Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Review: The spirit of Sarah Bellows, and the trauma of teenage fellows Though the voice-over insists that stories hurt and stories heal, and that if they are repeated very often, they become true, any amount of repetition will not succeed in making Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark seem anything like real. Hurt, it does, heal, I wonder! It’s a horror story, pure and simple, or, rather, neither very pure nor very simple. A 70 year-old mansion has its se...

Hellboy, Review: Unapologetic, ugly, bloody mayhem; who’s complaining? This hell of a film, mutatis mutandis, might have come from either stable, Marvel or DC. As it happens, it owes its genesis to Dark Horse Comics graphic novels and follows on two enterprises helmed by Guillermo del Toro, in 2004 and 2008.  Del Toro was to venture into a third outing too, but that kept simmering on the back burner for a whole decade. Finally, when it saw light of day, the director’s credit ...

By Maria Esteves – March 5, 2018 The 90th Academy Awards hosted by Jimmy Kimmel commenced Sunday, March 4, 2018 at the Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, CA, live telecast on ABC Network and live stream in over 225 countries. Presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S.), the Oscars honored outstanding film achievements of 2017. The Shape of Water is winner of four Oscars including Best Director GUILLERMO DEL TORO and Best Picture. Three Oscars went to Dunkirk includ...

The Shape of Water, Review: Half full, half empty It’s co-written and directed Guillermo del Toro. And here is an excerpt of the synopsis: In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda discover a secret classified experiment. Sounds interesting? Yes. Premise can work on its own? As a sci-fi thriller, yes, but as an allegory and metaphor-packed Guillermo d...

Trollhunters © DreamWorks Animation Annecy is proud to announce a Masterclass event featuring award-winning master storyteller Guillermo del Toro as he reflects on his prolific career leading up to the world’s first glimpse at his latest creation, DreamWorks Trollhunters, debuting later this year.         A Storied Career ...

By Adrienne Papp In a star-studded gala ceremony, the International Press Academy celebrated the distinguished accomplishments of artists in thirty-eight categories last Sunday night at the 18th Annual Satellite™ Awards held at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City.  "12 Years a Slave" received Motion Picture and Director honors, while "Dallas Buyers Club's" Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, and Jared Leto w...

Festival Closing Night Gala Saturday, October 14---The 44th edition of the New York Film Festival is drawing to a close, but not without one more weekend of film excitement and diversity. Saturday sees repeat screenings of two of the Festival's most anticipated and debated films, Sofia Coppola's post-modern take on the French Revolution, MARIE ANTOINETTE, and Emmanuel Bordieu's homo-erotic POISON FRIENDS. Another film having its final screening on Saturday is the Turkish drama CLIMATES by d...

Stephen Frears Friday, September 29---One of the more popular recent additions to the venerable New York Film Festival, which opens its 44th edition this evening, has been the Directors Dialogues series, sponsored again this year by HBO Films. Cinephiles have the rare opportunity to hear from some of the most celebrated directors on the planet in the intimate atmosphere of the Kaplan Penthouse, atop the Lincoln Center arts complex. This year, three directors, with films premiering at the Festi...

Wednesday, September 27----Magical realism meets gothic fairy tale in Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro's most ambitious film yet, PAN'S LABYRINTH, which has been chosen to close the 44th edition of the New York Film Festival . The film mixes surrealistic fantasy with harsh reality in the tale of a young girl who travels with her mother and adoptive father to a rural area in northern Spain during the first years of the repressive Franco regime. To cope with the hardships of everyday life, th...