filling for me to have much room for

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-68063397340388525022011-10-06T20:22:00.002-05:002011-10-06T20:25:37.764-05:00

I have a hard time talking about Katharine Hepburn movies without relating this story, so bear with me: I saw The Aviator with my brother Matt, and neither of us were really taken with it, though perhaps for different reasons (IIRC, I thought Scorcese was ill-equipped to understand the engineer part of Howard Hughes; he found the stylization annoying). This was part of the conversation we had

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-20468398502229545912011-10-05T11:53:00.000-05:002011-10-05T11:54:22.676-05:00

If I was going to see this, I kind of wish I'd been able to see it as the closing night film of the Boston Film Festival, just to see what sort of gushing introduction about how visionary and brilliant it was the people running that event gave it. Probably better I didn't, though - that sort of thing is funny to imagine, but raises my blood pressure when encountered in person.Bunraku isn't

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-17114957181430400332011-09-29T22:57:00.000-05:002011-09-29T22:58:15.438-05:00

It's my birthday this weekend; let's see what the movies have for me!.(And my niece, and my cousin, who both share the day with me. And Sting, Groucho Marx, Ghandi, and more. 2 October is a legitimately cool day to be born!)It actually looks like a potentially weekend; perhaps the surest bet is Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen in 50/50, in which the former is given that prognosis for

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-53333497043497034242011-09-29T08:27:00.002-05:002011-09-29T08:28:11.940-05:00

It's a little fitting that a Red Sox game (even in rain delay) kept me from doing this right after the review was posted to EFC, it's a sort of payback for turning my back on the team for a couple of hours on Monday - they're going to take my attention right back for the night, then lose in spectacular fashion and give me an early start on missing baseball.Anyway, Martha Marcy May Marlene was the

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-15526340738274532102011-09-27T21:06:00.002-05:002011-09-27T21:11:26.515-05:00

I swear, this is not an "I want to get TWIT done quickly" reaction to falling so far behind before:The company that I work for has been in the process of being acquired for the last what-seems-like-an-insanely-long-time, and last week there were folks from the new home office in Texas in town to get to know us. Which is nice, I guess, although I must admit to not really caring about the

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-29690398531317040522011-09-22T23:23:00.003-05:002011-09-23T08:32:53.944-05:00

So, who would believe me if I said that I totally meant to take a long time getting This Week in Tickets up to date because the stuff at the top makes a really nice segue to the thing showing this week that I want to draw people's attention to? Nobody? You think I'm just behind?Fine, you're right. But we might as well take advantage of it!I refer, of course, to my not-quite-recent-any-more

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-7418979219829829782011-09-22T10:31:00.004-05:002011-09-22T10:52:23.719-05:00

For the thing that I tend to think of as the signature element of this blog, This Week has certainly gotten away from me a few times. When festival time starts up again next year, I'm going to have to figure out how to not let that happen.No film festival knows how to derail a posting schedule like Fantasia:I've written about this in pretty exhausting detail, so let's assume you know the drill:

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-3934123419209868512011-09-21T09:53:00.001-05:002011-09-21T09:53:53.926-05:00

The Talk Cinema series has been going on for a while - a few years at the Coolidge, and I think it was at one of the mainstream multiplexes before that (Fenway, maybe, back when it was a GCC theater). As tempting as some of the things that play there sounded after the fact, I just started going with this series, as its Sunday morning schedule tended to conflict with the much closer (and cheaper!

