Watching movie after movie after movie in sequence throughout this film festival, a thought has occurred to me: Where have the opening credits gone? As recent as ten years ago, the norm was for every movie to have opening credits. When exceptions ...
Today is Wednesday, and it's already possible to start feeling the stirrings of the end. It's like this every year. The festival has its most active and chaotic days early then, on Sunday, settles down to a slow, contented bubble for the first half ...
It's impossible to notice the date and not think back. Thoughts of 9/11 don't linger in my mind the way they did at the film festival in 2002 or 2003, but they're still there. Of all the memories I have of spending time in Toronto, those from 9/11 ...
(Note: I have been asked by several readers to discuss the incident that occurred last week involving Roger Ebert and Lou Lumenick. However, while I was present at the screening and in fact was sitting rather near to Mr. Ebert, I did not personally ...
If you were to ask a random group of Hollywood executives what the greatest problem facing the industry is, three out of four would probably say "piracy." They would cite, chapter and verse, the overinflated numbers being circulated about how much ...
Thoughts on the ramifications of Crash winning Best Picture... (Since everyone else is weighing in on this, I figured, "Why not?" One more fly buzzing around two days-old roadkill won't make a difference.)It amazes me the way fans of Brokeback ...
Two days ago, I wrote about a tenth anniversary. Today, I'll turn the clock back another decade.In my life, there have been two nationally seismic events - world-wide news stories that have been given constant television coverage and that have ...
A walkthrough of where to find favorite features on the new site.
Is anyone still watching television? I suppose people are - ratings are down but not out. In my view, watching television is more of a habit than a form of entertainment. We watch bad shows not because we think they're worthwhile but because they'...
The year's not over yet, but let's pretend. Thanksgiving, with its image of turkeys, is just too good a day to pass up for reflecting on the junk of the past year. Let's reserve late December for remembering what was good about the year gone by (...
It's late at night. The date on the calendar has already switched over. I'm sitting placidly at the computer surfing as I do research on one subject or another. My cat is curled up on my lap, sleeping, and my wife is in the next room, having gone ...
(Contains spoilers for: season five 24, season two Lost, season two House.)With the approach of June, television enters the "summer season." When I was a kid, this was the "rerun season," when everything on TV was a repeat because no one stayed ...
At the risk of sounding like I have my priorities reversed, I'm going to look ahead before looking backward. By "ahead," I'm referring to early 2009 - specifically, where the website is going in the near future. Next month, ReelViews will turn 13 ...
These days, it seems that almost every TV show known to man is available on Region 1 DVD. Even some of the most abysmal excuses for entertainment are showing up. ("T.J. Hooker," anyone?) Oddly, however, four of my favorite TV shows from the mid-to-...
A month or two ago, I wrote something about how I regularly watch four television shows: "24," "NYPD Blue," "Lost," and "Battlestar Galactica." Two of those are no longer running new episodes. "NYPD Blue" has shuffled off the squad room in the sky...
There's a reason I don't review television shows - because I don't watch much TV. Part of it has to do with time constraints. I spend enough time sitting in movie theaters, traveling to and fro, and writing reviews that taking an hour off here and ...
The concept of seeing movies in the wee hours of the morning is nothing new. The James Bond film Goldfinger was such a hot ticket during its initial run that theaters had to stay open 24/7 for about three weeks to keep up with demand. (Of course, ...