MOVIE REVIEWS (1): THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

Reviews have begun to trickle in for this weekend’s much anticipated The Dark Knight Rises, and some of them are as extravagant in their praise as audiences are expected to be in their spending. In the Hollywood Reporter, Todd McCarthy calls the movie a “blockbuster by any standard. … “[The] Batman trilogy makes everything in […]

RUST AND BONE MAKES STRONG DEBUT AT CANNES

The second day of the Cannes film festival opened with a press screening of yet another strong entry in the 65th annual competition for the top Palme d”Or award, director Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone, starring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts. Closing credits were greeted with sustained applause by the audience. The film, about a […]

HARRY POTTER FINALE PREMIERES IN LONDON

Thousands of Harry Potter fans packed Trafalgar Square in London this evening for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the final installment of the boy wizard series. The red-carpet to-do was broadcast in the U.K. and on the Internet in 3D via Sky 3D. Early trade reviews have been positive […]

EX-VARIETY FILM CRITIC MCCARTHY HEADS FOR HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Suggesting that the new owners of the Hollywood Reporter are committed to reviving the ailing trade publication, it was announced Wednesday that Todd McCarthy, the longtime film critic for Variety, had been brought aboard by the Reporter‘s new editorial director, Janice Min. McCarthy, who was fired by Variety after 31 years as part of a […]

SOFIA COPPOLA’S SOMEWHERE WINS TOP PRIZE AT VENICE FILM FEST

Somewhere, Sofia Coppola’s take on Hollywood celebrity, won the top Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival today (Saturday). The film stars Stephen Dorff as a Hollywood star, whose aimless, dissolute life is lifted when his 12-year-old daughter, played by Elle Fanning, comes to visit. The film received decidedly mixed reviews after its screening […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: BLACK SWAN

Several critics have given Darren Aranofsky’s Black Swan the same sort of ecstatic praise that they bestowed on his The Wrestler two years ago. The film opened the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (to a standing ovation), where The Wrestler won the coveted Golden Lion award when it premiered there in 2008. “Every film festival […]

EX-“VARIETY” CRITIC LANDS ON FEET AT INDIEWIRE

Veteran Variety film critic Todd McCarthy, who was recently laid off by the trade publication after 31 years, has signed with the website IndieWire to create a new blog called Deep Focus. In his first posting he indicated that while he had received “some intriguing proposals” after he was cut loose by Variety, none of […]