“I think this is the most important role of my life,” Angelina Jolie remarked upon playing Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart. Pearl is the famous widow of fellow Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, who was killed by terrorists in Pakistan. Pearl’s heart is mighty indeed, as the clips shown in Jolie’s conversation with film critic Pete Hammond reveal.   She graciously accepted the award presented by renowned actor and director Clint Eastwood. The two praised each other...

 Sunday, September 9---------If one missed them at the Venice Film Festival, the major winners of that Festival on the Lido (announced last evening) are playing here in Toronto. As part of the roundelay that has become the Fall Festival circuit, buyers, programmers and the press can pick up on films they have missed by simply waiting for another turn of the merry-go-round. If not Venice, then Toronto. If not Toronto, then New York. If not New York, then San Sebastian.. So for those who have st...

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A troubled couple on a marraige-salvaging journey through Morocco.  A Mexican housekeeper watching the couple's two small children.  A deaf mute teenaged girl desperate for favorable attention.  These are the towers of "Babel", and all of their foundations are shaken by the shattering piercings of a single bullet. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has a novelist's approach to filmmaking.  His works ("Amores perros", "21 Grams") follow multiple storyli...