Big Screen Entries for October, 2011

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Snark Week: Amber Heard profiled in the Chicago Sun-Times

The Powers That Be prefer that we keep The Big Screen's snark levels well below toxic, and trust us, we ...

Happy Halloween from Ben Cooper, Moe Green, & Your Pals at The Big Screen

Remember these sparkly, cheaply made, kiddie surgical gowns that came boxed in one-ply cardboard? They were designed from the world's ...

A Perryfic Red Carpet Video Interview With Perry Chen

Any kid whose parents encourage them to take an active interest in thinking and writing about movies -- as opposed ...

The Loma Theatre: 1941 in 1979

In the comments section of yesterday's tirade against Spielbug's 1941, Jay Allen Sanford posted the gorgeous shot below of the ...

Why I Hate Spielberg #4,695: The Ferris Wheel Reversal in 1941

I know what you're thinking. Could it be possible that America's preeminent Spielberg-hater owns a copy of 1941?! When forced ...

Interview: Martha Marcy May Marlene Star Elizabeth Olsen

Martha Marcy May Marlene star Elizabeth Olsen spends a lot of time with her face filling the screen, emotions shadowing ...

Interview: Martha Marcy May Marlene Director Sean Durkin

The indie psych drama Martha Marcy May Marlene opens in San Diego today (David Elliott's capsule review is here). The ...

Asian Festival Brings Down the Curtain

Norwegian Wood. While wrapping up my interview with friend of the San Diego Asian Film Festival (and star of the ...

Guest Review: David Elliott on In Time

If time was our eternal currency, the new money, would you be a hog who wants to live forever, or ...

The Whorax Weighs In on the Trailer for The Lorax

I am the Whorax, I speak for the Seuss, This trailer is making my bowels go all loose! (I speak ...

Short Takes: A Boy and His Samurai

Here is one instance where not consulting the production notes hurt. Had I know that a film about a 19th ...

Sweet, Sweet Blogenfreude

I think it may be fair to say that my esteemed co-blogger Mr. Marks has little taste for the middlebrow, ...

Reviews!

Shall I compare thee to a hummer, say? Odds Bodkin! Elliott is on fire! He lays into the cream-faced loons ...

Get the Look: Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

H&M can do the clothes, sure. But what really makes Lisbeth is above the neckline - the hair (or artful ...

F. Scott Fitzgerald vs. The Movies on the set of The Great Gatsby: A Fantasy

Quotes taken from Fitzgerald's Esquire essay The Crack-Up and The Great Gatsby. Images taken from Vulture.

Short Takes: Disorder

Wild hogs and a shirtless lunatic dot the boulevard, civilians discover a freezer filled with bear claws (not those you ...

Interview: Russ Peck, Symphony's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Organist

On a recent weekday afternoon, frightening music filled downtown’s Copley Symphony Hall. Dissonant chords erupted in ear-blasting fortissimos. Chromatic scales ...

Short Takes: Paranormal Activity 3

The static, surveillance camera imagery that found you white-knuckling the armrest in Oren Peli's original, has been replaced by jump ...

Tonight at SDAFF: Meet Goh Nakamura, Musician & Star of Surrogate Valentine

Dave Boyle’s Surrogate Valentine was the first SDAFF screener to make its way to my DVD player. While it’s not ...

Asian or German? Which Festival Are You Doing Tonight?

Either way, you can't go wrong. The two-day inaugural San Diego German Film Festival commences tonight with Yasemin Samdereli's debut ...

If You Like The Munsters, You're Gonna Love Watching Mussolini Hang!

Munsterlini! Don't you love it when a site offers suggestions based on past purchases or searchers? I was trawling YouTube ...

Review: The Stool Pigeon

All roads lead to the San Diego Asian Film Festival! Before recommending that you run to see The Stool Pigeon ...

Robert Downey Jr. Invokes Words of Jewish Teacher in Imploring Hollywood to Forgive Mel Gibson

Robert Downey Jr., during an American Cinematheque tribute honoring him last week: That's what the reporters heard. But what they ...

Interview: Margin Call Writer/Director, J.C. Chandor

J.C. Chandor's Margin Call, a "fresh as today's headlines" thriller that takes place inside the volatile word of investment banking ...

A Closer Look at the Trailer for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD7Bca-xJXw aka Honey, I Blew Up The Franchise aka The Gunpowder Plot aka There Are More Explosions Here Than in ...

The Title or Trailer Game

Before you are 15 sets of titles. Your mission is to tell me which of these comes from the finished ...

You Have Never Been Able to Wait for Scarlett Johansson to Take Her Clothes Off

"Scarlett Johansson was great. It was a great audition, I’m telling you. But the thing with Scarlett is, you can’t ...

Son of What's Wrong with This Menu?

Carole Lombard and Clark Gable?! Last week I snagged this faux pas on the DVD menu for John Ford's They ...

German Currents San Diego Film Festival This Weekend at MoPA

Tom Tykwer's 3 makes it's San Diego premier this weekend. "Do you know San Diego has a German Film Festival?" ...

