By John H. Foote (****) Atom Egoyan’s profoundly austere, astounding and ethereal film stunned audiences at the Cannes and Toronto International Film Festivals in 1997, earning prizes going into the fall movie season, drawing attention to its artistry. I first saw the film at TIFF, and was shocked into silence and tears, it hit me…
By John H. Foote (*) Hollywood remakes of foreign language films almost never pan out, there is always something missing. This applies to this film, which played at Sundance, a remake of the Swedish picture Force Majeure (2014), it just never gets off the ground despite game performances from the two leads, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and…
By Alan Hurst For a brief period in the eighties and early nineties Cher was a big movie star. She had earned some credibility and a Golden Globe nomination with the little seen Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), Robert Altman’s screen adaptation of his short-lived Broadway production featuring…
By John H. Foote (****) I have written often about The Godfather Part II (1974) which I consider the finest film I have ever experienced, an American masterpiece. Oddly, I have not yet revisited The Godfather which I will remedy today. “I believe in America”, are the first words we hear in The Godfather, spoken…
By John H. Foote (**) Margot Robbie was the finest thing in the awful Warner Brothers film Suicide Squad (2016) as the kooky, violent, positively insane Harley Quinn, moll to Joker. Robbie absolutely blew everyone off the screen in the film with her wisecracking nutbar out to conquer everyone in her way. Each scene she…
By John H. Foote (BOMB!) In 1967, 20th Century Fox produced a lavish big budget film musical entitled Dr. Dolittle based on the children’s books by Hugh Lofting. How bad this film was, is, I am not sure has ever fully been recognized. Director Richard Fleischer wrote about it in his autobiography, exploring in detail,…
By John H. Foote (****) There is a luminosity to Sarah Polley only a handful of actresses possess. Meryl Streep, obviously, Jessica Lange, Emma Stone, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, and perhaps Margot Robbie posses this light which draws the audience directly to them. Recently I attended a stand-up comedy show in Toronto, my old friend…
By John H. Foote (****) Is it generational that Little Women seems to pop up as a new film version with such frequency? Whatever the reason, the topical issues explored in the fine book by Louisa May Alcott remain as timely today as they were back in the 1860s and in this film are given…
By Nick Maylor In this delightful animated film with a star-studded cast, the title of “Santa” works like it would within inherited monarchy. It is passed down, generation to generation and has done so for centuries. The current Santa is Malcolm (Jim Broadbent). His father Grandsanta (Bill Nighy) is now retired. Malcolm has two sons.…
By John H. Foote (****) Bob Clark’s warm, wonderfully nostalgic film A Christmas Story, has long been a classic, a staple of holiday film watching. The Canadian production, yes, it is a Canadian film, is among the finest films made in this country, an event when all the pieces fell perfectly together to give us…