(Review and showtimes are here. Opening interview with Marling's director and co-writer Zal Batmanglij is here.) Matthew Lickona: Tell me about Sarah's naivete. Brit Marling: I thought of her as a thoroughbred racehorse. She's very well trained, and she gets …

The East tells the story of Sarah (co-writer Brit Marling, interviewed here), a rising star at a private espionage agency who gets assigned to infiltrate the domestic organization that gives the film its name. The group does punishment-fits-the-crime work; during …

Sigh.

"Have fun with this!" read the email from my Jewish fellow critic. Good fellow that he is, he was leaving it up to his Christian counterpart to address the conversion of Superman from immigrant Jewish mensch to weird Christ figure. …

Scott broke the news that Mr. Pitt may decide to grace those present at the fair with his fair presence (I see what I did there). But he failed to mention that there have been some hiccups in Mr. Pitt's …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/jun/07/47031/ Let's start with the good stuff that is going, going...Scott really really really liked Julien Temple's historical documentary London: The Modern Babylon. (Hee hee - it's a quote from Benjamin Disraeli in 1847.) But while the documentary covers more …

Art can mean different things to different people.

Okay, so the people at The Verge didn't like The Internship much. Neither did the people at The Onion. Both critiques land a lot of solid blows, and I say that as a person who enjoyed the film more than …

I make a pledge to turn movies into Durex condom ads, and you send me a trailer about a girl setting out to lose her virginity? Seriously?

Yes, yes they did - here is the ever so naughty red-band trailer for The To-Do List. Aw, Aubrey Plaza. I liked you so much in Safety Not Guaranteed. But I said I'd do this, so here goes. Number one …

A little early in the morning, maybe, but I brought this on myself.

So I'm sitting here in a Toyota showroom while my car is getting an oil change down below in Service, and I'm sifting through the morning movie blog news. Film Drunk has yet another story about Michael Douglas blaming his …

Heath Ledger's Joker diary gives a few clues

I am sort of taken with the notion that Heath Ledger holed up in a hotel room and made a Joker diary in preparation for his role. And by diary, I mean full-on scrapbooked Can't believe I didn't catch the …

"Let's just slap the film into a commercial and be done with it."

Remember that Star Trek-based Esurance ad? It was cute, right? A little Trek riffing right before the real Trek? That split-second jolt of "Hey, it's the movie!" before you realized that it was a commercial? Apparently, that just wasn't commercial …

Um, my sincerest apologies for not mentioning this sooner, but American Mary is also opening Friday the 31st at the Digital Gym. Must have been some kind of block. But Scott thought it was pretty good!

Let's get the drunken stumbles out of the way: we have not yet seen the magician caper flick Now You See Me. To make up for this gross oversight, here are the first four minutes, free of charge: Wasn't that …

Dept. of No, Not Really

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Well, maybe not.

But it's hard to look at this lineup of obscure movie references on his new T-shirt line and not think of the estimable Mr. Marks and his cavalcade of quizzery. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/may/24/46252/

Friday movie meltdown can be fun!

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/may/24/46227/ So: one last time. Something is wrong with the showtime machine here at the Reader. So here's a roundup of what's new this week: Deceptive Practice, Fast & Furious 6, The Hangover Part III, Epic, What Maisie Knew, Frances …

Now that's structure.

Okay, it's not out until tomorrow, but I really really like the device in Frances Ha of having addresses serve as chapter headings, especially when your film is set in New York City. Still, I'm not sure that even that …

Brilliant. Mean, but brilliant.

Okay, so that was awful. That's understood. But there's a special evil to the awfulness. Because even though the trailer is barely over a minute long, it still manages to insult each and every one of its Academy Award-winning leads …

Perhaps the ultimate example of making an indie film in order to break into Hollywood

Hey, did you see the sperm-donor comedy Starbuck? Probably not - it made just $335,000 in the States, and received middling reviews. But hey, it managed to do $1.6 million worldwide! And you know what else it managed to do? …

The Box Office Mojo report on Star Trek Into Darkness's middling $70 million opening weekend included this fun little detail: There's only so much money to go around, and following the strong performances of Iron Man 3 and The Great …

Dept. of No, Not Really

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/may/17/45772/ "This is not the buzz we had in mind. No one can even see our product now!" Chopard statement following the theft of over $1 million in jewelry intended for celebrity display during 2013 Cannes film festival: "When we …