movie buzz

Well, I was wrong. I guessed that the new AFI 100 — which was announced over three hours of clips and celebrity gushing last night on CBS — would be substantially the same as the old AFI 100. Boy, was I wrong. Only three films hold their original positions on the list: Citizen Kane (#1), … more…

Time magazine was also at yesterday’s press conference… or was it? All the quotes in this piece up today on Time.com are from the very same press conference I attended. Granted, celebs tend to say pretty much the same things at many of these PR events, but these quotes are precisely the same. But then … more…

Speaking of piracy and Sicko… My Film.com buddy Cargill makes a point I’ve been trying to make for ages: While the big boys spend tons of scratch frisking and wanding film critics who come in to see the film early, hoping this will in some way prevent piracy, films like this keep getting screwed. From … more…

I attended a press conference yesterday with Michael Moore — he was there to promote, of course, his new film, Sicko, and all we journalists were there to listen to him. (The newspaper The Australian had someone there “at New York’s plush Regency Hotel on Park Avenue,” too, it seems, and makes it sound a … more…

A commenter on my review of Knocked Up recently voiced the opinion that film critics are pampered by studios, showered with gifts and opportunities to hang out with movie stars, that that this is why dumb movies get great reviews. Now, I have no doubt that some of the kind of thing is going on … more…

I’m off in a few minutes to see Evan Almighty. Help me, Jeebus! [opens June 22] Tomorrow will be much more interesting. In the afternoon I’ll attend a press conference with Michael Moore about his new film, Sicko. I saw the movie on Friday, and it has instantly leapt to the top of my best-of … more…

I won’t even get to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer until tonight, but obviously the film was not held from all critics, because there are already many reviews available online. Some of them even trash the film. So why did a projectionist in Memphis get fired from his multiplex job for posting … more…

Has it really been ten years since the American Film Institute named the AFI 100, its top 100 films from the first century of filmmaking? It has, and for the 10th anniversary, the AFI is … what? They’re doing a new list? Damn, I haven’t gotten through the first 100 yet! Well, the AFI ain’t … more…

Oh, this is gonna be one of those weeks that reminds me why I love, love, love movies. It may well be that I won’t love every movie I see this week — in fact, I’d be shocked if that turned out to be the case — but I want to love all these movies. … more…

For those of you who don’t understand my complaint that ‘Knocked Up’ is a retrograde nightmare, here’s Richard Corliss in ‘Time’ magazine on the strained conservatism of the film…