Updated to feature director's cut of photo

Hey, how 'bout that Matthew Lickona joining the ranks of the San Diego Film Critics Society, huh? Congratulations! Keep at it, buddy boy! The only thing more difficult for the group to arrive at than a consensus on a movie …

The 17 year marriage of Clint Eastwood, 83, and his second wife, Dina Ruiz Eastwood, 48, has been shot down in the line of fire. The impact wasn't so sudden. According to a source quoted in US Weekly, "Clint fell …

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/30/52357/ This is really Scott's week. I mean, every week is Scott's week, but he usually doesn't make it quite so obvious. He's kind that way. Anyway, let's get the big news out of the way: FIVE STARS FOR ONE …

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/29/52310/ Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. Not Cloudy With a Chance of Fresh Fruit and Yogurt Parfait 2 or Cloudy With a Chance of Diced Watermelon 2. Cloudy with a Chance of MEATBALLS 2. Imagine a Junior Executive …

Here's something I failed to mention in this week's cover story on Kensington Video. When Guy Hanford shaves in the morning, he sees Don Bauder's face in the mirror. Thanks to dwbat, Reader lifer and President of the Don Bauder …

If you're wondering why all of The Reader boxes are empty, it's because this week's cover story -- my scintillating journey through the inner-workings of Kensington Video -- is going like hotcakes! Happy 50th birthday, Kensington Video! To Guy, Pam, …

Keep away!

Who'd have thought spending 90 minutes in a car with Selena Gomez could be this stagnant? A disembodied voice orders a former race car driver (Ethan Hawke) whose wife he holds hostage, and a banker’s daughter (Gomez) to do his …

I haven't been in the big #7 house since Hazard Center was taken over by Digiplex. Something was noticeably different about the auditorium. I couldn't see the screen for the drapes! Is there another movie theatre in San Diego that …

Christian Bale stars as swaddling-clothed crusader

Does the umpteenth telling of a Bible story qualify as a reboot? http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/27/52219/ According to Deadline, Ridley Scott's Exodus, or Bible Runner: Conquest of Israel, will star Christian Bale as everybody's favorite Jewish lawgiver and Joel Edgerton as the Egyptian …

Attention culture buffs, students of language, and seekers of free fun in South County. Que Viva! Cine Latino returns to Otay Ranch Town Center September 4, 11, 18, and 25. In order to drain el ultimo trago — or the …

It happened so long ago, the name of the talk show I heard it on escapes me. Sir Alec Guinness was paneling with either Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas. After coming back from a commercial he apologized to the audience …

C'mon people, you think that suit was an accident? We're through the looking glass here.

Okay, so Miley Cyrus apparently saw Ke$ha get hot and heavy with some furries in her video for "C'Mon" and thought, "Ooh, me too!" http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/26/52070/ But in the interests if keeping it real, Miley decided to make her public proclamation …

Who will star as Mayor Pat Tush? Or Jan Goldsmith? Or Accuser #147?

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/26/52054/ "In a town as sunny as San Diego, only the shady survive." Somewhere in a San Diego Starbucks, someone is penning a future Ace Award-winning screenplay. The reflection of the computer screen bouncing in their bifocals can be seen …

Given the twittering hubbub made over Hollywood's latest casting choice, you would think that Ben Affleck had committed murder, not been chosen to replace Christian Bale in the next Batman movie. What's the matter, widdle fanboys? Did big bad Warner …

To err is human, but (contrary to the thesis advanced near the end of The World's End) that does not mean that erring is the defining difference of humanity. So perhaps it's not uniquely human that I seem to have …

If Lickona can sneak one in, why not me? It's over, Bobby, but not before I parade one last alleged alleged accuser -- who squealed like a stuck pig to KPBS -- before the media spotlight. I found the following …

7 days to see 13 films

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/22/51824/ In addition to their annual San Diego Latino Film Festival and the fine lineup of films Lisa Franek at the Digital Gym books each week, the Media Arts Center San Diego will occasionally surprise us with a week-long mini-festival. …

But hey, everybody else is having fun with it, so...

