The season’s most important film festivals are behind us, as are the end-of-summer doldrums. That means the best of the fall and holiday movies are now set to arrive -- a smashup derby of highbrow dramas (and the occasional comedy) competing for not only awards attention but also box-office traction.

One of the better indications of how these films will perform in theaters is how they played at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals. Film reporters John Horn and Steven Zeitchik covered these two festivals and returned with a sense of what we can expect from the months ahead. Their conversation follows.

John Horn: One of the more important film-festival awards is Toronto’s People’s Choice audience award—the list of recent winners includes “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Whale Rider” and “American Beauty.” Will that prize boost the Weinstein Co.’s “The King’s Speech”?

Steven Zeitchik: I was surprised by how many people whom I wouldn’t have expected to like "The King's Speech" came out of the Toronto screenings raving about the movie. But when I mentioned the film to people back home, some could barely suppress a yawn.

JH: It’s like “The Queen”—the more you try to describe it, the worse it sounds, When you say “The King’s Speech” is about a royal stuttering problem, it’s both accurate and totally wrong.

SZ: It's also the kind of movie a lot of film-goers feel that they’ve seen before -- a repressed monarch learns to get in touch with his feelings, the crown is redeemed, God save the Queen. But it transcends that genre too. The key will be getting audiences to see it. If you can get enough people to do that, the word of mouth will take care of the rest.

JH: Fox Searchlight’s "Black Swan," from director Darren Aronofsky, played well at both Telluride and Toronto. But is it the kind of film that tends to do better at festivals than in the real world?

SZ: Actually, I'm not sure that's true. To me, it feels a little like an art-house “Inception” -- there’s such intrigue around the premise (and, okay, the Natalie Portman-Mila Kunis lesbian love scene) that I think a lot of people will turn out, if only to see what all the fuss is about.

JH: This coming from the guy who said Focus Features’ “The Kids Are All Right” wasn’t going to gross $15 million.

SZ: I will never again underestimate the box-office potential of movies with lesbian themes.

JH: The hardest movie for me to read is Fox Searchlight’s "127 Hours." We know the ending—hiker cuts off his hand and is rescued. Will that also amputate its box-office reach? And with all the talk of people fainting at screenings, what might have worked for William Castle in the 1950s could actually be more of a liability than a sales hook.

SZ: There is a little bit of the Six Flags "Not for the faint of heart" tag on this one, which won't help. But once people realize the film isn't that graphic, I think they'll come see it. Star James Franco and director Danny Boyle can generate a lot of goodwill. Plus there's a happy ending. Sort of.

JH: It seemed like Ben Affleck (“The Town”) did better in Toronto than his brother Casey (the Joaquin Phoenix fauxumentary “I’m Still Here”).

SZ: There are rumors that, for his new movie, Ben will follow Casey around and film him having a breakdown after seeing the box-office numbers for “I'm Still Here.” Seriously, though, it’s always a risk to bring a big commercial movie like "The Town" to Toronto, which tends to be a little more rarefied. But the response was very favorable, and I think the media buzz coming out of the festival helped with its strong opening weekend. “I'm Still Here” played a modest premiere, and that was pretty much all I heard about it.

Justin Chadwick's film tells of an illiterate 84-year-old Kenyan man who, upon hearing the government's promise of a free education, plants himself in a first-grade school and insists he be taught to read.

Oliver Musila Litondo and Naomie Harris star in the film (the latter earning a spot on our breakout actor list out of Toronto), which tickled enough Toronto-goers that it took the runner-up prize at the festival's People's Choice awards.

The acquisition continues a mini-trend for National Geographic, the venerable nature brand that has been expanding into film distribution, of distributing fact-based movies with a global bent. (The company previously picked up the Afghanistan verite documentary "Restrepo.")

By now it's almost hard to run down the Toronto slate and find a movie that wasn't picked up — and thus won't be seen outside the festival. The bigger question may, however, involves the release calendar.

One reason specialized movies such as "Winter's Bone" and "The Kids Are All Right" have done so well this year is because they've had room to breathe on the schedule. Buying the movies is a big step. But with about 15 Toronto movies now likely to get released in the next year — on top of an existing group of independent and specialty pictures — getting these acquisitions a cushy spot on the calendar, and the word-of-mouth that comes with it, may prove the tougher trick.

