Reuters - "As a movie musical,
it's a train wreck." That's how one reviewer greeted
Universal's stage-to-film adaptation of "Mamma Mia!" And that
review was only one of a batch of disastrous notices.
AP - Cries of adulation — and hunger — followed Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean and actor Matt Damon as they toured flood-ravaged Gonaives on Sunday to call attention to widespread suffering in the marooned city.
Reuters - Hollywood is challenging
the hegemony of Apple in digital distribution. A consortium of
major studios -- excluding key Apple ally Walt Disney Co. -- is
teaming up with leading retailers and consumer-electronics
firms to essentially transform the paid download into an
experience akin to buying a DVD. The goal is letting video
purchased at any outlet be played on any device worldwide.
Reuters - Playing like "Juno" junior,
the engagingly irreverent "Lymelife" is a period suburban
rites-of-passage story with a pitch-perfect cast headed by Alec
Baldwin, Timothy Hutton and not one, but two Culkin brothers --
neither of them Macaulay.
Reuters - Bob Weide isn't a guy
who shies away from challenges. He logged five years as an
executive producer and director on the mostly improvisational
HBO comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which means he not only
provided direction on a series that eschewed that intangible
little element known as a script, but he also worked day after
day alongside "Curb" creator-producer-star Larry David and
lived to tell the tale. -- read full article
Reuters - "Burn After Reading," a spy comedy
from Joel and Ethan Coen, narrowly won the weekend box office
derby in North America on Sunday, setting a sales record for
the Oscar-winning filmmakers.
Reuters - "Slumdog Millionaire," a tribute to
Mumbai and a story about a dream, won the top award at the
Toronto Film Festival on Saturday, ending a low-key event where
many studios kept their best movies away. -- read full article
AP - Matt Damon kept his cool as he helped distribute food from a truck that got stuck in the mud in a western Haitian town where Hurricane Ike left hundreds of people homeless and hungry.
Reuters - It's not about Shakespeare and not based
on "King Lear," but fans of the Bard may find traces of both in
a new Bollywood film set in modern-day India.
Reuters - Israeli and Palestinian directors at
the Toronto International Film Festival are looking past the
tanks, checkpoints and bombings to find humanity in everyday
people caught up in the violence.
Reuters - With "Towelhead," the
story of a Lebanese-American girl coping with puberty and older
men, writer/director Alan Ball returns to some of the themes he
explored in 1999's "American Beauty."
