Hollywood has long looked the other way, covering up for the anomalies and sexual deviances of its stars as long as there was money to be made off of them. You think today’s entertainment industry …

Steven Spielberg never has had much luck when it comes to using movie posters as timestamps. The WWII epic Empire of the Sun takes place after the 1939 release of Gone with the Wind, but …

The house lights dim and the following legend greets viewers: “Based on irony-free, wildly contradictory, totally true interviews.” The disclaimer is almost immediately succeeded by bad mom LaVona Golden’s (Allison Janney) first appearance in flashback, …

It’s always nice to begin the new year on a repertorial note, even one as safe as the Leading Ladies series that begins tonight at the Angelika Film Center. While it’s not a bad list …

Such a monumentally bad year for movies just passed. Will Hollywood studios finally take the hint and look beyond the comic-book rack to find source material? The good news is that for the first time …

When a star passes away at the age of 94 people are usually quick to remark, “Really? I thought they died years ago.” Not so of Rose Marie, the feisty comedienne who after working her …

Even with Christopher Plummer’s superb job of bottom-of-the-ninth, out-of-the-park pinch-hitting, Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World needed more than just a Kevin Spacey substitute to keep it from drifting off into the land …

Last week saw a pilgrimage (by me) to Los Angeles to cover the press conference for one of the most controversial pictures of the season, Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World. For those …

Will Ferdinand’s bravery prove intrepid enough to win this weekend’s box-office battle against The Last Jedi or will the mighty (and mightily fey) cartoon bull prove to be no match for the Force? We all …

We open inside the dank hull of a coal freighter — only these lumps have eyes. Khaled Ali’s (Sherwan Haji) peepers blink awake as the stowaway sits up in the lumpy bed of black that’s …

One month before Christmas, it’s The Man Who Invented Christmas. With three flops in a row and a string of creditors stretching around the block, Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) floats the idea of a Christmas …

Albert Brooks can’t get arrested in Hollywood, but sequels to star-studded, empty-headed comedies continue to flourish. Back-to-back screenings of A Bad Moms Christmas and the second movement in the Daddy’s Home saga made it a …

It’s time for the San Diego Asian Film Festival to once again take up residence at the UltraStar Mission Valley and the Digital Gym. (Festival #17 runs November 9-18, with the opening night at the …

Two deaf children, separated by five decades and both searching for the same thing, are flattened by a train of coincidence in Wonderstruck, the latest period(s) melodrama from director Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, Carol). …

The death of a beautiful woman

For the past six years, the San Diego Arab Film Festival has piggybacked off its sister fest in San Francisco. The same can’t be said of festival seven. Not only will they be flying solo, …

Think high tide, not slack water when the German Currents Film Festival returns to the Museum of Photographic Arts on October 14-15, bringing with it five films to celebrate its seventh year. Saturday evening’s opening …

“You’re not likely to get a one-word answer out of me,” laughed the as-a-rule loquacious John Carroll Lynch. Lucky marks the actor’s first time behind the camera — directing Harry Dean Stanton in what turned …

This year's screening list for the San Diego International Film Festival arrived, and it was my task to choose an interview subject. I dreamed big. Remember, this is the same organization that in the past …

Year by the Sea only feels like a decade. Karen Allen takes the lead in the big-screen adaptation of Joan Anderson’s best-selling memoir, and while the tagline promises, “It’s never too late to reclaim your …

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Boston Marathon bombing victim Jeff Bauman, but don’t expect the Lifetime Channel. Stronger invites audiences to cast aside all fear of drippy sentiment in tight closeup. This tale of an ordinary …

I mean, it's the movies, so what else is new? But still. The Wound has violence done to a bunch of guys' sexy bits. Also, sex and violence. mother! has much more violence than sex, …

A private message arrived from local actress (and new Facebook friend) Caroline Amiguet asking that I attend this Friday’s screening of her husband Matt Sivertson’s first feature, Love All You Have Left, in which she …

The elevator doors parted just in time for me to spy the hotel maid emptying the contents of a garbage can into the housekeeper’s trolley. We exchanged smiles as she passed, the opulent carpeting of …

Political correctness is a game one must master in order to keep the paychecks coming. One thing this woefully incorrect chronicler has learned the hard way is: what plays in the head need not always …

My response is always the same: “I’ll attend Comic-Con when Scorsese puts in a personal appearance.” Be careful what you bitch for. Seven months ago Scorsese proclaimed, “Cinema is gone!”, in effect admitting that he’s …