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: "The First Grader." Credit: Original Pictures.

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An attractive and talented young woman is on her way to performance stardom — until her demons, exacerbated by the pressures of the spotlight, threaten to bring her down.

It might sound a lot like the Lindsay Lohan story. But it also describes the arc of Nina, Natalie Portman's mentally tenuous ballerina of "Black Swan," one of several movies at the just-wrapped Toronto Film Festival that was keenly interested in the dangers of a life in the public eye.

But it was also telling that, amid all these examples of public breakdowns, one of the most warmly received movies at the festival was actually not about the spotlight but its opposite: anonymity. Even as Portman's Nina began to come unglued on a New York stage, James Franco, as stranded canyoneer Aron Ralston in "127 Hours," was finding himself in a dire situation precisely because he lived so far out of sight of any other human being.

Franco's character spends much of the movie silently cursing himself for living so far off the grid that he didn't even tell anyone where he was going before he left. Sometimes, the festival's films seemed to be saying, the only fate worse than being smack in the middle of the limelight is being completely removed from it.

— Steven Zeitchik

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: Black Swan. Credit: Fox Searchlight.

[For the Record: An earlier version of this post referred to Portman's character as Lily.]

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The calendar might say 2010, but when it comes to awards, Toronto this year felt a lot like 2008.

Of course, as many pundits here have been noticing, the directors have, in a way, switched positions. Boyle's movie, like "The Wrestler," is the more intimate study of one man on the margins of society, while Aronofsky, in the manner of "Slumdog," tells a genre-bending story against an exotic backdrop.

But in many other ways the comparisons are unmistakable. Nor is it the only parallel to 2008. That year, a David Fincher movie that didn't come to Toronto hovered in the background of awards season. (Then it was "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; this year it's the Facebook drama "The Social Network").

Meanwhile, with another movie, Tom Hooper's "The King's Speech" from the Weinstein Company, vaulting to the top tier, there's another layer of drama. Weinstein and "Speech" will be pitted against "Social Network" and its producer, Scott Rudin. The two outsized personalities famously and publicly tussled over the awards-season status of "The Reader," resulting in Rudin walking away from that picture. The year that happened? Of course. It was 2008.

— Steven Zeitchik

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: James Franco in "127 Hours." Credit: Fox Searchlight.

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Focus Features has made its first acquisition of the Toronto International Film Festival, acquiring U.S. and select international rights to Mike Mills' sophomore feature, "Beginners."

The movie, from the director of the indie darling "Thumbsucker," looks at the crucible faced by a man (Ewan McGregor) after his 71-year-old father comes out of the closet. The deal continues a flood of acquisitions at Toronto, which has seen nearly every specialty and independent distributor get in on the action.

Among the films acquired in recent days are the Rainn Wilson-starrer "Super," the Nicole Kidman-led drama "Rabbit Hole" and Robert Redford's period morality play, "The Conspirator."

Focus had come to Toronto with the off-kilter coming-of-age take "It's Kind of a Funny Story," directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden and starring Zach Galifianakis, but had not previously picked up a film.

-- Steven Zeitchik

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: 'Beginners.' Credit: Northwood Prods.

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The Toronto International Film Festival handed out its prizes Sunday, giving its audience award, the Cadillac People's Choice award, to Tom Hooper's period British dramedy "The King's Speech." The City of Toronto award for best Canadian feature went to Denis Villeneuve's French-Canadian immigrant drama "Incendies."

Both films have been picked up for U.S. distribution -- Sony Pictures Classics will distribute "Incendies" and Weinstein Co. will release "Speech." The audience award for "Speech" provides the first boost to a film expected to be a major awards-season player. The Toronto audience selected Justin Chadwick's inspirational drama "First Grader" as the runner-up for the people's choice prize.

The audience's selection for the best Midnight Madness film went to Jim Mickle's vampire road-movie "Stake Land," and runner-up honors in that category went to Michael Howse's screwball comedy "Fubar II." The documentary prize went to Sturla Gunnarsson's "Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie," while the runner-up was Patricio Guzman's "Nostalgia for the Light."

