Coming early 2011.

NEW YORK TIMES: The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and the Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis, above, met on Friday in Springfield, Ill., to tour several historical sites, including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the Lincoln home, the Old State Capitol and the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices, The State Journal-Register reported. Mr. Day-Lewis was preparing for the title role in “Lincoln,” a DreamWorks film to be directed by Steven Spielberg that is scheduled to begin production next fall, according to Kathleen Kennedy, who is producing the film with Mr. Spielberg. The screenplay, by Tony Kushner, who won a Pulitzer […]

127 HOURS (2010, directed by Danny Boyle, 94 minutes, U.K.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Danny Boyle, director of Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting, started directing back in the mid eighties, when all that restless, visual razzle-dazzle was bleeding over from the world of music videos. It has remained the defining element of Boyle’s style, keeping his ideas concise while the camera work is dependably witty and creative. Hitchcock, another British director known for his genius with kinetic movement, gave himself self-imposed limitations to challenge his roving camera in both Rope and Lifeboat, where his story remained bound to a single […]

dir. Federico Fellini, Italy, 1954, 35mm, 108 mins, b/w, Italian w/ English subtitles There has never been a face quite like that of Giulietta Masina. Her husband, the legendary Federico Fellini, directs her as Gelsomina in La strada, the film that launched them both into international stardom. Gelsomina is sold by her mother into the employ of Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a brutal strongman in a traveling circus. When Zampano encounters an old rival in highwire artist II Matto (Richard  Basehart), his fury is provoked to its breaking point. With La strada, Fellini left behind the familiar signposts of Italian neorealism […]

CLIENT 9: THE RISE AND FALL OF ELIOT SPITZER (2010, directed by Alex Gibney, 117 minutes, U.S.) COOL IT! (2010, directed Ondi Timoner, 92 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The last decade has seen art houses flooded with newsy documentaries, presenting the kind of big issue investigative reporting that used to find a home on ABC’s 20/20 or Dateline NBC. Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s been at the forefront of this cycle, with the theatrical releases Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, his examination of military Torture, Taxi to the Dark Side, and this year’s Casino Jack and […]

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST (2009, directed by Daniel Alfredson, 147 minutes Sweden) FOUR LIONS (2009, directed by Chris Morris, 97 minutes, U.K.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I was a little disappointed that the title of this third film from the best selling Stieg Larsson novels was only metaphoric. In the first part, hacker and violent avenger Lisbeth Salander really showed her dragon tattoo and in the second half she actually played with fire (engulfing her abusive daddy in flames). Here, I was hoping for some Wily Coyote-style action where Lisbeth made one of her many attackers […]

STONE (2010, directed by John Curran, 105 minutes, U.S.)   BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC What would it take to rouse Robert DeNiro out of his deep slumber? When did we see last him conscious, maybe the sullen ex-con in 1997’s Jackie Brown, maybe the heist mastermind in 1998’s Ronin? In this past decade it seems that the man who was once America’s most respected actor is most engaged when chasing Ben Stiller around the suburbs in the Meet The Parents franchise. A melancholy autumn of a career indeed.   Stone might have perked him up. It’s a chamber piece, […]

THE SOCIAL: NETWORK (2010, directed by David Fincher, 121 minutes, U.S) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I’ve heard a lot of people discuss this movie in the weeks running up to its release but nobody is using the film’s name. Instead, they’re calling it “The Facebook Movie.” But on its face The Social Network is hardly about Facebook at all; there ‘s precious little “friending” going on, no videos of cute kitties are posted and no one is seen begging for nails to build their barn on Farmville. But interest seems high because with 500 million Facebook users, boy billionaire […]

WALL STREET JOURNAL: The film—which premieres Friday night and will be widely released Oct. 1 by Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures—takes as its narrative framework two lawsuits over the company’s origins. Facebook later settled the cases. On Friday, Mr. Zuckerberg will announce on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that he is donating $100 million to the public schools in Newark, N.J.— his first major act of philanthropy. Facebook’s efforts to combat the film stretch back to the 2009 publication of Ben Mezrich’s book, “The Accidental Billionaires,” upon which the film is based. “Ben Mezrich clearly aspires to be the Jackie Collins or […]