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 …

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 …

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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 …

Having resisted the costly conversion to higher-quality, dual-sided aluminum LaserDiscs, and with thousands of titles already committed to miles of polyethylene VHS ribbon taking up half the apartment, I was reluctant to make the switch …

Last year’s presentation at the presumptive Kensington Video farewell dinner met with such little negative response, the good folks at the Kensington-Talmadge Community Association have invited me back as their guest speaker at this year’s …

Ralph DeLauro, former curator of the Central Library’s long-running (31 year) and highly popular Film Forum screening program, returns with a series of Film Discussion classes. Times, locations, and admission prices vary. The (mostly) daytime …

He may be best known for his tough guy roles in (Licence to Kill and Showgirls), but as Robert Davi put it, when it comes to singing, he’s “not just your grandmother’s Oldsmobile.” This is …

Garry Marshall got his start in television and hasn’t evolved one artistic iota since his days producing derivative spinoffs — a small-screen version of The Odd Couple and Happy Days, TV’s answer to American Graffiti. …

Fear no art! The shibboleth must not have made its way to Songzhuang, a suburb of Beijing and home to China’s largest “artists village.” One day before the curtain is scheduled to go up on …

An email arrived late Friday, asking that I consider reviewing a particular film at this year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival Spring Showcase, running April 28–May 5 at UltraStar Mission Valley. The subject matter held …

Robert Davi, the menacing-mugged tough monkey we love to hate, will set aside the snarls and brass knuckles long enough to take center stage on The USS Midway to serenade an audience with an evening …

Her name is as difficult to remember as her face is hard to forget. With more than 60 television and movie roles to her credit, 27-year-old Alia Shawkat is currently one of cinema’s most in-demand …

Jordan Roberts leads a lineup of industry pros scheduled to attend this Saturday's Encinitas Student Film Symposium. Roberts is the writer-director of two terrific family comedies (Around the Bend and 3, 2, 1… Frankie Go …

Too long since your gut’s had a good churning? The Invitation was sent out for a tight-knit group of friends (and a couple of hand-picked interlopers) to gather at a dinner party that initially had …

You can strike it from the record, but AMC honcho Adam Aaron’s suggestion that the world’s largest theatre chain allow texting in designated auditoriums will forever stick in this juror’s mind. It began on Wednesday …

The Disney Store celebrates the grand opening of its new store at Westfield Plaza Bonita in National City on Saturday, April 16. A quick call to friend and unofficial Mayor of National City John Dacapias …

It’s only fitting that David Gest died on Tiny Tim’s birthday. Wedding bells between the concert promoter and Liza Minnelli amounted to the biggest Barnum & Bailey wedding of all time, a marriage made in …

There’s a new festival coming to town, this one brought to you the City of Encinitas and San Diego Filmmakers. I’m the first to grumble that art shouldn’t compete, but there’s more to the Encinitas …

If there is indeed only one chance at making a good first impression, then an impeccable introductory shot is as essential to a film’s narrative as a lashed Windsor knot and highly reflective pair of …

It’s not often one finds a student film, for lack of a better term, covered in these pages. Call me snobby, but after 11 years spent teaching film (and a lifetime devoted to studying the …

Be it at the studio’s behest or a simple desire to keep their famous faces in the public eye (while being handsomely compensated in the process), celebrities have long been known to lend their likenesses …

“What a thing is patriotism! We go for years not knowing we have it. Suddenly...it becomes life’s greatest emotion.” The words ring as true today as when they did when they were written, over 90 …

Remember, a genre mashup of four of contemporary cinema’s least desirable storylines, should represent everything we’ve spent the past three decades at the movies trying to forget. And yet... When was the last time you …

To call Chimes at Midnight (aka Falstaff) Orson Welles’s crowning achievement is tantamount to naming it the greatest movie ever made. The film never found a home on DVD — there’s a dupe pressing in …

My first eyeballing of Munster, Go Home! came, as it did to many Mockingbird Heights mavens of a certain vintage, on the bottom half of a double-bill. The film had not performed as well as …

Quick: name an Easter movie. Ben-Hur? The Ten Commandments? Easter Parade? Yogi the Easter Bear? A few more spiritual-based titles come to mind, but for the most part, Easter at the movies is just another …

Opening Remember opposite Batman vs. Superman appeared to be a brilliant stroke of counter-programming. Alas, a superhero-sized need for screen domination dictated otherwise, and the edge-of-your-seat modern-dress Holocaust thriller starring Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau …

The impetus for this public service announcement began two weeks ago when I was trying to attend a 10:30 a.m. screening at Arclight La Jolla. A mall without a multiplex is as useless as a …

The 23rd Annual San Diego Latino Film Festival runs March 10–20, and with it comes one of the biggest names in international cinema: Mexico’s incontrovertible auteur, Arturo Ripstein (Deep Crimson, La Tia Alejandra). Mr. Ripstein …

Oscar recap: And the dead frog goes to... It was almost the Oscars that weren’t, the first time since age seven where I couldn’t invite Hollywood’s elite into my living room for its annual epistle …

While on my weekly charitable pilgrimage through local orphanages, a slight tug at my sleeve caused the cigarette ash to land at the feet of one of the younger foundlings. He was a ragged, dirty-faced …

Variety reports that a group of seven blind people filed a class action lawsuit last week against AMC Theatres, alleging the chain violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by “failing to provide properly functioning audio …

On a sad note for local film-lovers, Lee Ann Kim, the founder and Queen Mother of the Pacific Arts Movement and the San Diego Asian Film Festival, has decided to “transition out” of her role …

Award-winning documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer brings his Academy Award–nominated film The Look of Silence to the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union Theatre for a one-night screening on February 23. Oppenheimer was gracious enough to speak at …

No one has wanted to see the Media Arts Center’s Digital Gym make a bigger name for itself than I. (It’s the only gym you’ll ever see me set foot in.) There’s not enough space …

Film critic David Elliott introduced me to the Chilean original Pablo Larrain, now on his fifth feature, The Club, which opens Friday at Landmark Hillcrest. A Post-It affixed to a San Diego Film Festival screener …

How an art cinema situated in the land of drunken college kids and raucous conventioneers — who only stopped in to use the theater’s restrooms — lasted eight years is in and of itself a …

Normally it takes eight to ten films to find the three or four needed to pad a film festival overview, but this year’s San Diego Jewish Film Festival hit me with four winners right out …

I was born and raised in Chicago, but every movie theater is my home. Fifteen years and countless subleased seats after making the move to weatherless San Diego, my slippers click comfortably together and I …

Ten minutes into Brooklyn convinced me that Sairose Ronan had a lock on this year’s best actress Oscar. That was before I saw Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years. Hot on the heels of taking home …

Nick Kroll and John Mulaney bring their off-Broadway success Oh, Hello! to the Balboa Theatre on January 21. Here’s a sample what the veteran comedy duo have in store. Scott Marks: Nick, you play a …

France’s Oscar entry for best foreign-language film

In a good year, I’ve been known to publish a top 20. This year’s standouts were as obvious as they were few and far between. As such, more thought went into selecting the bottom ten. …

Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is being billed as the director’s eighth film. It appears as though QT, like most devoted cinephiles, has forgotten about his segment in Four Rooms. The addition brings the tally …