Contemporary documentarians, adrift without historical recordings to help illustrate their case, too often try and pass off stock shots from vintage black-and-white studio releases as the emmes. Michael Almereyda’s docu-biography Escapes never once attempts to …

Popcorn became part of the moviegoing experience beginning in the late ’20s. The cinematic staple was originally dispensed in a paper sack, the crinkling of which by inconsiderate patrons was said to drown out dialogue. …

An old joke came to mind while watching Destin Daniel Cretton’s The Glass Castle. A father and his two young children stand outside a 7-Eleven, asking all who enter to spare a little change. Before …

Flash back a decade: I’m working the counter at Citizen Video in South Park. Enter Destin Daniel Cretton, a lanky, well-scrubbed local lad in his late 20s with a DVD copy of Drakmar: A Vassal’s …

The private screening, generally a matinee performance that plays to an audience of one, is becoming an all-too-common occurrence. At a time when patrons can’t log off long enough to survive a feature without developing …

Little Scotty’s weekdays began with Chicago’s legendary Ray Rayner Show. One could always count on Ray for a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon featuring June Foray as the voice of Granny. Lunchtime fun consisted of Bozo’s …

When a studio goes to the effort of setting up an IMAX screening for the press, consider me first in line. It’s a luxurious perk and one that generally comes back to reward its backers …

For every knowledgeably staffed Kensington Video, Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee, Facets Multimedia, or any number of cutting-edge video rental stores that once gave lonely cinephiles a place to go and someone to talk to, there …

The 20th Century Fox fanfare (with CinemaScope addendum) that opened War for the Planet of the Apes was performed on jungle drums and didgeridoo. Sometimes a film earns points even before the opening credits hit …

The historical understructure of Nick Hamm’s The Journey came as news to me. Your humble correspondent Mr. Ugly American must have been at the movies the week Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley (Timothy Spall) …

The sun was shining, the climate genial, and a Terence Davies picture that deserved a fate better than a single-screen living room playing at the Digital Gym. Time to go to the movies. Talk about …

The last time San Diegans saw Christopher Plummer perform was as fictional Nazi hunter Zev Guttman in Atom Egoyan's Remember. This time around he plays an exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II in The Exception which opens …

I’m not alone in my observation that Beatriz at Dinner will make the history books as the first narrative feature released since Trump took office that takes direct aim at the billionaire-game-show-host-turned-POTUS. It also has …

Sometimes the first impression of an artist whose work one will later grow fond of drops anchor in the unlikeliest of places. Such was the case of Miguel Arteta, whose latest, Beatriz at Dinner, opens …

Read the review and enjoy a few words about Megan Leavey (and Blackfish) from director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and producer Pete Shilaimon. Scott Marks: You got a lot of nerve, sister, showing your face in this …

According to the TV spot, Elle and People magazines are going slug-nutty over Megan Leavey, proclaiming the fact-based girl-and-her-dog war drama both “inspiring” and “heartfelt.” Do I heed the advice of these venerated strongholds of …

Why was there no review of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie in this week’s print edition? Studio’s orders. Admittance to last week’s screening hinged on one minor condition. According to the email: “The global …

Walt Disney’s Bambi turns 75 this year. To mark the June 6 release of its Signature Collection Blu-ray combo pack, the studio made available for interviews the original voices of young Bambi and Thumper, Donnie …

If Part Two is a sequel and Part Three a threequel, what term describes a film franchise’s fourth installment? Four-Shit would be a fitting brand, seeing as most of them are, but my editor will …

Not unlike an actual Grateful Dead concert, Amir Bar-Lev’s candid Dead doc Long Strange Trip plays one night only — Thursday, May 25 — and runs just slightly over four hours. My initial interest in …

There’s been an ugly trend of late where Oscar-winning actresses who have been out of the limelight for some time return to play flamboyantly kooky mother figures. Jane Fonda did it twice (Monster-In-Law, Georgia Rule) …

“Stub me,” I asked while stopping to split my ticket with the usher on duty at Reading Cinemas Grossmont Center. My left hand was preoccupied with notebook and silo of Coke, so I extended my …

Halfway through the trailer for Unforgettable, a warning voice began yelling in my ear: Oh no... it can’t be... SOMEONE WENT AND BUDGETED ANOTHER KATHERINE HEIGL PICTURE! It’s been two years since Heigl’s appeared in …

The San Diego Film Foundation, best known for putting on the San Diego Film Festival, will present special screenings of Storied Streets at five area schools. Documentarian Jack Henry Robbins’s Storied Streets explores homelessness through …