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-66632836080836407692011-09-15T23:21:00.001-05:002011-09-15T23:23:51.115-05:00

So, tell me - who reads these things even when they're weeks old? I constantly see them on my stats page, but I honestly can't figure why anybody would have any interest in them past Thursday.Once again, the big release this weekend is opening all over the place, both in the multiplexes and some of the independent places. That's often the sign of something set up to be both a critical and

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-62206268363940677962011-09-13T20:28:00.001-05:002011-09-13T20:30:11.117-05:00

I can't say I planned for these two back-to-back; as much as I keep an eye on the special presentations at Boston's smaller venues, I stumbled on each of these films as I was making up last week's Next Week in Tickets and found myself intrigued (so even if I'm not getting the hits on Next Week the way I used to, writing it up is certainly useful to me!).Both had a surprisingly good turnout,

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-26226158578994281852011-09-11T22:37:00.001-05:002011-09-11T22:39:27.330-05:00

Hey, China Lion, it's been a while since I saw you. We're a bunch of prudes in Boston, so even the indie theaters booking 3-D Sex & Zen: Extreme Ecstasy was right out, and I passed on The Beginning of the Great Revival back in June, so it's been almost five months. Good to see you're making up for lost time, with a potential double-feature. Quality-wise, it's fifty-fifty, but at least My

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-39961636220520099022011-09-09T21:37:00.002-05:002011-09-09T21:40:33.433-05:00

Sadly, I only got there once this year, same as last year. This year's milkshake: 70% cacao with orange, which is yummy. My goal for next year is to try and compare at least 20 of the 40. The fun thing about the place is that it's Swiss chocolate in the front, Swiss timepieces in the back, including a bunch of truly awesome grandfather clocks. A part of me wonders if those are the owners'

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-73255887074759224742011-09-08T19:54:00.002-05:002011-09-08T19:59:11.182-05:00

Big festival going on up north in Toronto, where several of the fall's awards contenders will be rolled out. Meanwhile, back here, there's a little bit of that, as well as some stuff that was at IFFBoston, some apparent crap getting shoved into theaters before the good stuff crowds it off the screen, and some programming that is at least interesting.Contagion is the big premiere this weekend,

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-8953501591262210822011-09-07T13:44:00.001-05:002011-09-07T13:44:59.023-05:00

I'm not usually the new-release guy at eFilmCritic; there are other guys who get invited to press screenings and can even get to them because they don't have a day job with potentially late hours out in Burlington (or whatever the local equivalent to Burlington, MA, is). I mostly pick up the stuff that falls through the cracks - indie films that hit Boston before Chicago, or horror movies that

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-20798000819069278932011-09-02T20:48:00.001-05:002011-09-02T20:49:54.914-05:00

Wow... There is an end to this! Not quite here, but Haunters is probably the last non-screener review I'll write from the festival. There's thirteen more I'd like to do, and maybe I'll try, but 55 (or 56, if you want to count Attack the Block) out of seventy movies seen is pretty good for a guy who has a day job. I want to write up Detention, I really do, but that was seven weeks ago. Anyway

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-32113882720448599582011-08-31T10:35:00.001-05:002011-08-31T10:37:24.513-05:00

One movie opens on Wednesday this week, but it opens all over the place, so we might as well get a jump on planning the movie-seeing weekend: That one movie is The Debt, a thriller about a group of young Israelis sent into East Germany in 1966 to capture a fugitive war criminal who still have reason to be haunted by it forty years later. The elder versions of the characters are played by Helen

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-54771614693586077252011-08-30T21:00:00.001-05:002011-08-30T21:02:52.152-05:00

Not a lot of stories to share. Hey, we're rapidly approaching "one month ago"; I think I'm doing pretty good here. Besides, this was a bit of a wrap-up day - after work, I headed to St. Catherine Street to pick up my screeners (a dozen of them, including some I was genuinely worried about not seeing), kind of surprised that I was going there instead of the press room that was set up in the Hall

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-28312012213925497962011-08-29T11:32:00.000-05:002011-08-29T11:33:16.964-05:00

Let me say, I had pretty high hopes for getting much closer to done with Fantasia reviews this weekend; you'd think that with the hurricane and all, I might stay indoors and just grind through them. It turns out that Bas-fonds is a killer to review when there's any chance for distractions at all, and it kicked my butt until I was on the bus this AM. Anyway, this was an interesting set of reiews

