Entries
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 to wasting away their extracurricular hours standing on a grassy field hitting a ball with a stick -- is tops …
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 Loma Theatre. My first visit to America's Finest City was in 1985, and the yearly vacations continued until I finally …
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 to endure a Dreamworks production, I avert my gaze every time their logo hits the screen. Surely I paid a …
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 her otherwise numbed expression. It's a demanding move on the part of director Sean Durkin, and it requires a certain …
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 film tells the story of Martha, beginning with her re-entry into the everyday world after a stint with a crunchy …
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 upcoming A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas), John Cho, I mentioned that he still had time to visit 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 instead spend each day as if it were the precious last? In Time coils those options into a bravura concept …
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 for the Seuss, for the Seuss is now dead And so he cannot knock some sense in your head.) And …
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 Century samurai (Ryô Nishikido) inexplicably materializing on the streets of Tokyo would end with Japan’s answer to The Betty Crocker …
Sweet, Sweet Blogenfreude
I think it may be fair to say that my esteemed co-blogger Mr. Marks has little taste for the middlebrow, preferring instead the high art of, say, The Three Stooges and the lowbrow joys of, say, Scorsese. Which goes a …
Reviews!
Shall I compare thee to a hummer, say? Odds Bodkin! Elliott is on fire! He lays into the cream-faced loons behind the Shakespeare-bashing Anonymous in this wise: "Anonymous comes from the reigning depositer of commercial mega-dung, Roland Emmerich (2012, The …
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 lack thereof) and the piercings. Style.com is all up ons: I'm also looking forward to tattoo parlors posting signs in …
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 dunk in your morning coffee), and a police officer is more concerned with being assigned blame for a suicide than …
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 plummeted to sinister depths. Low notes throbbed so menacingly that they seemed to reverberate through my spine, making me tingle. …
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 cuts and jiggly cinematography. Several of the jolts in this prequel, cleverly set in 1988 at the dawn of camcorders, …
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 the best film to play this year’s festival -- I’m hoping that honor will go to Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City …
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 feature, Almanya - Willkommen in Deutschland. Tickets for the opening night gala, held at the Museum of Photographic Arts in …
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 in search of the Holy Grail of Mockingbird Heights, the Easter Special, Marineland Carnival with the Munsters, where America's kookiest …
Review: The Stool Pigeon
All roads lead to the San Diego Asian Film Festival! Before recommending that you run to see The Stool Pigeon when it plays SDAFF on October 23 and October 27, here's a nudge to remind you that the festival commences …