Blogs

In strict dramatic terms, almost nothing occurs in the Dardenne brothers’ The Kid with a Bike. Some characters show a lack of empathy, even cruelty, but there’s more than enough kindness elsewhere to make up for it, and the terrible things you fear might happen simply don’t.

Although it’s set in the present, the characters in Lasse Hallström’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen seem to have been imported from a different time.

I’m pretty sure I ruined the night of a pair teenage boys huddled in the back row of a recent screening of Project X, a party disaster movie targeted at kids who find the Hangover franchise too sophisticated.

Perhaps it’s fitting that talking about I Melt With You means talking about all the things it tries — and fails — to be. The story of a boom-and-bust weekend shared by four reuniting college cronies, I Melt With You is driven by music from its title on

As a general rule in the movies, dysfunction is better offered as a side dish rather than a main course, accenting what’s really a story of grieving and letting go, or coming of age, or self-acceptance.

An executive and an underling are working late in a plushly appointed living room at the start of Love Crime, a twisty French drama about office competition and revenge that’s the final film from director Alain Corneau, who passed away last year.

The notion of a haunted house is almost quaint to those who live in big cities, where there is barely room — literally and spiritually — for their own lives, much less the legacy of those that came before.

Probability, love, and conspiracy: all vastly different elements that came together in ‘The Stag Hunt ’ a film by Alfred Thomas Catalfo.

Cinematographer Thomas Ackerman, who is well known for his work on such movies as "Beetlejuice ", "Jumanji " and "George of the Jungle ", has watched with more than a passing interest the art of photography evolve throughout the years. He believes that it's easy now for those with his skills to be labeled technicians as opposed to being thought of as visual artists and he told the audience at the 2010 Campus Moviefest that "it isn't target acquisition. It is painting with light, shape, color. Creating is beautiful." Believing that capturing images can be taught, he feels responsible for doing just that when teaching his life's work to college students in North Carolina.

One of the new voices speaking out and being heard about "New World" film marketing and distribution business models belongs to Festival Darlings founder Thomas Mai, who will soon be relocating from Brazil and setting up shop in Los Angeles. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to chat with him on Skype about a couple of projects I'm currently working on and the consulting services that he's offering to filmmakers.