(John Hillcoat's adaptation of McCarthy's The Road. Image courtesy of Toronto International Film festival.)
This is the time my worlds entwine or collide outright.
My sports work (almost all of it for the Chicago Sun-Times) has really kicked into high gear. I was at the University of Illinois on Saturday to write and blog on the Illinois high school state championship games. (Here’s a game story and a sidebar.)
The last three years I’ve been writing a web-based column on culture and basketball. Here’s the season debut of that.
I’m also a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. I’m preparing a first ballot for our voting that’s due Friday. As such, I’ve been inundated with Academy screeners to look at and return for a second or third look.
I’m also putting together a list of the ten best this year for Indiewire and the LA Weekly/Village Voice.
On top of that, I’m putting together a comprehensive list of my favorite films, directors, actors and commercially undistributed titles of the decade.
I’m also starting to look at some of the key end of the year, high art titles that are top awards contenders. As soon as I’m cleared to write about them, I’ll offer some ideas on The Lovely Bones, Nine, and hopefully the Clint Eastwood (which screened tonight, but I had a conflict and I won’t see it until next Monday.)
Also, some of the films I wrote about out of festivals are now being issued theatrically, which makes them newly relevant, I hope. Here’s my piece out of Toronto on The Road, John Hillcoat’s adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel.
Also, there’ll be some interviews with some leading French filmmakers and actors coming soon, I promise.
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