Entries
Dig a Hole: Leonard Kastle, The Honeymoon Killers one-hit wonder
One-shot writer, director Leonard Kastle, 82, died on Wednesday at his home in Westerlo, N.Y. He may have been a one-hit wonder, but oh what a hit it was! At the time of its limited release, the low-budget indie The …
USA, USA, USA: American Winners of the Palme D'Or, 1980-Present
1980: Bob Fosse, All that Jazz http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C74Pae3PpMo&feature=related 1989: Steven Soderbergh: Sex, Lies, and Videotape http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxdQQpJ9t-4 1990: David Lynch, Wild at Heart http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCQwumNQL9E&feature=related 1991: Joel and Ethan Coen, Barton Fink http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK0WjWlVO9w 1994: Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZBfmBvvotE 2003: Gus Van Sant, …
Review: Rubber
What reasonable explanation could a filmmaker possibly provide for an abandoned tire suddenly coming to life, rising from its desert graveyard and going on a killing spree? There’s nuclear fallout, but that’s so 1950s, and zombies or a pretty face …
Iron Man vs Watchmen
I’d give Shellhead2 a higher rating than the first installment, mainly on the strength of the performances, which transcend the odds by holding their own against the utterly massive layers of visual FX. Mickey Rourke follows up his Award-driven Wrestler …
"Here is a man who would not take it any more."
Wow. Just wow. Can you imagine a Hollywood screenwriter of today taking the time to write a furious letter to a just-started alternative weekly newspaper? But here's Paul Shrader, fresh off the success of Taxi Driver, letting Reader critic Duncan …
San Diego's Social Swami Burl Stiff Dies
I have been an avid Burl Stiff watcher since I first set foot in San Diego twelve years ago. That has been true even though my only cinematic connection with him was at a couple of screenings during my stint …
Titanic, the Musical!
No, not really. But there is news! Back in 2008, Reader writer Josh Board attended a party at director James Cameron's Malibu mansion. Board reported: "My girlfriend went into Cameron’s “screening room,” as everyone called it. I’d call it a …
Five end-of- the-world movies to see before doomsday
Do the Biblical math: Evangelist Harold Camping + The Scriptures = The end of the world as we know it. I was in my fallout shelter last night speaking with L. Ron Hubbard on the wireless direct from the planet …
UCSD Arts Library to Host Impromptu Sci-Fi Radio & Film Laboratory
Get out your white smocks and tuning forks. The UCSD Arts Library will present what's being billed as an "Impromptu Sci-Fi Radio & Film Laboratory." The one-day event will run from 11 am-5 pm this Saturday at the Geisel Library's …
Roundup: The Roar
Priest really was chock full of cliched goodness...besides slumming graybeards, it also included "Beast who enters scene and roars." Is anyone else tired of this? I mean after LOTR's Cave Troll... ...Avatar's Thanator... ...Star Trek's ice monster thingy... ...and on …
Send your kids to Movie Camp this summer!
Summer camp was a real thrill, let me tell you. Seven hours a day trapped in a clammy forest preserve, plagued by hordes of carniverous mosquitos the size of Stuka dive bombers, and nothing to sustain me but musty baloney …
Donnie Darko Sequel Doesn’t Deserve Bad Rap
Man, I can hardly find a single positive word about this movie online, and I’m frankly mystified. Given one of the most dubious and potentially pointless tasks in movie history, “Make a sequel to Donnie Darko,” I feel the filmmakers …
Hitler!
You know, I was gonna write a thinky sort of post about Lars Von Trier's "I understand Hitler" press conference in Cannes, but really, the only thing that must be said is that someone needs to do a "Hitler reacts …
Reviews!
This week, David Elliott looks long into The Beaver, My Perestroika, The Robber, and Henry's Crime. Plus capsule reviews of Soul Surfer, Priest, The First Grader, Forks Over Knives, and The Double Hour.
Relatively Speaking brings Woody Allen, Elaine May and Ethan Coen to Broadway
Three short plays authored by Hollywood heavyweights Woody Allen, Elaine May, and Ethan Coen will be making their way to Broadway this fall. Relatively Speaking unites two brilliant, pioneering stand-up comics and straight-faced Coen for an evening of what Woody …
Roundup: More Slumming Graybeards
File under: what a drag it is getting old. This is turning out to be something of a rich vein. So without further ado, four more late-career curiosities from the stars of the screen: Max Von Sydow in Judge Dredd! …
Do You Remember: The Midway Drive-in
THE MIDWAY Drive-In was constructed in 1947 at the intersection of Midway Drive and Sports Arena Boulevard, back when the Boulevard was still Frontier Street and Navy barracks stood on acreage later occupied by a FedMart. The Midway Drive-In Theatre …
Baby Daddy Schwarzenegger comes clean about love child
We now know the reason Maria Shriver packed her bags and moved out of her Brentwood mansion. According to the Los Angeles Times, just one week after announcing her split from Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Sperminator has publicly confessed to fathering …