By Richard von Busack
The slightly soggy and obvious Oranges and Sunshine sources Margaret Humphreys’ book Empty Cradles; the director is a debuting Jim Loach, Ken’s son. Whatever its limitations, it tells a story that at …

by Richard von Busack
IN THE operatically pervy The Skin I Live In, Antonio Banderas is clearly a mad doctor. Dr. Robert Ledgard is a wealthy plastic surgeon of Spain’s Toledo, with a sealed-off estate lined …

by Richard von Busack
A COMEDY about nigh-ruinous obsession, The Big Year is one director away from being a great cult film. Yet there’s so much feeling in it, and so much snow, it seems certain …

(above: Last Paradise, Oct 14, 7pm.)
by Richard von Busack
Every year, the Pacific Rim Film Festival provides free films from around the world to the Santa Cruz and Watsonville area. This year 19 countries have provided …

By Richard von Busack
The glib way to sum up Machine Gun Preacher is that it’s a case of too much preaching and not enough machine guns. Marc Forster’s film—as tone-deaf to American culture as …

by Richard von Busack
WHEN YOU HAVE seen something particularly bad, you start to worry about the stars of the film. Think, for instance, how long it’s been since Hugh Jackman got a really good role. …

(above: Charles Bronson in the tv show Man With A Camera; episode “Second Avenue Assassin” plays Oct 6 in San Francisco at the Roxie Theater.)
Old-media magnate and maniac Johnny Legend—archivist, wrestling promoter and rockabilly bastard—is …

by Richard von Busack
THE NEW baseball film Moneyball opens with a Mickey Mantle’s quote: “It’s unbelievable what you don’t know about a game you play every day.” This unorthodox picture is clearly one of the …

And I don’t care. Reputedly the London-based source novel of I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson is witty; in real life, Pearson is married to the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane. This …

SAD, ROMANTIC, elegantly turned, a potential mainstream hit not too differently shaped from Love Story and yet not at all a commercial sellout. One Day, by the ever-rising director Lone Scherfig, is neo-classic filmmaking taking …