Deborah Chow, meanwhile, was given the award for best Canadian first feature for her performance-minded drama "The High Cost of Living." And Vincent Biron was handed the prize for best Canadian short for his childhood summertime drama "Les Fleurs de l'Age."

The International Federation of Film Critics also awarded its prizes Sunday, giving its Discovery award to Shawn Ku for his American drama "Beautiful Boy" and its special presentations prize to Pierre Thoretton for his French-language art-world film "L'Amour Fou."

The Toronto International Film Festival winds down today.

-- Steven Zeitchik

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: The King's Speech. Credit: The Weinstein Company

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So much for festival obscurities.

The Toronto International Film Festival may be wrapping up this weekend, but it turns out that it won't be the end of the road for many of the films that played here. An eye-popping number of movies have been sold in the last 10 days; roughly a dozen (give or take one or two, depending on how you date a couple of  the acquisitions).

The last 24 hours have brought a trio of deals. "Conspirator" conspirators Lionsgate and Roadside again teamed up, this time to buy the Will Ferrell drama "Everything Must Go." Given how both companies seem to like those actorly pieces -- Lionsgate will try to retail Nicole Kidman and "Rabbit Hole" this fall, and Roadside has this year's art-house best actress favorite with Jennifer Lawrence and "Winter's Bone" -- it's a snug fit.

IFC, for its part, continues its snap-happy ways, taking rights to the star-heavy "Peep World." This one's a particular eye-catcher; the dysfunctional-family comedy with Rainn Wilson, Michael C. Hall and Sarah Silverman is about as far from IFC's art-house wheelhouse as you can get. But clearly the company likes the names involved, and, given the relative paucity of buyers at the fest, no doubt the price.

It's not the first time at this festival that the New York firm has made an uncharacteristic purchase,. The company got things going by buying another Rainn Wilson movie, the "Kick-Ass"-esque  "Super."

All of these sales -- along with Dave Matthews' ATO Pictures buying "Casino Jack," the Weinstein Co. going for "Dirty Girl" and "Submarine," and onward -- point to a bit of a paradox in the indie film world.

The reduction in the number of buyers was supposed to, on its face, lead to a reduction in the amount of sales (and thus movies the rest of us will be able to see in theaters).

But a funny thing happened on the way to the doldrums. A lot of these movies continued to get made, and needed to get distribution. The companies left standing suddenly found themselves with some potentially sweet deals on their hands, so they moved quickly. Three or four years ago, it's not a stretch to say that producers of some of these films would have held out for more money than a Roadside or IFC typically pays, and the films would have sat untouched. Not this year. Fewer distributors, it turns out, doesn't mean fewer distributed movies.

The general strategic wisdom may yet be in question : Does IFC have the infrastructure or marketing chops to make a movie similar to "Kick-Ass" work, when the far larger Lionsgate struggled to do so?

But for the rest of us, this is good news. In the last few years, many movies that didn't have distribution coming in to a festival lacked it on the way out. This year they do, which means we will be able to see them.  Get ready for Redford, Rainn and Reichardt's "Red River."

--Steven Zeitchik

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: Peep World. Credit: Occupant Films

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"Aftershock," an earthquake film released in China this year that quickly became the country's all-time box-office leader for a domestic movie, played as something of an afterthought this weekend in Toronto. 

The movie's release in China was timed to the 34th anniversary of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which claimed more than 240,000 lives, and the film took in more than $76 million. (Hollywood's "Avatar" remains the all-round Chinese box office champ, making more than $200 million in China.) "Aftershock" is also the first Chinese film made in conjunction with IMAX, but it currently has no U.S. distributor.

Directed by Feng Xiaogang, who was unable to attend the festival due to shooting commitments in China, the film is bookended by depictions of the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan and the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan. The story follows the lives of twins, one boy and one girl, who are separated by the first earthquake and reunited in the aftermath of the second, tracing their personal changes as China moves from the years of the Cultural Revolution to its much more capitalist incarnation today.

"Aftershock" fuses the spectacle of a disaster movie with the tearjerker elements of a more typical Chinese melodrama; a review in the Hollywood Reporter said the film "clearly harbors ambitions of encapsulating China's strenuous road to prosperity through one family's saga over 32 years." Although the film has found a rapt audience in China, even its director has admitted it has faults. In Chinese-language interviews, he has expressed frustrations with restrictions that China's government still places on the content of film.

