There’s a scene in 2009′s “The Informant!,” Steven Soderbergh’s tongue-in-cheek look at corporate malfeasance written by Scott Z. Burns, when Matt Damon’s pathological liar Mark Whitacre rants internally about the spread of a virus, spurred by a sneeze from co-star Scott Bakula. By the time the film was complete, Soderbergh had built a solid working [...]

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• Pete Hammond, with box office ammunition in hand, keeps banging the gong for Sandra Bullock in a bad movie.  And it just might happen. [Notes on a Season] • Speaking of “The Blind Side,” Patrick Goldstein dedicates a great many words to the film’s director, John Lee Hancock. [The Big Picture] • “Nine,” the [...]

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As always, the year’s adapted screenplay race is much more competitive than the original screenplay race. But what’s intriguing to note is that of the anticipated “big four” still to be widely screened, three of them are right in the thick of this discussion. In the case of “Nine,” there is a chance for Anthony [...]

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For Scott Z. Burns, the best way to tell the story of a compulsive liar was to take some liberties with the truth himself. “I’ve always been fascinated by lies … we all are,” the cheerfully forthright screenwriter tells me of his attraction to the story behind “The Informant!,” Steven Soderbergh’s playfully comic biopic of [...]

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Venice Film Festival That jaunty exclamation mark handily sets the tone for Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!,” a flip, frisky entertainment that may well represent the year’s most audacious feat of adaptation. Of course, the trailer already (and unavoidably) pulled the covers from the film’s biggest trick: that writer Scott Z. Burns (“The Bourne Ultimatum”) has [...]

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