At their best, the films of Michael Cuesta raise awareness. His debut feature, L.I.E., was a daring attempt to show the human side of a child molester. His latest film, Kill the Messenger, is based …

The German Currents Film Festival returns this weekend to Balboa Park for its fourth annual two-day, four-film celebration. This year, the festival doubled its venues by holding its opening-night gala at the Natural History Museum, …

“Where’s my movie?” the voice on the phone demanded. It was Kensington Video’s Winnie Hanford calling to remind delinquent me to return a ridiculously past-due rental. “And by the way,” she added in the same …

Winnie Hanford, Kensington Video’s Rock of Gibraltar, just delivered a heaping dose of terrible news. After 30 years in business, the world-class video store will be closing shop in February, 2015. Apart from helping them …

Forty minutes on the phone with Alan Arkin equals a wealth of material. On The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming: “I just got a call from Carl Reiner yesterday after he watched it …

Five days and 100 films. That’s the promise made by this year’s San Diego Film Festival. The festival runs September 24–28, with the lion’s share of the screenings to be held at Reading Cinemas Gaslamp …

Butterfly wings had been whacking away at my stomach wall for days before the scheduled interview.

It’s not often my editor puts in a request to use The Big Screen as a promotional tool for a personal deity. Since Mr. Nutting is kind enough to take his golden machete to my …

The Zero Theorem runs in a counter-parallel universe to Terry Gilliam’s masterwork, Brazil, a film he’s dedicated a career to remaking. The setting looks the same. The church that computer genius Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz) …

The Jerry Lewis original didn’t make it to DVD until almost six years after the Eddie Murphy remake hit store shelves in 1998. For years I dragged the remainder bins in search of Kelp, when …

It’s a film once held in the highest esteem, one I proudly proclaimed the best picture of 1962! I was six at the time. Things might have been different had my parents dragged me to …

Honest to Pete, there are days when even I get tired of bitching and moaning, but living in a culturally deprived cow town where art is measured by the number of costumed mental patients who …

Ten years ago, I could have rattled off the names of the four funniest people on the planet without taking a breath. Today, Jerry Lewis has been vanquished from the Telethon that bore his name, …

Wash Westmoreland had to laugh when asked how he and Richard Glatzer went from writing and directing their debut film The Fluffer to The Last of Robin Hood, a biopic about Hollywood’s most insatiable fluffee, …

“They’re real sticklers for the rules these days, not like in my time,” says Errol Flynn (Kevin Kline) while effortlessly trying to put across Hollywood’s attitude toward May/December romances to star-struck Florence Aadland (Susan Sarandon), …

Ted Thomas describes his latest work, the 30-minute documentary Growing Up with 9 Old Men, as “a road trip to catch up with my cohorts, the other children of the 9 Old Men.” The nonet …

I hopped a Trailways bus to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills recently, where I teamed with CraveOnLine’s Fred Topel for a rousing chat with Pierce Brosnan on his latest action thriller, The November Man. …

To those familiar with the term, “9 Old Men” hearkens back to the Golden Age of studio animation. From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Rescuers, this elite corps of Disney animations — …

Even a jackass knows SeaWorld’s got to go. Steve-O (Jackass 1-3) had been called many things — daring, stupid, dipped in poo — but never an animal rights activist. That changed yesterday after O admitted …

I’m old enough to have had a chance to witness an actual “freak show.” Chicago’s legendary Riverview Amusement Park played home to one such production right up until their gates were shuttered in 1967. At …

Lauren Bacall, who died this week at the age of 89, was one of the few movie stars to be twice immortalized in Warner Bros. “Merrie Melodies” cartoons, one of which bore her name in …

If confession is good for the soul, here’s a blast of Multidimensional Cellular Healing (MCh): I’ve yet to make it through a Satyajit Ray film, but I’ve seen and own DVD copies of all seven …

It was a period of virtuous depravity, where sin and salvation giddily intertwined. Suicide was a viable out (Three on a Match), crime did pay in the end (Trouble in Paradise), and a gal’s road …

Chadwick Boseman had the gargled speaking voice, foot slides, lip synching, and scrotum-smooshing splits down cold, but director Tate Taylor (The Help) countered by keeping his camera close and the unfeigned emotion at arm’s length …

The PR slaves at Tribeca Films want potential viewers to believe their latest release, Very Good Girls, spotlights a pact between two high school virgins, Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen, to enter college unchaste. All …

Sexually frustrated yentas of America have been heard. The movie adaptation of E L James’s S&M manual for bored middle-class housewives, Fifty Shades of Grey, is set to arrive on Valentine’s Day, 2015, and Hollywood …

