Helix High Alum Steve Moramarco Returns to Screen The Great Intervention
What do you do when you are a severely depressed 40-year-old struggling actor who can't find work, is "underwater on his mortgage", and suddenly single after their best girl took a powder? Why not try the cinema-as-therapy plan? With only …
The Movie Studio Logo Quiz III: The Heretic
I've already written one review and a "news" item today, so let's kick back and have some fun. As in Round 1 and Round 2 of the game, I post a one-shot logo, you tell me the film it opens. …
Brad Pitt Will Retire From Acting When He Turns 50
Brad Pitt told Australia's 60 Minutes that he will forsake acting three years from now when he hits the "Big Five-O." By retiring from acting, Pitt does not mean another Ocean's installment or a sequel to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. …
Review: The Greening of Whitney Brown
Fandango classifies The Greening of Whitney Brown as an art house/foreign/action/adventure film. They are only half right. It is playing a local art house (Reading Cinemas Gaslamp 15), but I must have glanced down at my watch and missed the …
J. Edgar Math
Philip Seymour Hoffman Plus Percy Helton Plus J. Edgar, Hoofa! Read David Elliott's * review.
Dig a Hole: Sid Melton
The question that will be a topic of conversation for decades to come: Where were you when you first learned of the death of Sid Melton? I posted the news on Facebook — after taking 20 minutes to compose myself …
NBC Eyes Munsters Reboot
It can't be any worse than The Munsters Today, the mercifully ill-fated 1987 syndicated attempt to reassemble the family. Even John Schuck's furrowed brow and malleable jaw, so well put to use as the Painless Pole in Altman's MASH*, were …
De Niro to Play Bernie Madoff in TV Movie
Robert De Niro had a lot in common with Bernie "I Screwed Spielberg" Madoff. For the past 15 years, Bobby D. has made off with bushels of moviegoers money in exchange for dirt like Stardust, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Hide and …
The Title or Trailer Game 2: The New Batch
Today's festive crop of title art and/or trailer legends yields coke in the budget, coke in the floorboards, a decapitated tourist, vikings, gremlins, a big bad mama (and the even more suffocating Midge), hoofers, surfers, a colossus (and I don't …
Dig A Hole: Cynthia Myers, One of Russ Meyer's Dolls
As time passes, and my one-handed "dates" of yesteryear slowly move on to their rewards, I promise not to fill this blog with news of dead bunnies. Cynthia Myers was different. She was a "Doll." Her airbrushed pulchritude and pronounced …
West Side Story Returns to the Big Screen for One Night Only
While heading to Fashion Valley's Box #4 for this morning's screening of J. Edgar, I happened upon a lighted poster case that featured this graven image: Photo credit: Saul Bass. Little Scotty was but a pup when Aunt Fay dragged …
Review: Rise and Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story
I'm a raving sportsophope, that's a given. But if we were to swap passions, and Jay DeMerit put as much energy into absorbing all there is to know about movies as he does kicking a soccer ball, I could kind …
Dueling Hoovers: Larry Cohen vs. Clint Eastwood
It started with this image I shared on my Facebook wall: Go, Clint! J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood's biopic on the controversial FBI director that stars Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, opens next week. With that in mind, I posted …
Harold Heralds HK3D: An Interview With John Cho
John Cho walked past me as I sat in the lobby of the Hard Rock Hotel awaiting our interview. My immediate reaction was to smile. Initially, I came for the White Castle -- what I wouldn't give for a freshly …
Happy Halloween from Ben Cooper, Moe Green, & Your Pals at The Big Screen
Remember these sparkly, cheaply made, kiddie surgical gowns that came boxed in one-ply cardboard? They were designed from the world's cheapest fabric; one slight shift of the apothecary would result in an irreparable rip up the side. After an hour …
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 …
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 …
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 …