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-76993353872464148262011-08-25T17:03:00.001-05:002011-08-25T17:05:08.826-05:00

Hey, I've seen some stuff that is showing up this weekend and can make recommendations on them, just like a real movie critic! Also like a real movie critic, I'm quoted on the back of the DVD/Blu-ray package for Little Big Soldier that came out this week (see? Not by name, but I'm the guy who wrote that for eFilmCritic). Although it's kind of sad that WellGo had to go to a blogging computer

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-42941295439994856562011-08-24T23:17:00.001-05:002011-08-24T23:19:08.651-05:00

We'll wrap this up quick because I've got a self-imposed deadline for a couple things tomorrow and, well, this isn't something I want to linger on. This day was spent in de Seve, watching the off-beat stuff that are de Seve-type movies, and all three of them wound up being weird, with some nice bits, but fundamentally flawed in one way or another. And on top of that, the two director Q&As were

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-58982358044214711462011-08-22T22:44:00.000-05:002011-08-22T22:45:29.034-05:00

Another quick break from Fantasia stuff as I hope to call a tiny bit of attention to another pretty darn good movie playing on one Boston screen through at least Thursday. It's at AMC Boston Common right now (screen 13, digital projection, because they apparently don't do 35mm film there any more - all 19 screens are projecting one digital format or another this week), and if you like good

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-6326864447249421552011-08-22T12:51:00.003-05:002011-08-22T12:54:39.294-05:00

Here's a somewhat rare thing: An entire day spent in on one side of Maisoneuve! Heck, considering that my apartment was on that side of the street, as is the Tim Hortons where I got breakfast and (perhaps) that Altaib where I likely grabbed a slice of pizza that night are all there, it may be literally true! But, before the photographs of directors, let's start with a few shots from the

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-34057247482087207642011-08-19T11:27:00.002-05:002011-08-19T11:29:49.699-05:00

You know, a few months ago, I was groaning at the possibility of 3-D Sex & Zen: Extreme Ecstasy being released in the USA and me thus feeling obligated to review it. Now that its release date has finally arrived, and no Boston venue has been announced (because the AMC that usually plays China Lion's films doesn't do unrated/NC-17 stuff), I'm kind of disappointed. I'm sure part of it is that the

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-46318746528135244832011-08-18T08:33:00.000-05:002011-08-18T08:34:50.362-05:00

Taking a bit of a break from the Fantasia stuff for something that's currently playing Boston (and expands a bit on Friday, grabbing a screen at the Coolidge along with the Kendall) and is worth seeing: À bout portant, which (somewhat to my surprise), appears to actually literally translate to Point Blank, making me wonder what the 1967 adaptation of The Hunter that starred Lee Marvin is called

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-25206491769253500212011-08-15T10:30:00.003-05:002011-08-15T10:35:44.713-05:00

I think I did a better job of avoiding the festival nap this year than most - of the 70-ish movies I saw, Surviving Life: Theory and Practice is probably the only one that I conked out in and thus won't be able to review. It's an example of how the nap can strike at any time, though - I'm not usually tired at seven o'clock, and I'd managed to sleep in after a late night at the Horny House of

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-72038955237389470282011-08-12T14:01:00.001-05:002011-08-12T14:03:03.155-05:00

Been a while since I've done one of these, so if I'm not clear on what's a new release in Boston and what isn't, bear with me. The big opening this week appears to be Final Destination 5, which was a last-minute addition that I didn't see at Fantasia because I figured I'd have to get to the Scotia Bank Cinemas quickly after my last screening of the day, and a midnight film when you have to work

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-15133402945897761102011-08-11T10:57:00.000-05:002011-08-11T10:58:51.245-05:00

It's possible that I could have fit another movie into my third Friday in Montreal - there's a gap of a couple hours between Beyond the Black Rainbow and Rabies - but the scheduling wound up being very tight. Little Deaths was scheduled for 7:30pm and was listed as running an hour and a half, which in theory gives me twenty minutes to get across the street for the 9:20pm show in Hall, but as

