Psychopaths are incapable of love, so says William Lewis (Tom Wilkison), madman and father to a pair of likewise pernicious offspring: Grace (Ruby Rose, achieving cool clarity as daddy’s little two-legged slaughterhouse) and her unpolished, but nonetheless inhuman brother Oliver (Owain Yeoman). Together they’re the Black Swans, a family owned …
Remember those delightful cartoons from the '30s where store shelves or magazine racks would come to life at the close of business day? Change the setting to a modern-day supermarket, multiply the standard seven-minute running time by twelve, limit your five (!) screenwriters to 100 “fucks” apiece, and you’ll get …
The opening burst — a carload of cops trying to pass a truck on China’s snow-covered Mt. Paektu is greeted by a culprit-crafted log avalanche — calls to mind an action-packed pre-credit sequence from a vintage 007 yarn. Pay close attention to a certain stray gold bar, a plot-motivator tossed …
Oliver Stone’s latest “just say yes” endeavor is reminiscent of his work on Scarface. The only shock here is that 30 years later, the brutal killing and graphic dismemberment is being performed in the name of blowing weed, not snorting coke. Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch star as a pair …
An anonymous graffiti artist applies brush and spray can to the side of your building. Is the end result a work of art or an act of vandalism? The shelf life of one of elusive street artist Banksy’s creations averages 48 hours before being tagged or painted over. San Francisco–based …
Walt Disney spent over 20 years of his life struggling to bring author P. L. Travers’s Mary Poppins to the screen. As if the story behind the making of Uncle Walt’s greatest commercial success didn’t provide enough fodder to craft a compelling narrative, screenwriters Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith squander …
I refused to subscribe; the tabloid hit my local 7-11 sooner than it would have reached my mailbox. Publisher Generoso Pope, Jr. first envisioned the Enquirer as a gore rag. But carnage and checkout lines didn’t mix, so he opted for celebrity gossip. If the stories weren’t true, they should …
Those hoping for comedic quality due to the presence of Undercover Brother director Malcolm Lee will be disappointed. Everyone else will simply be depressed. What good is a PG-13 parody of R-rated movies? They bleep profanity, for fuck's sake! When the joke machine sputters, as it frequently does, cue Boots …
A quartet of counterfeit Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys team with a talking Great Dane to solve crimes of the supernatural. I was a teenager in 1969 when this marginally-animated Hanna-Barbera creation first cracked the Saturday morning cartoon lineup, a 14-year-old so smitten by the squash-and-stretch wizardry of Looney Tunes …
At age 93, Scotty Bowers looks like the last surviving member of the Our Gang comedies, when in truth, this little rascal’s job was provocateur to the stars. Fresh out of the service, Scotty transformed a corner gas station into a Hollywood Blvd. whorehouse, with a trailer tucked behind the …
At age 93, Scotty Bowers looks like the last surviving member of the Our Gang comedies, when in truth, this little rascal’s job was provocateur to the stars. Fresh out of the service, Scotty transformed a corner gas station into a Hollywood Blvd. whorehouse, with a trailer tucked behind the …
We open on Super8 images of writer-director Hyatt’s childhood. Apart from the switch from film to video, what follows is little more than an extended home movie. Rather than experiment by eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner out of a McDonald’s bag, Hyatt made the personal sacrifice of swearing off all …
Having cracked open dozens of white containers of this Cantonese restaurant staple over the years, I found myself curious as to the origins of the titular warlord and the deep-fried fare that regularly wages battle with my colon. Yes, Virginia, there is a General Tso, but according to Ian Cheney’s …