In Cinemas: October 7, 2016 — Carbon Arc update, CTV, The Birth of A Nation, The Dressmaker, The Girl On The Train, Middle School

I’m getting to this weekend’s collection of new films a little late due to a very busy week—including Friday morning having shown up on CTV Morning Live to chat with Heidi Petracek about movies in cinemas and opening.

I reviewed The Magnificent Seven, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, Deepwater Horizon, The Girl On The Train, and talked about what was happening at Carbon Arc.

On Friday night Carbon Arc screened The Fits, and next Friday it’ll be the heartbreaking Korean documentary, My Love, Don’t Cross That River. There’s also a screening for Nocturne on Saturday. For more info on Carbon Arc, go here, and for my CTV appearance, check this out.

The Birth of a Nation borrows its title from the brutally racist DW Griffiths epic from 1915. This version is by African American actor, writer, and director Nate Parker, and tells the story of the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831.

The film also arrives under a cloud of controversy around the director’s past; back in1999, Parker and his co-writer on the film, Jean Celestin, were charged with sexual assault. The film was a sensation at Sundance in January, but the reviews since have been mixed. Is the critical backlash a trumped up and racist reaction to an important film about an insurgency, as some have suggested? Or is it a deserving reminder that sexual assault will follow the filmmaker through his work? Either way, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of life the film has. I’ve talked about my call in these matters—I tend to try and separate the work from the artist—but I totally understand and respect those who feel differently. We all have the power to boycott works of art in an effort to redress injustices.

In The Dressmaker, Kate Winslet plays a woman who returns to her small Aussie town after having been exiled as a child. She gets her bloody revenge on her old enemies with a pair of scissors….. Kidding! It’s not that kind of a movie, but I’m excited to see Judy Davis up on the big screen again.

The Girl On The Train might be a big fall movie, aimed at a largely female audience who loved the book. I thought it was a ridiculous melodrama with a few entertaining moments. My full review is here.