Despite more dancing with ex-stars and celebrity duets, the comeback of the dramatic TV series continues. Thank you very much Lost and Grey’s Anatomy. The debut of Jericho on CBS reminded me of a fertile period in the early 1980s when a rash of movies The Day After (1983), Testament (1983) and the particularly terrifying British TV movie Threads (1984), dealt with the subject of a post-nuke world.
So who do you think is nuking us? Iran? North Korea? China? A nut from one of the former Iron Curtain nations? Of course it doesn’t matter to the residents of Jericho. Their immediate plans are to survive.
I also liked Heroes on NBC and Kidnapped, the latter in particular for a chance to see Dana Delaney weekly. Six Degrees wasn’t bad either. I like the fact that so many shows are using the “24″ template and creating shows that build layers of character and story week to week, not self-contained episodic TV.
So what new TV series do you like so far?
Post a comment to let me know.

Just before I left for Toronto, one of the most likable of movie stars passed away, Glenn Ford. We haven’t been able to squeeze the obit into AC Weekly, so I decided to make a blog entry.

Ford Tough
There are only a few movie stars left from the golden age of Hollywood, and one was lost last month with the death of Glenn Ford. Ford was never a superstar, but at the height of his career he was one of the most reliable and versatile actors of his generation. He has such a likable quality. When I heard of his death at ago 90, I didn’t think of a particular film role, but of the many films that used his quiet strength (especially the westerns) and his considerable skills as a light comedian. When a group of cowboys were asked once which Hollywood actor did the best job of representing them, it was not John Wayne they mentioned but Glenn Ford. His notable westerns include Cowboy, The Sheepman, The Fastest Gun Alive, 3:10 To Yuma and the comedy western The Rounders opposite Henry Fonda. He was also known as one of Rita Hayworth’s favorite co-stars including their most famous collaboration Gilda.
Beyond the westerns, he was Ford tough as a cynical cop in The Big Heat, as a schoolteacher who stands up to gang members in The Blackboard Jungle and as an FBI man trying to catch an extortionist in Experiment In Terror.
At the opposite end of the acting spectrum, he was a deft comedian. His comic skills were utilized in one of my favorite Ford films, The Gazebo, opposite Debbie Reynolds and as the Ramon Runyon nice guy gangster Dave “The Dude” in Pocketful of Miracles opposite Bette Davis. The son of a railroad executive, Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford was born in Quebec, Canada, on May 1, 1916. Pictured above, Vic Morrow and Glenn Ford in The Blackboard Jungle. P.S. The guy out of focus in the background is director Paul Mazursky.

After seeing the best of world cinema (and a bit of the worst if truth be told), at the Toronto Film Festival, having to settle back into the routine of standard and sub-standard Hollywood movie fare is not an attractive proposition. Still I plan to go forth this weekend and check out a few of the movies I missed (Black Dahlia, Hollywoodland) and the Jet Li film Fearless.I’m a fan of classic martial arts films so the final one by Jet Li has to be a priority.

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Back from the Toronto Film Festival, I was in that particular fog that comes from driving 630 miles then returning to work 48 hours later. Now that my head has cleared somewhat, here is the final wrap-up of my 2006 Festival experience.
It was not as good as 2005, but last year was my best fest experience in nearly a decade. Still, of the 27 films I viewed, my breakdown is as follows:
Best of the Fest :(3 stars or more) Snow Cake, Indigenes, Volver, Short Bus, A Good Year, For Your Consideration, Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, White Planet, Rescue Dawn.
Enjoyable to acceptable:The Silence, Black Sheep, Catch A Fire, All the King’s Men, Book of Revelations, Renaissance, Death of a President, So Goes the Nation, Breaking and Entering
Big names, but disappointing:The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Babel, Catch A Fire, Bobby, The Fountain
Boring to real stinkers: The Journey of Knud Rasmussem, The Silly Age, Exiled, Last Winter (the worst film I saw).

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The Toronto Film Festival is winding down (at least for me). Twenty-five flicks in the books, with a few more to go. Emilio Estevez has brought his work-in-progress, Bobby, to the Fest. The film looks at the mundane lives a numerous characters at the Ambassador Hotel the day Robert Kennedy was shot. Unfortunately, mundane is the operational work. A bunch of big stars including Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Laurence Fishburne, William H. Macy, Lindsay Lohan, Elijah Wood and Martin Sheen (gotta give some work to the old man now that West Wing is history), interact in a soap opera plot. Without the payoff of the Kennedy assassination there would me no film, but it would have been better if we cared more for the characters before the big finish. However, it does have a few nice moments so perhaps this work-in-progresse can be reworked a bit before its scheduled release in November.

On a brighter note, Snowcake, a small scale drama with comedy that is a co-British/Canadian production, is my favorite film of the festival. Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver are both Oscar worthy in this drama about a man who finds his soul again through a series of unexpected events. Weaver plays an austistic woman who has suffered a devastating loss, but the nature of her condition doesn’t allow her to express it in ways that are acceptable. Rickman’s character, normally not the patient sort, finds a way to comfort her while healing his own soul. His healing also includes a relationship with Weaver’s neighbor, played by Carrie Anne Moss. It is an exquisite small gem, just the type of movie one hopes to discover at a film festival.

Well, I have to sign off now if I want to make it to the Bobby press conference.

Later

Toronto, Ontario—The Toronto International Film Festival has always been a forum for controversial films and this year’s edition is no exception. Knowing that the nature of the film would ignite controversy, the festival tried to downplay Death of a President–a film that images the assassination of President Bush–by listing it as D.O.A.P. in the program guide. The exact nature of the film was not revealed until a few days before the fest began on Sept. 7. The pseudo documentary by British director Gabriel Range presents the scenario that the president was gunned down in Chicago following a speech in October 2007.

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Two days into the Toronto Film Festival and your favorite moviejunkie has experienced pleasure and pain in equal measure. When you are a cinephile, the TIFF is an amazing place to meet and greet with like minded movie mavens. Nowadays, going to the movies during the Hollywood-dominated summer can be near torture. However, the TIFF is a motherlode where rare gems of cinematic artistry can still be excavated successfully. A mix of savvy and just plain dumb luck are required to find those gems from among 360 features from more than 70 countries.

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