Vue Weekly. Global Visions + more.

"Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker David Paperny followed William Sampson's astounding story as soon as it hit the presses," writes Omar Mouallem, introducing his interview with the director of Confessions of an Innocent Man. "Sampson, a Western Canadian with dual British citizenship, was arrested in Saudi Arabia in December of 2000, along with seven other Western expatriates, for two car bombings. Even now, there is zero evidence linking any of them to the explosions, and it's unclear why they were accused and convicted in the first place. What is known, however, is that Sampson endured humiliating physical and psychological torture for almost three years, was sentenced to die by public beheading, and was used as a political pawn between Canada and Saudi Arabia."

And the Vue Weekly reviews over 30 films also screening at the 26th Global Visions Festival, opening today and running through Sunday.

Updated through 11/2.

"Besides straddling the silent and sound eras, Sunrise represents the intermingling of other normally disparate elements: a seamless marriage of German Expressionism with American melodrama, a tour-de-force of technological artistry (gorgeous dissolves, hypnotic travelling shots—especially the famous one through downtown traffic) and a moving display of brilliant film acting from the three leads that's alternately direct and subtly suggestive," writes Josef Braun. "A very special and memorably strange masterpiece from early Hollywood, Sunrise is screening with live accompaniment for electronics, strings and vocals composed by Dave Clarke at Metro Cinema this coming week and I hope you'll take the chance to enjoy it. There'll never be anything else quite like it again."

Also: "The singularity of the elements feeding into Days of Heaven is something made clear time and again on Criterion's new DVD, which in my book is probably the single-best single-disc package of the year."

Manufactured Landscapes "is an almost perfect documentary, expanding on the unspoken undercurrents of [Edward] Burtynsky's work without falling into the didactic trap that the photographer himself cautions against," writes David Berry.

Josef Braun reviews Death at a Funeral: "I actually have a special fondness for really, really dumb jokes. What I'm not fond of is when filmmakers telegraph every one of these dumb jokes far, far in advance of their playing out. Nor am I very fond of movies where there are actually only about four jokes running through the whole goddamned thing and, through mindless cross-cutting, they just get repeated over and over and over and over again. And again."

"Dan in Real Life seems to start off in real life," writes Brian Gibson. "Until Dan and his girls drive far, far away, crossing a bridge to Hollywood Fake-Family Land, nestled near Rustically Charming Small Town."

Update, 11/2: Paul Matwychuk talks with Rory Kennedy about Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.

Posted by dwhudson at November 1, 2007 2:31 PM