The film is based to some extent on a novella by Chinese-born, Toronto-based writer Zhang Ling, who introduced the film at Friday's screening. Speaking by phone Saturday morning, she said the screening didn't attract many Chinese Canadians.  "Most of the Chinese people in town, they've already watched the DVD from other sources," she said.

Zhang noted that while the movie is based on the book, the movie is not the book. (Published in 2007, the book does not include the scenes of the second earthquake, which hadn't even happened yet.) 

"I was a little worried about the Chinese element being lost on the audience, but it seemed to go very well," she said. "It was a full house and everybody cried. It went much, much better than I thought."

-- Mark Olsen

Photo: A scene for  from "Aftershock." Credit: Courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival

With its North American premiere at the new Bell Lightbox venue in Toronto, Kelly Reichardt's "Meek's Cutoff" announced itself as one of the major works of recent American independent cinema and quite likely a film that will be talked about for years to come.

Set in 1845 and based on real events, it tells the relatively simple story of a wagon train made up of three families -- the cast includes Michelle Williams, Will Patton, Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson, Tommy Nelson and Neal Huff -- being led across what is now Oregon by a trapper and scout named Stephen Meek. Brought to vivid, roaring life by Bruce Greenwood -- resplendent in buckskin and prodigious beard -- Meek takes them on a supposed shortcut, and they are unable to find water. When they capture a lone Native American (Rod Rondeaux), the group, with the exception of Meek, reluctantly agree to use their captive as their guide.

Reichardt's two previous films, "Old Joy" and "Wendy and Lucy," both assayed aimless sort-of hipsters in the Pacific Northwest. In a sense, "Meek's Cutoff" is the origin story for those films, the tale of how a certain iconoclastic mind-set made its way to the region. Here, Reichardt's signature airy openness allows the film to be many things at once -- feminist allegory, parable of American imperialism, a plea for open-minded inquiry and simple human kindness. Throughout, Reichardt's filmmaking assures that everything comes across in a manner both emphatically declarative and defiantly subtle.

Reichardt has here both contracted and expanded her style, narrowing her focus onto the most specific and sometimes slightest of incidents to convey her drama, while broadening her thematic horizons. Though much of the film is made up of simple tasks such as the group walking, fixing a wheel or preparing meals, they build an accelerating sense of importance. As the characters, especially the women, emerge from the anonymity of their bonnets and beards to take on personalities, they come to seem less like ciphers and more like people.

Much of the talk about this weekend's "The Town" has been about Ben Affleck, who wore multiple hats in making the crime drama. But one of the key unsung contributors to the Massachusetts character piece is Peter Craig, the novelist of family-oriented crime novels such as "Hot Plastic" and "Blood Father."

The author-cum-screenwriter began developing the script from Chuck Hogan's novel "Prince of Thieves" a number of years ago, when it was still to be directed by Adrian Lyne. ("It was much more of a love story back then," Craig notes dryly.) Craig's screenplay ended up on the Black List, Hollywood's prestigious peer-approved group of the year's hottest scripts.

Craig -- who, incidentally, is the son of Sally Field -- is putting pen to paper for the Warner Bros. adaptation of "Septimus Heap," the popular pre-adolescent British fantasy series. That news could mollify fans of the series, who might otherwise be worried that some of the character quirks would get lost as it moved to the screen. Craig is considered a sure hand at the art of character creation.

Craig's story is similar to that of many under-the radar writers -- a hot script gets them some good assignments, but their career only really gets supercharged as a movie begins to move forward with the likes of Ben Affleck.

" 'The Town' feels like an indie movie," Craig says. "It's nice that Warner Bros. did it -- and is putting so much behind it."

--Steven Zeitchik

Twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: "The Town." Credit: Warner Bros.

 
Beginning with its premiere at the Venice Film Festival and continuing here in Toronto, Julian Schnabel's "Miral" has gotten people talking -- or, in some cases, kvetching. Reviewers have raised issues about the film's shape and dramatic depth -- "'Miral' is structured primarily around an issue, and none of its four protagonists emerges with much of an inner life," read the Variety review -- while at one screening in Toronto, there was rustling from a few filmgoers over the balance between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian politics.