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-16850879982681846122011-08-06T22:24:00.000-05:002011-08-06T22:25:24.984-05:00

I should have been taking notes on where/when I ate on various days. I had an hour and a half between knocking off work and my first film of the day, and to be totally frank, on the days I work, which fancy gourmet burger place I ate at did a lot to distinguish the day.Now, if I were ambitious, I'd go through my debit card charges online and try to figure this out. But I suspect the various

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-60133145700942467282011-08-04T13:39:00.000-05:002011-08-04T13:40:20.843-05:00

Weird scheduling day for me: I skedaddled from the sublet-apartment-office a bit early to see El Sol and then had a long gap between it and Burke and Hare, with the 5pm show in de Seve being all-French, the 6:30pm in Hall being the 13 Assassins director's cut (which I'd already seen), and the 7:50pm show in de Seve an awfully good bet to bump up against Burke and Hare, what with the short and

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-2103656743024741262011-08-01T23:57:00.000-05:002011-08-01T23:58:24.127-05:00

First day of the work week (which this Tuesday effectively was for me) is always the toughest, so it worked out well that I was able to work later than expected and have time for dinner before my first show of the evening because I'd already seen 100 Years of Evil, True Legend, Rare Exports, and Kill Me Please. Always appreciated when it works out that way.On the other side of the night, I'd

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-622524361451305872011-07-31T08:49:00.001-05:002011-07-31T08:55:29.552-05:00

This was my last day of genuine vacation before starting to dial in from work on Tuesday, and I opted not to waste it. There's been a thing I've been wanting to do every year I've come here, at least for the past few, but I've always had a devil of a time making it work. This year, though, I finally made it:Exporail!Exporail is a great big railway museum, the sort of thing that requires far too

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-85631069391615392742011-07-30T09:31:00.000-05:002011-07-30T09:32:43.757-05:00

Believe it or not, this two-movie day was a Sunday! I'd seen much of what was playing during the afternoon - Battle Royale, Endhiran, and Detective Dee - and the other presentation was "La Mythologie Hammer + Frankenstein Created Woman", and though I would have totally dug seeing the movie on the big screen, it would come after an hour of panel discussion, which looked to be in French, and since

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-51059805827837371032011-07-28T15:08:00.003-05:002011-07-28T15:12:19.629-05:00

Falling behind with more movies to get to, so here's the photography of guests from Saturday:Victims director David Bryant (l). Very friendly and happily willing to spill details about the making and writing of his movie. So many folks guard their secrets so tightly, it was a welcome change to not only hear someone say "we did this, this, and this" or how character moments not made explicit

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-22288693677326974952011-07-24T16:15:00.001-05:002011-07-25T14:04:18.931-05:00

This is from Friday, I think. Friday was the annual trip to see what's new at Pointe-à-Callière, the awesome archaeological museum down by the old port. This year, it was a temporary exhibit on how wine evolved was introduced to Gallic France. A nifty bit of history, and it's always fun to stop and say, hey, that thing in the glass in front of me is thousands of years old.In keeping with the

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-33482216995415568742011-07-23T10:53:00.004-05:002011-07-23T10:54:16.429-05:00

Funny thing: When I saw the number of films at Fantasia that I would be able to see films without conflicts, but what has wound up happening in several cases is that I'd have days like yesterday, where despite there being five "slots", there were only new films for me to see in three. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it just means that there are a few days like this.(l-r: Actor Michael

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-23778008754183112172011-07-21T12:00:00.001-05:002011-07-22T08:55:57.369-05:00

I think I need to reboot this computer, so no images today. It just would have been You Are Here director Daniel Cockburn anyway, so you'll have to wait a bit for that.Yesterday's story short: Two uninspiring conventional movies, a quick trip to Future Shop to get a decent network cable (I can write at the desk now!), the annual stop at m:brgr, and then two wonderfully odd selections from the "

