Film Fan Fridays for Friday November 19, 2010!

Hello Film Fans and Fanatics!

Welcome to Film Fan Fridays for Friday November 19, 2010! It's quite a week of releases and we have to look a little back and a bit forward to cover all the releases on Thursday, Friday and in preparation for American Thanksgiving - next Wednesday! But the real biggie of the week, and one of the biggies of the year is smack dab in the middle of releases with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. That will make the muggles happy!

In limited release this week we have several choices including the documentary Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer and the romance Till My Heartaches End from the Philippines. Thursday Nov 18, 2010 releases of the week include the fun, informed documentary for all the Star Wars fans out there with The People vs. George Lucas. And last up I may have to check out The Light Thief not just for the acclaim, but also because how often do you have the opportunity to see a Kyrgyzstan co-production?

In wide release this week we have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, which is literally my most anticipated film of the year and I can't wait to see it, and it will be interesting to see how this 'Part 1' of trend goes (Part 2 will be releaed July 15, 2011), and other films have picked up the idea as well (like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn). We also have releases of the Paul Haggis directed The Next Three Days starring Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks and Guzaarish, a Bollywood film for which I'm going to straight-up quote IMDb for the description of "Ethan, a magician rendered paralyzed in an accident, sets off a furor when he makes a petition to the court to end his own life." That's epic.

The wide releases continue next week for American Thanksgiving with Wednesday November 24, 2010 release of Burlesque, a film that features a woman (Cher) runs a Burlesque club, enter small-town girl who wants a chance to make it big (Christina Aguilera). Yeah, I'll be seeing as I'll also be seeing Faster, although with more mixed feelings considering it's a revenge centric film where the trailer strongly focuses on a message of forgiveness (although the visuals say otherwise), either way I know I'll be seeing this flick starring Dwayne Johnson. We also have Love & Other Drugs, a romance/drama with Jake Gyllenhaal & Anne Hathaway and last up is Disney's Tangled, a Rapunzel redux of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of the trapped princess with very long hair.

Have a great weekend!

Shannon

Festival Watch

aluCine
Toronto Latin Media Festival
November 18 - 21, 2010 at various locations in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Breast Fest Film Festival
Film festival dedicated to breast cancer awareness
November 19 - 21, 2010 at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Canadian Labour International Film Festival
November 20 - 28, 2010 at Innis Town Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Ekran
Toronto Polish Film Festival
November 19 - 21, 2010 at The Revue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

European Union Film Festival
November 18 - 30, 2010 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Reel Awareness
Human Rights Film Festival
November 18 - 21, 2010 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Toronto Creole Film Festival
November 19 - 21, 2010 at Jackman Hall at the AGO in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Thursday November 18, 2010 Releases

The Light Thief
Dir: Aktan Arym Kubat (The Adopted Son, The Chimp)
Cast: Aktan Arym Kubat, Taalaikan Abazova, Askat Sulaimanov
France/Kyrgyzstan/Germany/The Netherlands
Limited Release
No Official Film Site or Trailer found, IMDb Page

The People vs. George Lucas
Dir: Alexandre O. Philippe
Documentary
USA/UK
Limited Release
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

Friday November 19, 2010 Releases

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
Writer/Dir: Alex Gibney (Freakonomics, Taxi to the Dark Side)
Documentary
USA
Limited Release
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

Guzaarish
Dir: Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Saawariya, Devdas)
Cast: Aishwarya Rai, Hrithik Roshan
Official Film Site, IMDb Page

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Dir: David Yates (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes
UK/USA
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

The Next Three Days
Writer/Dir: Paul Haggis (In the Valley of Elah, Crash (2004))
Cast: Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson, Brian Dennehy, RZA, Moran Atias, Lennie James
USA
Limited Release
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

Till My Heartaches End
Writer/Dir: Jose Javier Reyes (working Girls, One Night Only, Magkaibigan)
Cast: Kim Chiu, Gerald Anderson, Boots Anson-Roa
Philippines
Limited Release
Official Film Site & Trailer, IMDb Page

Wednesday November 24, 2010 Releases

Burlesque
Writer/Dir: Steve Antin - feature film directorial debut
Cast: Cher, Christina Aguilera, Stanley Tucci, Cam Gigandet, Kristen Bell, Alan Cummings
USA
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

Faster
Dir: George Tillman Jr. (Notorious, Soul Food, Men of Honor)
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Tom Berenger, Carla Gugino, Billy Bob Thorton
USA
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

Love & Other Drugs
Dir: Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai, Glory, Courage Under Fire)
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria
USA
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

Tangled
Dir: Nathan Greno and Byron Howard (Bolt)
Voices: Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Ron Perlman
USA
Official Film Site, IMDb Page, Trailer

**please note this list of releases reflects first run film released in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as of November 24, 2010**