Arts Review
The Invention of Lying: Telling the truth, or some of it
By Hiram Lee, October 20, 2009
Comedian Ricky Gervais makes his debut as a writer and director of feature films with a comedy set in a world in which human beings never developed the ability to lie.
Toronto International Film Festival 2009—Part 6
Thoroughly lost, or playing at it
By David Walsh, October 17, 2009
Lars von Trier from Denmark, once associated with the Dogme 95 group, has been making films for some two decades. His latest effort is Antichrist. It is a murky, hopelessly contrived, and, frankly, ri...
Toronto International Film Festival 2009—Part 5
Compassion, vision, genius
By Joanne Laurier, October 14, 2009
The poor throughout the world are neglected and abandoned, increasingly left by the authorities to their own devices. In an imaginative and sensitive fashion, some artists are beginning to concern the...
Toronto International Film Festival 2009—Part 4
More human (and artistic) problems
By David Walsh, October 10, 2009
Where are the extraordinary and captivating film dramas, and comedies, that go to the heart of our time?
Toronto International Film Festival 2009
An interview with Asli Özge, director of Men on the Bridge
By David Walsh, October 10, 2009
Asli Özge is the director of Men on the Bridge, a Turkish film screened at the recent Toronto film festival. We spoke during the festival.
Mercedes Sosa, 1935-2009
By D. Lencho, October 10, 2009
Latin American music lost one of its greatest exponents with the death of Argentinean singer Mercedes Sosa last Sunday. The singer’s career, which spanned over five decades, came to fruition during ...
The sordid coalition pursuing filmmaker Roman Polanski
By David Walsh, October 8, 2009
The effort to vilify film director Roman Polanski and have him extradited to the United States has become the rallying point for a broader campaign against “Hollywood liberals,” intellectuals, art...
Toronto International Film Festival 2009—Part 3
Filmmakers on violence and social tension in the Middle East
By Joanne Laurier, October 7, 2009
The seven-year artistic collaboration between Israeli Yaron Shani and Palestinian Scandar Copti produced one of the Toronto film festival’s most important and courageous films, Ajami.
Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story
By Joanne Laurier and David Walsh, October 6, 2009
Veteran documentary filmmaker Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story sets out to examine the recent financial collapse. His aim, he suggests, is a critique of the existing economic set-up.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired: Laying bare the facts of the 1978 case
By Hiram Lee, October 5, 2009
The 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired exposes the character of the legal proceedings from which Roman Polanski fled in 1978.
Toronto International Film Festival 2009—Part 2
“The Iraq war poisoned the water—you can’t undo that, it’s there forever”
By David Walsh, October 3, 2009
Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein have directed at least three remarkable documentaries about the US invasion of Iraq and its consequences: (Gunner Palace (2004), The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Ki...
“Law & Order” episode makes case for prosecution of Bush administration torturers
By Patrick Martin, October 2, 2009
The season premiere of NBC’s crime drama “Law & Order” was a rarity for American television: an unsparing and essentially honest examination of the crimes being committed by the American governm...