Based on a semi-autobiographical novel from 30-something Palestinian Rula Jebreal, the movie follows a group of Palestinians during the region's tumultuous 1947-48 period as well during the first intifada in 1987. It principally tracks the interwoven stories of two people. Hind (Hiam Abbas) is a quiet idealist in Jerusalem's Old City who takes in several dozen displaced Palestinian children in the aftermath of the 1948 war, founding an orphanage where thousands will be raised in the decades that follow. Meanwhile, Miral (Freida Pinto, playing the part of the author) is a girl raised in the orphanage, and who later feels the allure of radical ideology during the 1987 intifada.

We sat down with Schnabel -- whose previous film, the French-language drama "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," was a Toronto hit that went on to earn him a best director Oscar nomination -- in a multiplex here earlier this week. On one of the screens just down the hall his movie was being screened (to mixed reaction, as it turned out). We asked the outspoken director and artist how he felt about the Middle East generally and about the film's critics.

You've said you don't really see this as a message film -- but were there indeed points you were trying to convey, especially to an American audience?

It's my responsibility, if I'm painting a portrait of somebody, to try to get it as accurate as possible. They stand in front of me and I try not to respond to what I think of them. It's the light hitting your cheek that's going to form the drawing. With a film, my portrait has to be accurate to the book that I'm describing. It's not my point of view.

But of course you did choose to make this book into a film, and you and Rula (who wrote the screenplay) made choices in how you translated it to the screen.

The choice that I made was that I want people to understand each other. If you don't take a step in the other guy's shoes and admit there's something to talk about, nothing's going to get solved, ever.

There are some scenes in the film that suggest a very specific attitude on your part about Israeli military actions. What informed those choices?

I tried not to protect or sugarcoat certain things. I've seen the kind of coldness or irretractibility [sic] that soldiers in that situation have. Those things affect the psyche of these kids [the soldiers]. These are things they're going to have live with the rest of their lives. They're doing them not because they want to do it but because they have to.

Did that stir up conflicting feelings for you as a Jew? And are you worried some might call you a Jewish Uncle Tom?

My mother is a president of Hadassah. I've always been rooting for the Jews. And I still am. But I think the way to do it is to understand the neighbors. It's all about respecting people.

Are you surprised, then, that people are asking you the balance question?

Yes. The fact is I'm telling the story of a 16-year-old Palestinian girl. It's not where somebody says, "Is it a pro-Palestinian movie?" It's a Palestinian movie. There's a difference. It's about Palestinian people. And they're not all the same. One guy's an activist. One woman is a terrorist. One woman is a teacher. Another is a gardener, trying to help his daughter. It's all about trying to navigate that.

What was your experience with the Middle East apart from what you learned on the set?

My mom said, 'Go to Israel. You're going to have that special feeling.' Every Jewish mother says that. I went to get the feeling, and in talking to some guy [who worked] at the airport about my relationship with Rula, I said she was my girlfriend. "How many times do you see your girlfriend a week," [he asked]. "OK, step over here." My mom said when I came to Israel I'd have that special feeling. I don't think this is the feeling she was talking about.

Even though you're simply telling the story of a group of people who are, at most, swept up in the politics of others, it does feel like you want to effect some kind of change with the film, particularly with a closing shot of Yitzhak Rabin at a peace rally. To what degree do you see this as activist filmmaking?

My parents instilled in me the idea that I was a free person and that I had the right to speak, and if I did, I can try to help other people. If you don't say anything, you're just as guilty as the torturer. Maybe that's the wrong word here. You're just as guilty -- what's the better word -- you just can't watch something that's a violation of human rights and not do anything about it. It's pro-peace. It's pro-humanity. I think the movie is about the battle between humanity and ideology. I'm for humanness all the time.

-- Steven Zeitchik

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: Freida Pinto in "Miral." Credit: The Weinstein Co.

