Forever Amber alert!
Cinephilia is a crime punishable in most states!
I was sitting in the basement last week watching a beautiful 16mm dye-transfer print of Otto Preminger's Forever Amber. It wasn't until I got up to change reels, that I noticed a crime had been committed. Reel 3 was missing …
Penning Teller: An interview with the spectacular Miles Teller
Everything you need to know about the star of The Spectacular Now, currently playing at a theatre near you, is contained in the interview. I had a ball talking with the 26-year-old actor when he came to San Diego last …
Unaccustomed as I am to seeing 'douche' as a verb...
While plowing through e-stacks of TV Radio Mirror I happened across this ad buried in the back pages of the February, 1963 edition. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/19/51536/ Look, it's early on a Monday morning and this thing has given me a case of …
Di died for Hollywood's sins
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/18/51509/ It's a cynical Sunday morning, isn't it? Scotland Yard has announced that they have new information regarding the death of Princess Diana. They won't reveal their findings, but what are they going to tell us? It was a hoax: …
Meet Miles Teller star of The Spectacular Now
Actor to put in personal appearance tonight at Arclight La Jolla & Landmark Hillcrest
Here is your chance to meet Miles Teller, star of Project X, 21 & Over, and, starting today, The Spectacular Now. Miles will be on hand to answer questions after the 6:25pm showing of TSN at ArcLight La Jolla. He'll …
4th row center: Opening night a MoPA
It's been almost 14 years. Enough time has passed. Let's laugh about it. I arrived in San Diego on January 15, 2000 to assume the position of inaugural film curator at the Museum of Photographic Arts. A brand-spanking new, million …
Porn for film historians
For a wizened, pixel-loathing curmudgeon like me, it doesn't get much better. The collection of The Media History Digital Library is now ours for the clicking. That means decades of Variety, Moving Picture World, Photoplay, The Hollywood Reporter, Picture Play …
DVD Rentals: The Barefoot Contessa
What would have happened if Rita Hayworth had carried on a torrid love affair with Howard Hughes? It certainly would have amounted to something a lot more lively than the last hour of The Barefoot Contessa. For it's first third, …
Trailer Park: Fading Gigolo
When was the last time Woody Allen acted in a film that he didn't direct? If you guessed Antz (like me), than we'd both be wrong. Did Alfonso Arau's Picking Up the Pieces even receive a theatrical release? According to …
Review: Lovelace
Lovelace tats a tale of humiliation and degradation within the early days of the porn industry. This isn't the biopic originally intended as a comeback vehicle for Lindsay Lohan. The media circus that is Lohan's life was cited as the …
Marks to appear in commercial for new Scorsese picture?
It's been a long standing dream to have a blurb from of one of my reviews appear on a movie poster. It's not as though I haven't given the studios ample opportunity. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/12/51132/ http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/12/51133/ http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/12/51134/ http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/12/51135/ The era of physical …
Opening this week: See Fecha de Caducidad at the Digital Gym before it expires
Matthew took the week off for a round of intense behavioral counseling -- that's what he gets for stroking my backside and placing me in the Lickona headlock -- so it's my turn to hip our readers to this week's …
Review: Elysium
This week’s comic book contribution is the third (so far) alternate universe pic to be released in 2013. In each case scenario the future looks old, but the digital worlds of tomorrow manufactured for Upside Down and Oblivion are fun …
Blue Jasmine review makes reader see red
Whom, but my editor, Ernie Grimm, was seated inside Cosmo's in La Mesa, frantically pecking at his laptop, when I dropped in for my morning dose of Joe? "Did you call the new Woody Allen film 'artless?'" he asked, stopping …
Dig a divot: Munchkin Margaret Pellegrini is really most sincerely dead
Will Ruth Robinson Duccini or Jerry Maren be next?
As hole digger I must aver, the Phoenix coroner examined her. And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead. Margaret Pellegrini, the hip-switching Munchkin City looker with the flowerpot headdress -- and until today one of only …
It's beginning to look a lot like Oscar
Coming soon to an awards banquet near you
Smell that? Summer isn't over and already Hollywood is casting bait for next year's Academy Awards gala. Last week's pre-game festivities at Reading Cinema's Town Square showcased six trailers -- all surefire Oscar hopefuls -- that contained over twice as …
In a world without Ebert, Marks is named one of three to watch
Slamming a film can be almost as disagreeable an experience as accidentally dropping the word acromegalic when struggling to come up with a nice way to describe a fugly newborn to its beaming parents. It’s quite possible that over the …
4th row center: Fruitvale Station
What kind of mother takes a 3-year-old to see Fruitvale Station, the R-rated true story of a 22-year-old Bay Area resident gunned down by police on New Year's Eve? The kind of mother who, when politely asked to put an …
Volunteers needed for San Diego Asian Film Festival
With the 14th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival just 3 months away, it's time to put out a rallying call for a few good volunteers. SDAFF is looking for conscientious, dependable souls to help with fundraising, graphic design, office …
Casting call: 4 spots remain in Filner biopic, 12 Angry Women
I spotted this curious ad in the back pages of this week's edition of The Hollywood Variety. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/02/50574/