Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

I'll never know if Storks delivers

New movies opening this week: The Magnificent Seven, Author: The JT LeRoy Story, and more

The Age of Shadows: Almost certainly a better bet than Storks.
The Age of Shadows: Almost certainly a better bet than Storks.

Aaaand we're back! Eight, count 'em, eight piping hot reviews of new releases — but alas, Storks is not one of them. Our proprietary Reader review algorithm (affectionately dubbed the the Duncanizer), which calculates the ratio between the likely audience's need and want for an actual critical review for a film before purchasing a ticket, let us know that we could sit that one out.

Truth be told, it also said we could skip The Magnificent Seven, but I'm a sucker for both Denzel and Westerns (there's still time to see Hell or High Water), so I went anyway. There was a good idea in there somewhere: making the Seven not only diverse, but adversarial. But they didn't make any use of it.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Happily, I fared much better with the funky-profound indie The Vessel, the subjective documentary Author: The JT LeRoy Story, and the Korean spy pic The Age of Shadows. Good times all 'round; it's almost like the water's better once you stop swimming in the mainstream.

I even got to chat with the guy who made Author, and you know who he cites as an influence? Tom Wolfe! Never mind whether or not you love Tom Wolfe; just stick with the fact that a filmmaker is taking an inspiration from a writer, and making good out of it. Just like Werner Herzog suggests — 11 times in a row — in his filmmaking master class! Could Orson Welles have been on to something when he told Henry Jaglom (in a conversation recounted in the delightful My Lunches with Orson), "I think the younger generation of filmmakers has seen too many movies"?

And Scott? Well, Scott got to interview Judy Davis, so that's something good. And whaddya know, he liked her movie The Dressmaker a bunch, too. And he found stuff to admire in the pregnancy-horror Antibirth (most notably Natasha Lyonne and Meg Tilly). But he wasn't as fond of the faked-moon-landing thriller Operation Avalanche (maybe try Moonwalkers instead?) or the serial-killer musical London Road.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, the first I ever heard about the masturbation documentary Sticky: A (Self-) Love Story was when I saw it on the Reader's movie page. So I can't tell you much about it, not even whether or not it features actress/singer Hailee Steinfeld's self-love anthem "Love Myself" on the soundtrack. But what a shame if it doesn't.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Tyler Farr, Blue Water Film Festival, Mustache Bash

Events March 21-March 23, 2024
Next Article

Will L.A. Times crowd out San Diego U-T at Riverside printing plant?

Will Toni Atkins stand back from anti-SDG&E initiative?
The Age of Shadows: Almost certainly a better bet than Storks.
The Age of Shadows: Almost certainly a better bet than Storks.

Aaaand we're back! Eight, count 'em, eight piping hot reviews of new releases — but alas, Storks is not one of them. Our proprietary Reader review algorithm (affectionately dubbed the the Duncanizer), which calculates the ratio between the likely audience's need and want for an actual critical review for a film before purchasing a ticket, let us know that we could sit that one out.

Truth be told, it also said we could skip The Magnificent Seven, but I'm a sucker for both Denzel and Westerns (there's still time to see Hell or High Water), so I went anyway. There was a good idea in there somewhere: making the Seven not only diverse, but adversarial. But they didn't make any use of it.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Happily, I fared much better with the funky-profound indie The Vessel, the subjective documentary Author: The JT LeRoy Story, and the Korean spy pic The Age of Shadows. Good times all 'round; it's almost like the water's better once you stop swimming in the mainstream.

I even got to chat with the guy who made Author, and you know who he cites as an influence? Tom Wolfe! Never mind whether or not you love Tom Wolfe; just stick with the fact that a filmmaker is taking an inspiration from a writer, and making good out of it. Just like Werner Herzog suggests — 11 times in a row — in his filmmaking master class! Could Orson Welles have been on to something when he told Henry Jaglom (in a conversation recounted in the delightful My Lunches with Orson), "I think the younger generation of filmmakers has seen too many movies"?

And Scott? Well, Scott got to interview Judy Davis, so that's something good. And whaddya know, he liked her movie The Dressmaker a bunch, too. And he found stuff to admire in the pregnancy-horror Antibirth (most notably Natasha Lyonne and Meg Tilly). But he wasn't as fond of the faked-moon-landing thriller Operation Avalanche (maybe try Moonwalkers instead?) or the serial-killer musical London Road.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, the first I ever heard about the masturbation documentary Sticky: A (Self-) Love Story was when I saw it on the Reader's movie page. So I can't tell you much about it, not even whether or not it features actress/singer Hailee Steinfeld's self-love anthem "Love Myself" on the soundtrack. But what a shame if it doesn't.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Coyote tracks in frail San Diego avocado grove

Second place winner in Reader neighborhood writing contest
Next Article

Tyler Farr, Blue Water Film Festival, Mustache Bash

Events March 21-March 23, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.