Occasionally one comes to an interview over-prepared. Such was the case with Gabriel Iglesias, the comedian who recently visited San Diego on a leg of the promotional tour for his first big screen comedy concert, …

Local “surfumentarians” and co-founders of the San Diego Surf Film Festival, Pierce and Petra Kavanagh, will premiere their latest film, What the Sea Gives Me, Saturday, July 19 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, La …

“Do you think it will be a 35mm nitrate print?” five-year-old Winnie Lickona joked while en route to Reading Cinemas Grossmont Theatre for last Sunday morning’s presentation of A Hard Day’s Night. “Oh, Winnie,” laughed …

Panahi appears suddenly and unexpectedly halfway through the film. His arrival is the most dazzling in-camera special effect of the year.

“Twelve Years in the Making!” Sounds more like a tagline from a Hollywood biblical epic, not Boyhood, the latest, commendably ambitious film from director Richard Linklater. I know what you’re thinking. Would it really have …

Just as sure as the turning of the Earth, the geek squad at The Big Screen works day and night to keep up with the latest advancements in technology. Today, it’s my pleasure to introduce …

It wasn’t the first time I saw a movie twice in a theater. That distinction goes to The Parent Trap. With two Hayley Mills vying for my pre-pubescent attention, it’s easy to understand. But Planet …

Do you see spots before your eyes? Do you feel any rabbit inclinations? Is multiplication your strong suit? Have you recently paid a visit to San Marcos? Good gwacious! You could be suffering from rabbititis …

Has it really been 50 years since I strong-armed my mother into taking me to the Varsity Theatre in Evanston, IL, for a Saturday afternoon matinee of A Hard Day’s Night? The place was packed …

Fueled by implausibility, and for a good portion of the ride much better for it, Bong-Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer posits a nonstop, Earth-encircling train containing the microcosmic survivors of a society killed off by a global …

Fox 5’s Josh Board loves OPP: Other People’s Popcorn. How do you know when Josh is at a screening? Walk into the auditorium carrying a Coke and a bag of corn and within seconds there’ll …

My last vacation occurred two weeks after 9/11, when I flew to Chicago to bury my mother. The time was right to spend a few days in another town kicking the crummy dust of San …

Coming soon to a Red Box near you: The blah Bull! The redundant Bull! Martin Guigui’s The Bronx Bull! From the looks of the trailer, the only thing this has in common with Raging Bull …

My late uncle, Fred Karmel, once dared to argue the merits of letterboxing with me. “I paid a lot of money for that 25-inch Zenith, Scotty,” Freddy grumbled, “and I’ll be goddamned if I’m not …

San Diego’s Arab Film Festival is holding a mid-year event this Saturday night at the Museum of Photographic Arts. The evening of Arab culture features dinner, music, an art exhibit, and a new film by …

“You’ll get to know God in the land of the damned,” mutters one of the vast array of scumbags on tap in Amat Escalante’s shocking crime drama Heli, opening Friday exclusively at the Media Arts …

Will Eubank stopped by the Holman...err, the Manchester Grand Hyatt last week to talk up his anything-but-sophomoric sophomore feature, The Signal, a mind (and genre) bending, eye-stretcher of a thriller that takes full advantage of …

One sweet, one sour. Let’s open on bitterness. This is in regards to the movie review by Scott Marks on May 29 (Run Toward Danger). As usual, the facts about the Vietnam War are misconstrued. …

Other than films screened at the Digital Gym and San Diego Latino Film Festival, it’s been too long since The Big Screen has plugged any of the more academic pursuits put forth by the Media …

The San Diego High School of International Studies Film Festival offers its students the chance to see their work projected on a big screen, and you’re invited to take part in the excitement. The fifth …

The first-annual Taiwan Cinema Spotlight takes center stage this Thursday at the Museum of Photographic Arts. The three-day/three-film event, a joint effort by the Taiwan Academy, Pacific Arts Movement, and MoPA, showcases the work of …

Make no mistake about it: when you see a film at an AMC Theatre, chances are you are not getting the full picture. Case in point, auditorium #9 at AMC Mission Valley. The masking was …

The cynic inside me has grudgingly accepted the fool notion of young men and women enlisting to kill in the name of peace, but why would a civilian war correspondent risk life and limb to …

[Annotations appear in brackets.] Some nights, quality just won’t do, and last night was one of them. There are a couple of file boxes buried in my closet — bursting with DVD titles unfit to …