During production of “Dolphin Tale 2” at Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida, the nonprofit facility operated 24/7 to rescue, rehab and release injured sea creatures, including dolphins and turtles.The center was open to the public only on weekends, but during the first week of shooting, the aquarium made an exception, and production shut down for a special visitor: a gravely ill girl from Sweden who had flown in to see Winter, star of the 2011 film “Dolphin Tale.” The Atlantic bottlenose dolp

OTTAWA (AFP) ― “The Imitation Game,” a biopic of British code-breaker Alan Turing starring Benedict Cumberbatch, won the Toronto film festivals top prize Sunday, confirming its status as an early Oscars contender.Morten Tyldum’s World War II-era drama also stars Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode and Allen Leech of the hit television series “Downton Abbey,” and features a rare German Enigma code machine from the war.“There was something very subtle, uncompromising and unusual about (Turing) but also

The lively, playful, self-aware musical “God Help the Girl” has such a will-o’-the-wisp quality you fear it will disappear if you attempt to fence it. Writer-director Stuart Murdoch called it “our little hymn to the possibility of healing in music” when he introduced the film at Sundance, and that’s about as close as you’re going to get.Murdoch, the lead singer and songwriter of Scottish band Belle & Sebastian, also wrote the film’s supremely melodic score as a stand-alone pop opera and nurtured

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (U.S.)Opened Sept. 11Crime, Thriller. Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller“Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,” based on codirector Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name, is a sequel to the 2005 film “Sin City.” The film combines five crime stories from the novel set in the fictional Sin City, beginning with that of Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a fearless gambler, who arrives in the city, faces the villainous Senator Roarke (Powers Boothe) and plays a hi

TORONTO (AP) ― In the Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything,” two college girls rush into a ’60s-era Cambridge party before the sight of the attendees stops them in their tracks. “Oh, dear. Scientists.” So could the reaction be confronting this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where two of the most lauded and talked-about films are portraits of elite mathematical minds, curtesy of Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne. In “The Theory of Everything,” Redmayne plays theoret

TORONTO (AP) ― Introducing one of Al Pacino’s two films at the Toronto Film Festival, artistic director Cameron Baily remarked that perhaps an “Al Pacino Day” was in order, just as it had been for Bill Murray. At 74, Pacino debuted his latest batch of work at the festival, both films that find him exploring the regrets, ambitions and ruts of old age. In David Gordon Green’s “Manglehorn,” he plays a lonely Texas locksmith, mourning a bygone romance despite the interest of a friendly bank teller (

Director Roy Andersson poses for photographers with his Golden Lion for Best Film for his movie A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence following the awards ceremony of the 71th edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, Saturday (AP-Yonhap News)VENICE, Italy (AP) _ Swedish director Roy Andersson won the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion on Saturday for his absurdist drama “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence.” That counts as a feel-good ending to a contest whos

At a notoriously schmoozy West Hollywood lunch spot, former “Desperate Housewife” Eva Longoria pays far more attention to the soft-spoken busboy than any of the nipped and tucked Hollywood types vying for her attention.“Mi amor!” she greets the slight Latino man as he approaches her table with a coffee refill. He converses with her in Spanish as if the two have known each other for ages. “How is the family?” she asks. “Your son is going to UCLA now? Felicidades!”After he leaves, Longoria beams.

Lucy (France)Opened Sept. 3SF, Action. Directed by Luc BessonTwenty-five-year-old Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) lives an ordinary life in Taiwan before she is abducted by Mr. Jang (Choi Min-sik), a brutal drug lord of the town. She is forced to serve as a drug mule to smuggle a synthetic drug called CPH4 to Europe by having it sewn into her abdomen. But the drug pouch accidently breaks inside her body, mysteriously giving her superhuman powers, including telepathy, psychokinesis and the ability to e

Artist Rirkrit Tiravanija’s installation ‘Demo Station No. 5’ becomes an interactive cultural stage at Leeum

EIDF judges and filmmaker share their food for thought on documentaries

VENICE, Italy (AP) ― Al Pacino made two trips up the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, with a pair of movies about aging, regret, giving up and letting go. But fear not ― the actor says he’s not about to lower the curtain on his own career. Pacino plays a small-town Texas locksmith with a key for everything except his own unhappiness in David Gordon Green’s “Manglehorn,” one of 20 films competing for the festival’s Golden Lion prize. And he’s an aging actor who has lost his moj