Move over, Joaquin Phoenix: There's another practitioner of purposeful obfuscation and possible career brinkmanship hitting Toronto, and his name is Vincent Gallo. The North American premiere of "Promises Written in Water" from the actor-director-model-musician-provocateur was Wednesday night, and Gallo made as much of an impression with what he didn't do as with what he did. There was no appearance by the filmmaker, no photo on the festival's website, no press notes. There was simply the film.

When "Promises" premiered at the Venice Film Festival -- where Gallo picked up a best actor prize for his role in Jerzy Skolimowski's "Essential Killing" -- Gallo was said to have barely left his hotel room and was supposedly caught running away from photographers. Prior to the TIFF screening, I asked festival programmer Steve Gravestock whether Gallo was even in Toronto, and he said no. As soon as I turned away, someone else claimed to have spotted Gallo in town. At the screening, Gravestock gave a very brief introduction to the work, noting that the movie "questions the perceptions of film as we know it," but with no mention of Gallo's attendance (or lack thereof) and no message from the filmmaker.

The website for "Promises" includes this note: "Vincent Gallo has forever rejected any explanation of the concept, story, process or rumors surrounding the making of his new film, stating, 'None of it would fit easily into tabloid format, and so writers and journalists would be forced into simplistic interpretations to avoid their own shortcomings and the shortcomings of the press in general.'

"Though Gallo understands his silence may excite journalists and bloggers into easy brush-offs and perpetuate unsubstantiated rumors and hearsay, he still chooses to disconnect from the low frequency exchange required to communicate with the press."

Part of his reluctance to face the media may stem from the accusations that "Promises Written in Water" began as someone else's project and was essentially hijacked by Gallo. Such allegations are discussed on the Wikipedia page for "Promises," presumably overseen by Gallo himself: "It was rumored that Vincent Gallo was hired to act in this film and during filming he then replaced the original director... Gallo has stated that he did not in fact take over 'The Funeral Director' but instead began creating 'Promises Written in Water,' a new project."

What is decipherable as a story in "Promises" -- and the film's website includes a synopsis that does not totally jibe with what ended up onscreen -- is that Gallo is some sort of photographer in Los Angeles who answers a want ad for a trainee mortician. (Can you imagine if the person who arrived to take away your deceased loved one looked like Vincent Gallo?)

There is a single-scene, one-line appearance by Sylvester Stallone's son Sage Stallone (as a character called only Mafioso in the credits), which points toward some shady past. Gallo asks a woman (model Delfine Bafort) to marry him and then to dance for him, and then after a time she is dead. Despite his reluctance, he handles her body as part of his job.

Gallo's previous film, 2003's notorious "The Brown Bunny," was about loss and regret and the way emotional memory can intertwine with the memories of sexual experiences. "Promises" is an even more inscrutable film, teasing the viewer to figure it out while at the same time perhaps declaring that there is nothing to unravel.

Throughout the film, some scenes play out in long, repetitive single takes, and it begins to seem that Gallo is in essence shooting multiple variations of the same lines without saying "cut" in between. This becomes something of a peek behind the actors' process -- a line about Thailand mutates into a reference about Taiwan -- while also pointing toward how we turn things over in our minds again and again.

At one point, the film suddenly takes on the style of one of Andy Warhol's "Screen Tests," a close-up of Bafort's face that then moves down across her bare arms and hands, taking in her breasts and stomach,   then moving to a steady, unwavering shot of points south. And then for good measure, Gallo shoots her feet.

 With its grainy, black-and-white look, the film seems to bear some influence/resemblance to the louche, wan decadence of the films of French director Philippe Garrel, who often puts his own personal psychodramas up on the screen. Gallo's film is personal, independent filmmaking by its very definition, and at 75 minutes even its running time is commercially awkward. Everything is exactly as Gallo wants it to be with seemingly no consideration for business prospects or audience enjoyment. It is what it is, which gives it an unexpected feeling not of self-indulgence but rather of purity -- something made as much for the act of doing so as for the end result.

At times the film seems almost like a school project, as if Gallo is trying to recapture an amateurish naivete in his filmmaking. Gallo has always seemed such a carefully constructed persona that it is difficult to tell what is a put-on and what is sincere. In "Promises Written in Water," it often seems more of the latter, with just enough of the former to keep us guessing. And he's not telling.

-- Mark Olsen