By John H. Foote (****) The song “You Oughta Know” begins with the singer spitting out each word venomously. “I want you to know….”, she tells her ex-lover, laying open her broken heart. That song launched Alanis Morissette to the top of the Billboard charts, won her a boatload of Grammys, and established her as…
By John H. Foote (***) Accolades came fast for Jessica Chastain, stardom did not. The beautiful red headed graduate of Julliard struggled for several years before finally landing a plum role in Al Pacino’s filmed adaptation of Salome (2009) as the dancing vixen who demands the head of John the Baptist. She had previously been…
By John H. Foote (***) Shot in a miraculous 11 days during the height of the pandemic, director Antoine Fuqua and actor Jake Gyllenhaal display remarkable artistry and discipline in creating this film. A straight remake of the Danish film of the same name, the major difference is Gyllenhaal, who racks up the intensity to…
By John H. Foote (***) First of all, thank you to the programmers at TIFF for grabbing Dune as a screening work. In doing so, they landed one of the years most anticipated films as they did a couple of years back with Joker (2019) and A Star is Born (2018). Well done, folks!! “This…
By John H. Foote (***) You know those actors you see from film to film, but never bother learning their name? They are strong character actors, sometimes something beneath being a character actor, and every so often they are given a chance to shine bright. That is the case with long time actor Clifton Collins…
By John H. Foote (****) The last great film Jane Campion made was the exquisite The Piano (1993), which made her just the second woman nominated for a Best Director Oscar. The Piano received universal acclaim and was the only challenger as the year’s finest film to Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece Schindler’s List. It has been…
By John H. Foote (****) “Attica was fear …” – former inmate The first time I heard the word “Attica”, it was from Al Pacino as Sonny in the superb Sidney Lumet film Dog Day Afternoon (1975). In the scene, he is grandstanding in front of the bank he and his partner are robbing, as…
By John H. Foote (**) Why did I get the nagging feeling I was watching an after school special? Throughout Dear Evan Hansen, based on the Tony Award winning musical, I had this constant sense I was watching a kids level After School Special with major movie stars sprinkled throughout the film for mainstream appeal.…
By John H. Foote TIFF officially opens today in Toronto, the annual celebration of cinema from around the globe. As always, I am excited to be covering the festival, though for the first time in three decades of attending and writing about the films, I am admitting to some disappointment. For weeks now, as the…
By John H. Foote (****) Watching the crisp, pristine images on the Criterion Collection’s breathtaking The New World (2005), I can appreciate (with limitations) all the fuss about Terrence Malick. He understands the language of the cinema as well as any director at work today. He is known for his ability to tell his story…