“Blindness” by Fernando Meirelles

Kim Voynar weighs in on the changes that have been made to the film since its premiere at Cannes this year. The change, according to her, is great. “I’m happy to report that the newly edited version of Blindness is a vast improvement over what we saw at Cannes. Not only did director Fernando Meirelles (who also made one of the best films ever, City of God) remove the irritating and distracting voiceover, but as a result of doing so had to significantly re-cut, and in the process ended up with a much, much better film. He’s tightened it up a lot, particularly a very troublesome bit concerning a major character arc shift for Julianne Moore’s character, The Doctor’s Wife, which was one of the parts I most had trouble with at Cannes. And while the film’s running time is about the same, it now paces much quicker and thus feels like a tauter, shorter film that’s much more engaging.”
 
John Foote, “Julianne Moore is brilliant in the lead role, a smart woman who figures out quickly that her secret is a commodity, but something she can use for a greater good. Mark Ruffalo is solid in the role of her husband and Canadian actor Don McKellar (who wrote the script) is fine as an angry crook who suspects Moore can see. Gael García Bernal is all grasping greed and menace as a one-time bartender who succumbs to a thirst for power on the Third Ward, and Maury Chaykin is frightening as a man born blind who finds a way to make it work for him in all the wrong ways…The film is not an easy one to watch; it is demanding on the audience constantly, but worth the challenge. Hopefully audiences will be up to the task.”

El Chivo, “Good, but not great. Voiceover pops up strangely in a couple of places and it certainly feels like a film that has been re-cut multiple times. If you’ve seen the trailer you know the blind are quarantined and the set up and evolution of their society is my favorite part of the film. Metaphors aplenty here, if you feel like dissecting. I have a soft spot for sci-fi apocalypse themes and enjoyed it well enough. The cast seemed to be having fun, including Gael García Bernal coming in riding on the back of Mark Ruffalo. My TIFF People’s Choice Ballot: 2 out of 4.”

“Me and Orson Welles” by Richard Linklater

 Allan Hunter, “Richard Linklater seems intent on proving himself a director for all seasons. His career now runs the gamut from the boldly experimental to the blandly commercial. Me And Orson Welles marks yet another departure as the versatile auteur creates a sweetly entertaining putting-on-a-show period drama that celebrates a defining moment in the life of American theatre and one of its most iconoclastic stars.”

Patrick Goldstein, “I’m here to say that it’s a blast. Full of wonderful historical detail, it captures Welles at the height of his youthful incandescence, both as a brilliant theater director and as a hilariously imperious and mercurial showman.”

“Miracle at St. Anna” by Spike Lee

Rodrigo Perez, “The films not without a few small problems though. As usual per Lee films, any of the race-issue scenes while probably historically accurate, can’t help but feel forced, pedantic and a little contrived. A few such flashbacks just detract from the already long, 2 1/2 hour-plus film and could have been cut (it’s actually almost 3 hours at 166 minutes).”

Todd McCarthy, “Spike Lee loses the battles and the war in “Miracle at St. Anna,” a clunky, poorly constructed drama designed to spotlight the little-remarked role of black American soldiers in World War II. Clocking in at 160 minutes, this is a sloppy stew in which the ingredients of battle action, murder mystery, little-kid sentiment and history lesson don’t mix well. Nor is it remotely clear who the audience is meant to be; the R rating pretty much rules out younger students, and extensive subtitles will deter action fans, who would be bored anyway.”

John Foote, “Oscars are being predicted for Spike Lee’s latest, “Miracle at St. Anna,” based on James McBride’s best-selling novel about with a black unit of soldiers in Italy during World War II. Now there is much to like in the film, fine direction, strong performances and a plot that twists and turns, never going where we might expect. But there is just as much to dislike, including one of the most intrusive musical scores I have ever had to endure, and some choices by Lee that, while not surprising, are disappointing.”

Peter Sciretta, “The film drags greatly at 166 minutes, and some of the race discrimination scenes seemed forced, out of place, and sometime dispensable (for example one flashback which shows the group being told to leave an Ice Cream parlor), even if they might be historically accurate. The action sequences are both gritty and violent, everything you expect from a post-Private Ryan war film. But it is the smaller character moments which make up Anna’s strength.”

Noel Murray, “St. Anna stabilizes after a damn-near excruciating first hour, and becomes merely a middling war movie with a heightened social consciousness. But for long stretches, the film plays like School Daze transplanted to the European front, with the token militant and the token uplift-the-race type and the token buffoon all marching toward Checkpoint Irony. I can’t remember the last time a filmmaker I revere has produced something so heartbreakingly disappointing.”

“Religulous” by Bill Maher

James Rocchi, “Religulous is full of contradictions — it’s a funny film about some depressing things, it’s a lighthearted tour through terrorism, injustice and intolerance. But those contradiction and challenges are, ultimately, what make the film linger uneasily in your mind, reaching past comedy and confrontation to challenge the audience with a fierce and forceful prayer that there might be no god.”

Karina Longworth, “Maher approaches each subject as if in a sincere attempt to gather information, and then –– both in the room with his verbal mockery and attacks, and on a super-diegetic level with the cutaways and after-the-fact on-screen titles illuminating what Maher’s thinking in the moment –– turns the situation into an opportunity to gather comedy at the unwitting subject’s expense. While Sacha Baron Cohen’s fake reporter was armed with a faux naivete that essentially let him off the hook morally, even when he was been ejected from a building, Maher telegraphs an extremely hostile self-rightousness about what he’s doing. Either way, it’s still a film in which we’re supposed to cheer for the guy handing out sacks of shit.”