Yeah, yeah, people have seen Filner and Goldsmith together in the same room. But I still like this notion. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/22/51821/ Yes, yes, your first thought is, "Wait a second, Lickona. You've got Filner in the role of the Narrator, which …

Dabblers need not click

Am I the only one who sees red over this ad that appeared in the June 9, 1933 edition of The Film Daily? http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/22/51801/ One out of three ain't bad, and while they pegged Capra's punim, look how they make …

In which my parents escort me to my first X-rated movie.

Who among us can claim that their parents took them to their first X-rated movie? Mom and Dad probably thought Midnight Cowboy was a sequel to True Grit. It took some work, but they eventually agreed to take their 13-year-old …

When it came time to finally force the digital conversion down exhibitor’s throats, no one bothered to ask drive-in owners to open wide and say, “Aaah.” 35mm prints for theatrical exhibition are becoming scarcer than cue marks. According to Honda, …

Cinephilia is a crime punishable in most states!

I was sitting in the basement last week watching a beautiful 16mm dye-transfer print of Otto Preminger's Forever Amber. It wasn't until I got up to change reels, that I noticed a crime had been committed. Reel 3 was missing …

Why was I reading a listicle at Cracked.com? No idea. But I liked what I read there.

I mean, "13 Photos That Shatter Your Image of Famous People (Part 2)"? Really? Didn't I have something better to do, like blog here at The Big Screen? Yes, yes I did. But first, it's sharing time. Do you remember …

Everything you need to know about the star of The Spectacular Now, currently playing at a theatre near you, is contained in the interview. I had a ball talking with the 26-year-old actor when he came to San Diego last …

While plowing through e-stacks of TV Radio Mirror I happened across this ad buried in the back pages of the February, 1963 edition. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/19/51536/ Look, it's early on a Monday morning and this thing has given me a case of …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/18/51509/ It's a cynical Sunday morning, isn't it? Scotland Yard has announced that they have new information regarding the death of Princess Diana. They won't reveal their findings, but what are they going to tell us? It was a hoax: …

Remember when I said that movies weren't driving the culture any more? You know what I mean - they're not the subject of the national conversation. Christopher Nolan basically made the Occupy movement into domestic terrorists in The Dark Knight …

Actor to put in personal appearance tonight at Arclight La Jolla & Landmark Hillcrest

Here is your chance to meet Miles Teller, star of Project X, 21 & Over, and, starting today, The Spectacular Now. Miles will be on hand to answer questions after the 6:25pm showing of TSN at ArcLight La Jolla. He'll …

It's been almost 14 years. Enough time has passed. Let's laugh about it. I arrived in San Diego on January 15, 2000 to assume the position of inaugural film curator at the Museum of Photographic Arts. A brand-spanking new, million …

"Women are complicated. I don't have to tell you that."

So what if New York Magazine got the full-body tattoo shots? We got the feminist musings. In a World... tells the story of Carol, the daughter of a movie trailer narrator who is trying to follow her father into the …

For a wizened, pixel-loathing curmudgeon like me, it doesn't get much better. The collection of The Media History Digital Library is now ours for the clicking. That means decades of Variety, Moving Picture World, Photoplay, The Hollywood Reporter, Picture Play …

What would have happened if Rita Hayworth had carried on a torrid love affair with Howard Hughes? It certainly would have amounted to something a lot more lively than the last hour of The Barefoot Contessa. For it's first third, …

When was the last time Woody Allen acted in a film that he didn't direct? If you guessed Antz (like me), than we'd both be wrong. Did Alfonso Arau's Picking Up the Pieces even receive a theatrical release? According to …

Lovelace tats a tale of humiliation and degradation within the early days of the porn industry. This isn't the biopic originally intended as a comeback vehicle for Lindsay Lohan. The media circus that is Lohan's life was cited as the …

It's been a long standing dream to have a blurb from of one of my reviews appear on a movie poster. It's not as though I haven't given the studios ample opportunity. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/12/51132/ http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/12/51133/ http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/12/51134/ http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/12/51135/ The era of physical …

Filmmaker Charles Shaw explores the lives of the "plastic people" of the Tijuana River canal.