Short Takes: The Thing

A prequel to the 1982 remake of the 1951 original. Pretty lady scientist (is there any other kind these days?) ...

Interview: Blackthorn Director, Mateo Gil

What becomes a legend most? When a fictional continuation of their true life story becomes an enormously entertaining western that ...

Dig a Hole: The 35mm Movie Camera (1888-2011)

My Facebook pal, his enlightenedness, Matt Zoller Seitz at Salon.com, is today's messenger of misfortune. The big three motion picture ...

What's Wrong With This Menu?

The only laugh to be had in John Ford's naval epic The Were Expendable, a gallant portrait of men facing ...

Drive Sparks Fan to Toss Hot Dog at Tiger Woods

How is it that a film about a stunt-driver who picks up a little money on the side as a ...

Short Takes: Weekend

Sadly, this is not a remastered reissue of Godard's masterwork. A semi-closeted lifeguard and an art student meet in a ...

The Closest Look Yet at The Trailer for The Avengers

Why do the Avengers exist? I mean, why does this team of superheroes exist? I mean, besides reasons of marketing? ...

A Still Closer Look at the Trailer for The Avengers

I dunno, something seems strangely familiar... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOvH-7lcjb0

A Closer Look at the Trailer for The Avengers

It ain't on YouTube yet, so you can go see it here. Then come back and discuss! Um, wow, but ...

Doesn't a tagline like "Forever is only the beginning" sound like something out of Hellraiser?

Hey, it's a display for the new Twilight! Wow, those wolves make it sort of scary! Still, it could be ...

The Advertising in Regal Mira Mesa's Lobby is Mighty Big

But you know what? Hugh Jackman's looked better.

SD Jewish Film Festival Screens The Human Resources Manager

Other than a press screening some time ago, Eran Riklis' The Human Resources never saw the light of a projector ...

Before They Were Critics: David Elliott

Not many people know this, but long before joining The Reader as staff film critic, a youthful David Elliott worked ...

So, What Did You Do Friday Night?

That's the interior of the Ken Cinema just prior to the Friday 9:15 show of The Mill and the Cross. ...

Melancholia Star Kirsten Dunst Laments the Roles She Lost Due to Big-Breastedness

It all started here...

12th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival Promises Fresh Hou Hsiao-Hsien and More!

The phone rang two months ago and what to my wondering ears do appear, but none other than Ms. San ...

Michigan Woman Sues FilmDistrict Over Drive's Deceptive Trailer

Pictured: Ryan Gosling and Albert Brooks in Drive. While curating the film program at MoPA, there was an ultra-stingy board ...

Short Takes: 1911 Revolution

It’s being touted as his 100th starring role, but Jackie Chan’s heroics take a backseat to Winston Chao’s endless speech-making ...

Short Takes: Puncture

What if Erin Brockovich was a dude with a drug problem? And because the dude is buff guy Chris Evans, ...

Short Takes: Real Steel

Was the working title Rocky Sock 'em Robots? An off-the-ropes, beer-guzzling promoter and his estranged young son bond through violent ...

A Brief Conversation Among Johnny Depp's Vanity Fair Covers

Uh-oh. Looks like Captain Jack Sparrow has gone and done it again... Fortunately, he knows where he can turn for ...

Reviews!

Well, now - to hear David Elliott tell it, I was too hasty in my scorn for Blackthorn. "A terrific, ...

Dig A Hole: Charles Napier, Russ Meyer & Jonathan Demme Staple

The hairy sledgehammer of fate has come down on Charles Napier. The lantern-jawed, hard-ass character actor who first came to ...

Anatomy of a Press Photo: Russell Crowe Is So High Right Now

The crazy part is, Russell Crowe is Australian. He didn't even play football in high school. Related.

Thank You, Steve Jobs

Last night, before I heard that Steve Jobs had died, I put Ratatouille on for my two-year-old. My 14-year-old paused ...

Just For That, Lars Von Trier Will Never Speak to Us Again!

With Melancholia a few weeks away from settling in at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas, director Lars Von Trier has issued a ...

Simply Fine at 109!

He did nothing and got the snot beat out of him for it every time. If Moe was a theorem, ...

Breakfast at Tiffany's Turns 50!

Quel rat! Has it really been fifty years since Holly Golightly enjoyed her morning sweet roll and steaming cup of ...

2nd Annual Horrible Imaginings Film Festival Poised to Extend Halloween Season

The 2nd Annual Horrible Imaginings Film Festival is screening Georges Franju's supremely unsettling Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a ...

The Conspiracist Speaks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPNyNr2Kp4w Hmmmmm.... full trailer for Steven Spielberg's "They Shoot Horse Movies, Don't They?" epic War Horse drops the same day ...

Short Takes: Dream House

We never glimpse the residence retiring publisher Daniel Craig and his family upgrade from. That’s the first clue to cracking ...

"Red Tide" Explanation

Photo taken by the author on October 1, 2:36 p.m., at the La Jolla Shores.