Big Screen
My buddy, John Albert, posted a link to the trailer for the inescapable Monster Trucks with the following comment on my Facebook wall: “Remember this, the next time anybody says that Hollywood ought to stop …
A couple of grudging two-stars from me this week, first to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows for its tonal achievements — it's a lot like the old Saturday morning cartoon, with just …
Variety recently reported that Melissa McCarthy will star as celebrity-biographer-turned-literary-forger Lee Israel in Fox Searchlight’s upcoming biopic, Can You Ever Forgive Me? Israel had a knack for cranking out facsimile correspondences — numbering over 400 …
I think I was maybe 12 when I first saw Citizen Kane. Here’s what I knew going in: Orson Welles had been the voice of the Shadow in my brother’s beloved collection of old radio …
Once upon a time, a little girl walked into her parents’ bedroom to find Daddy in bed with a guy. Mommy promptly retaliated by having an affair that left her expecting another child. Mommy eventually …
The unpleasantness began even before Neighbors 2 hit the screen. The trailer for War Dogs screamed, “From the Director of The Hangover Series!” My face grew cold, and I started bawling. When Jonah Hill’s traditionally …
Francofonia Credits normally withheld for a closing crawl open Aleksandr Sokurov’s (Russian Ark) latest self important hymn to the importance of art museums. Listen as the disembodied voice of the documentarian expresses disappointment over his …
From the mind of the working-class Chuck Workman comes another kaleidoscopic array of clips strung together as only this smart aleck can. The idea had been growing in my brain for some time. True farce. …
One film, two critics and a world of disagreement. Lickona hung on every turn of the page in Whit Stillman’s variation on Jane Austen, Love & Friendship, while Marks wanted to tear out a row …
Well, drat. A tough week at the movies: I managed to miss the screening for Love & Friendship, so my membership in the Whit Stillman enthusiast society has been temporarily suspended. But I hope to …
For those unaware, almost a decade of my life was spent teaching animation history, affectionately dubbed “cartoons for credit,” at Chicago’s Columbia College. It’s not unusual to find me popping in a thematically paired seven-minute …
For the first 15 years or so of my life, I was weaned almost exclusively on English-language movies. At the time, a Taiwanese martial arts epic (badly dubbed or otherwise) would not have ranked high …
A Bigger Splash tells the story of Paul and Marianne — he’s a filmmaker recovering from a suicide attempt, she’s a rock star recovering from damaged vocal chords — and their quasi-reluctant hosting of old …
At its worst, an aggregator like RottenTomatoes.com can be horribly reductive, mashing delicately constructed critical confections into a sort of uniform sludge for easy consumption. Sort of like Patton Oswalt’s account of KFC’s bowls. (Language …
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! You can’t choose a political candidate without first knowing which celebrities champion which cause. Here are a few of your favorite luminaries — and Stephen Baldwin — with their …