Kate Williams, the Australian-born editor frequently associated with Steve Buscemi (Trees Lounge, Interview, Animal Factory) came to Frozen River — first-time feature writer-director Courtney Hunt’s gripping upstate NY drama starring Melissa Leo and Misty Upham — once it was in the can. Read the rest of this entry »

Call Sea World: Sex and the City has jumped the shark. Since the HBO series exited with tears and orgasms in 2004, we’ve all moved on even if Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte haven’t. Read more>>

Given the big wind-up of his festival-opening speech, Robert Redford’s self-congratulatory yet vague notion of change (we all know what it means, don’t make us spell it out), should have been exemplified by the subsequent screening of festival-opener, “In Bruges,” presumably Exhibit A of his agenda. Read more>>

With “Babel” shaping up to be this year’s “Crash” at the Oscars, after acing the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture/Drama, there’s something my inner common sensical American mom (as opposed to the film critic) must address. The global thriller’s extreme tension hinges on characters making radically dumb decisions, one after the next, in America and abroad. more

AWFJ member Thelma Adams sniffs hypocrisy in the making of “Perfume: The Story of A Murderer,” the historical serial killer movie set in 18th century France. As Adams comments on the Huffington Post, director Tom Tykwer starts out “reaching for Steven Spielberg battleground realism” in the film “whopping gag-inducer” opening which visually captures the fetid environment of Paris’ fish market, but presents images of the killer’s female victims– “bulemic, small-busted beauties, all lit like angels”– as thought they belonged on the pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Read the rest of this entry »