San Francisco-based writer and filmmaker Charles Shaw just released an updated preview for his pending documentary Exile Nation: The Plastic People, a look at the lives of the deportees who live in squalor in the Tijuana River canal a.k.a “el …

How two locals got rich off the Deep Throat star

With the bio-pic Lovelace opening, purporting to tell the true-life story of world’s-first-porn-star Linda Lovelace (a story she herself frequently revised), here’s a compilation of local-centric Lovelace-related material from several of our various articles on local 1970s/1980s theater operators Vince …

Matthew took the week off for a round of intense behavioral counseling -- that's what he gets for stroking my backside and placing me in the Lickona headlock -- so it's my turn to hip our readers to this week's …

This week’s comic book contribution is the third (so far) alternate universe pic to be released in 2013. In each case scenario the future looks old, but the digital worlds of tomorrow manufactured for Upside Down and Oblivion are fun …

Whom, but my editor, Ernie Grimm, was seated inside Cosmo's in La Mesa, frantically pecking at his laptop, when I dropped in for my morning dose of Joe? "Did you call the new Woody Allen film 'artless?'" he asked, stopping …

Will Ruth Robinson Duccini or Jerry Maren be next?

As hole digger I must aver, the Phoenix coroner examined her. And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead. Margaret Pellegrini, the hip-switching Munchkin City looker with the flowerpot headdress -- and until today one of only …

Coming soon to an awards banquet near you

Smell that? Summer isn't over and already Hollywood is casting bait for next year's Academy Awards gala. Last week's pre-game festivities at Reading Cinema's Town Square showcased six trailers -- all surefire Oscar hopefuls -- that contained over twice as …

Slamming a film can be almost as disagreeable an experience as accidentally dropping the word acromegalic when struggling to come up with a nice way to describe a fugly newborn to its beaming parents. It’s quite possible that over the …

What kind of mother takes a 3-year-old to see Fruitvale Station, the R-rated true story of a 22-year-old Bay Area resident gunned down by police on New Year's Eve? The kind of mother who, when politely asked to put an …

With the 14th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival just 3 months away, it's time to put out a rallying call for a few good volunteers. SDAFF is looking for conscientious, dependable souls to help with fundraising, graphic design, office …

I spotted this curious ad in the back pages of this week's edition of The Hollywood Variety. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/02/50574/

Smurfs 2!

Smurfs 2! Also, More Than Honey, a film about hive colony collapse. And Computer Chess, a film about the rise of the machines. And Blue Jasmine, a film about how Woody Allen makes a lot of movies. And 2 Guns, …

That crackling sound you here is Jeff Bridges rapidly burning through all the goodwill he's built up over the years. Because admit it, you left R.I.P.D. thinking, "That wasn't nearly as aggressively stupid as it could have been, and I …

Old Bogie goes head-to-head with an even older Frederic March in William Wyler's violent-for-its-day, terror-in-a-tiny-town nail biter. A trio of escaped cons invade Beaver Cleaver's house. Luckily, the Cleavers didn't move in until two years later. It's current occupants, the …

What do you do when an earthquake strikes in mid-movie? Remain seated!

Sunday, April 4, 2010. What better way to spend an Easter Sunday than by once again watching the Nazis fall from power? Easter dinner with the Elliotts was a yearly tradition. (It's phrased it in the past-tense because David and …

"Sell the sizzle, not the steak" applies here in at least two ways.

Other folks have already commented on the fact that here, at long last, is a trailer that gives you the feeling of a movie without spilling out nine of its ten plot points. That's "sell the sizzle, not the steak" …

Wow. I've seen the film, and lemme tell you, Denzel does not ask his boss in the interrogation room, "Did you know he was special forces?" It's one thing when the trailer gives you a scene that didn't make it …

Their website is no more. The final post on their Facebook page says it all: "After nearly 40 years of serving the film industry in the region, the San Diego Film Commission will close its doors today. We thank you …