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-20885952026782697482011-07-20T11:49:00.002-05:002011-07-20T23:31:03.175-05:00

Huh, Photobucket isn't letting me upload right now, and I'm sure as heck not going to get hit with international roaming to upload the pictures directly from my phone. Maybe I'll update that tomorrow.In the meantime, It's worth mentioning that Naoki Hashimoto had one of the more interesting introductions and Q&As so far this festival. Like a lot of the Q&As where nobody involved seemed to be

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-20403352340198854082011-07-19T11:39:00.001-05:002011-07-19T11:39:57.522-05:00

(Update - Yesterday's post now links to a full review of A Lonely Place to Die)Not my greatest day at Fantasia - wrote too late to get to my first screening, lazed around the apartment for a while later, dithered when it came to finding a place to eat. Then went to Hall for a couple of highly-touted films that really didn't deliver, but for different reasons.Both had directors in attendance.

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-5436270298802041852011-07-18T13:56:00.002-05:002011-07-19T10:21:04.624-05:00

I'm hungry, need a haircut, and have movies to see, so not a whole lot of time to talk about walking around the St. Catherine's Street sidewalk fair or getting home and finding to my delight that the Sox-Rays game wasn't over, and I had 5+ innings of baseball to watch - in French!So, pictures:Legend of the Millennium Dragon producer Kazuteru Oshikiri & festival staff.Not visible: The security

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-6304303875239257652011-07-17T10:34:00.001-05:002011-07-17T10:35:56.184-05:00

Yesterday, staying around too long to get stuff written up (and a bit of carelessness) mean I missed the movie I really wanted to see, The Unjust. Superheroes wasn't a bad substitute, but today I'm mostly going to dump some images and get out of here:First up, we have the directors of The Theatre Bizarre:From left to right, that's Karim Hussain, Richard Stanley, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory,

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-43777798752890462992011-07-16T17:16:00.001-05:002011-07-16T17:19:44.874-05:00

All-around great job by me last night: Got my media badge at the last minute (I apologize, everybody who must glance at it, about the terrible self-photography), panicked about not having my phone with me and thus being unable to take pictures during Yoshimasa Ishibashi's appearance for Milocrorze, found it in my pocket afterward, and somehow lost the preview DVD and schedules out of my program

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-87175756758675923662011-07-15T16:44:00.001-05:002011-07-15T16:45:59.775-05:00

Kind of running out of time before the media room at Fantasia closes again, so I'll make this fairly quick: Arrived in Montreal safe and sound despite missing the 7:15am bus and having to get on the 10am, which should have got me there by 5pm but wound up taking an extra hour because of construction between the border and the city (the border itself was a relatively painless experience; Canada

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-66872049517184379932011-07-15T14:06:00.001-05:002011-07-15T14:08:16.154-05:00

Considering all the hype around one movie coming out this week, I feel like this could just be a three word post, but even if I weren't in Montreal, I'd be looking for alternatives, so.Let's get it out of the way: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 is playing everywhere, including all the premium screens that aren't part of educational museums of some sort, and the words has it that

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-78381661477255932002011-07-15T12:51:00.004-05:002011-07-15T12:59:05.278-05:00

So here's the deal: I'm in Montreal, want to write up the stuff I saw last night, have written most of this up already, and the ones I haven't are IMAX featurettes. Let's blow through this quickly, OK?That last week of June looks a lot busier than it actually was; all those individual tickets for NYAFF take up a lot of space and push the ones from the Museum of Science up on the page. As I

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5486258.post-25481201145921465062011-07-15T10:39:00.001-05:002011-07-15T10:40:39.905-05:00

Conservatively, I'd say there were twice as as many people at Seven Chances as there were at Our Hospitality last month. I'm not saying it's going to continue with that sort of geometric or even linear progression, but if it does, then the place will be sold out by the fourth show. Which actually sounds like it has a great chance of happening; though there's only one more on the schedule (

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08878262302237069963noreply@blogger.com0