So, I didn't do this last week as I went head-down on IFFBoston stuff, and neither heard complaints not saw a really noticeable downtick in hits, but I found myself losing track of what was playing and what I wanted to see. So I'm back at it, just because I need to do so. That last sentence likely describes blogging and writing in general. It looks like a pretty unimpressive week in the

So, I'm sitting down in the front row of the theater, writing something or other while getting ready to watch Diamonds Are Forever on Friday night, and ten or fifteen minutes before the movie, I hear "obsessed lunatic?", and Dave Kornfeld is standing above me. Dave's the head projectionist at the Somerville Theatre, who pulled him out of retirement as they upgraded the theater from second-run to

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films and then check back on Monday for the final figures based on actual box office. If you're sick of all of our box office reporting on the mega-blockbuster Marvel's The Avengers (Walt Disney Pictures) then you probably should stop going to see it so much, because it once again dominated the box office with another $55.1 million to take first place, defeating three new movies all which did disappointing business. The Avengers ' domestic gross is estimated at $457.1 million after three weekends, putting it just behind Star Wars as the sixth-highest grossing movie of all time domestically. Internationally, the film...

BBC Films has announced their upcoming slate at the Cannes Film Festival, and it includes The Golden Lady , a new movie for My Week with Marilyn director Simon Curtis (left), as well as a number of other projects, some already in production and some on the way, including new movies for Saoirse Ronan, Jude Law and Tom Hanks, as well as a new movie starring Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge. Simon Curtis' drama The Golden Lady , written by playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell, takes place in the art world, telling the true story of Maria Altmann, who fought to reclaim paintings by Gustav Klimt that were stolen from her family by the Nazis during World War II. They also announced that Irish actress Saoirse Ronan ( Hanna ) will star in Juliette Towhidi's Testament of Youth , adapting...

by Nick Schager

[This week's "Retro Active" pick is inspired by the star-studded babies-'a-poppin' rom-com What to Expect When You're Expecting.]

Never has a movie made having children seem less appealing than It's Alive, Larry Cohen's terrifying examination of personal and parental anxieties. Cohen's genre gem is unquestionably a horror film, but its mutant-monster terror is its least scary element, not to mention the one Cohen cares least about, a fact made plain from a prolonged introduction sequence in which Lenore (Sharon Farrell) awakens in the middle of the night to inform husband Frank (John Ryan) that the baby is ready to go. That news instigates preparations to depart to the hospital, including getting dressed, packing up clothes, and waking their 11-year-old son Chris (Daniel Holzman) and taking him to stay with friend Charley (William Wellman Jr.), arrangements that Cohen depicts with a laid-back sweetness—be it Frank sticking a cat in slumbering Chris' face, or affecting a jokey Western patois as they drive through the night—that immediately creates intense empathy for this happy family on the brink of further joy. Cohen's fondness for his characters is genuine and infectious, but despite the lack of panic in the air, there's trouble brewing, first spied in Lenore clenching her face in unnatural discomfort, and then at the hospital, when she asks Frank for reassurance that the new child won't make him feel trapped "like the last time."

Continued reading RETRO ACTIVE: It's Alive (1974)...

Remember what I said about writing being habit? Here's another example. I used to regularly write up the fall schedules based on the upfront stories for the Home Theater Forum, but even though I drifted away from that site a couple years ago (I joke that I was shunned after saying I really don't care about lossless audio), I did it last year and felt the itch again this year. So, let's go! As

And the last night, as usual, comes at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, in the big room. We all know what that means - duck!The IFFBoston staff has prizes for you - look out!Apparently, the festival staff did not get rid of all of the previous year's t-shirts a week earlier at opening night. They also had plenty of chips from Utz and fruit bar things from another sponsor that they were determined

by Vadim Rizov

Elena is didactic filmmaking and in interviews, director Andrei Zvyagintsev hasn't been shy in explicitly stating his fundamental criticism of the contemporary Russian underclass. "This is how they will behave," he noted in an interview conducted at the film's Cannes premiere. "At one point we considered calling the film The Invasion of the Barbarians." "They" are the title character's (Nadezhda Markina) son Sergei (Aleksey Rozin) and his family, notably grandson Sasha (Igor Orgutsov), whose grades are so bad he'll end up serving mandatory army time unless the right college officials are bribed. Former nurse Elena wants far wealthier second husband Vladimir (Andrey Smirnov) to provide the money, but he refuses on angry principle, insisting military discipline is just the right education for a directionless young man.

The harshest dialogue's always closest to the director's unambiguous public statements. Vladimir's daughter Katya (Elena Lyadova) is a disappointment ("a goddamned hedonist," father grumbles), but he's still planning to leave her the bulk of his money. Her brusque, cynical affection cheers him up. "We're all bad seeds," she declares in deadpan resignation, declining Vladimir's suggestion to try maternity as a cure for disaffection. "What's irresponsible is producing children you know will be sick or doomed, because their parents are sick or doomed." (This echoes Zvyaginstev's own viewpoint exactly: "It's also a myth that procreation at any cost is a necessity.")

Continued reading FILM OF THE WEEK: Elena...

by Steve Dollar

Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait, whose career as a filmmaker has yielded such dark and excoriating satirical fare as Shakes the Clown and World's Greatest Dad, has been making the festival rounds for months with his latest comedy, God Bless America. The film, newly released, is the director's answer to Natural Born Killers and Network. Joel Murray (Goldthwait's co-star in One Crazy Summer) is Frank, a middle-aged corporate cubicle denizen abandoned by his wife and daughter and left to stew in his bachelor apartment, festering in anger, frustration and failure. One day, his fantasies of violent revenge on a reality show world spill over when he loses his job and is diagnosed with a brain tumor. With nothing left to lose, Frank goes on a rampage—and he reluctantly takes on a co-pilot in death-dealing, Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), a teenaged sympathizer who hates the world perhaps even more zealously than he does.

I caught up with Goldthwait during the South by Southwest film festival in March, where he was premiering the film with its stars. During a chat in the lounge of the Driskill Hotel, the trio talked about their favorite reality TV shows, the death of common decency and Diablo Cody (don't ask, just see the movie).

Continued reading INTERVIEW: Bobcat Goldthwait, Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr...

Ah, the Tuesday of IFFBoston. The "showcase day", when the festival shows two movies that aren't deemed to be opening/closing night material but are worthy of being shown without alternative screenings. During the three previous years, a different venue got this day (the ICA in 2009-2010, with a tendency toward documentaries on the creative process; the Stuart Street Playhouse last year, in

The Monday on the IFFBoston schedule is sort of an in-between day - it's not a big moviegoing night in general, so few of what are expected to be the big premieres are playing (although the demand for El Bulli last year seemed to catch them by surprise). It's a good night to catch up on short programs and maybe a repeat or two from early in the festival, and not have to walk around that second