Review: The Help
In order to keep their families disease-free, the young white ladies of Jackson, Mississippi (c.1960) get behind a Colored bathroom bill and construct outdoor facilities so as to avoid sharing a seat with their domestics. As a result, future feminist …
Comedians Rally to Support Former Telethon Host Jerry Lewis
Last week it was my sad duty to report Jerry Lewis' ouster as the National Chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. According to the MDA, Jerry's participation in the annual Labor Day Telethon (that he created some sixty years ago …
En Garde: An Interview with The Guard Writer & Director John Michael McDonagh
John Michael McDonagh Get ready for a film that puts this summer's colorless comic book adaptations and gross-out comedies to shame. The Guard stars Brendan Gleeson as Sergeant Gerry Boyle, a small town cop assigned to crack a ring of …
Bootleg Super 8 Screener Has Howard Stern's Name On It
Could it be? The last honest man left in broadcasting guilty of electronic copyright infringement?! A copy of JJ Abrahms Super8 containing an "H Stern" watermark has surfaced on illegal internet sites. While I'd pay anything to see a police …
Latino Film Festival's Cinema en tu Idioma Series Runs All Week
David Rasche and Cristina Lago star in *Blue Eyes* We've hit a good patch! What with The Guard, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Another Earth, Midnight in Paris, and Le Quattro Volte currently playing neighborhood screens, there's something …
Free Outdoor Screening of Disney's Tangled Tonight
Why not take advantage of KUSI meteorologist Leslie Lopez's forecast for perfect outdoor movie-viewing weather and bring the family (and blankets and lawn chairs) to Carmel Valley for tonight's free screening of Disney's Tangled? I'll be your projectionist for the …
Joe Walker on Editing YouTube Documentary Life in a Day
With Netflix and Red Box both entering the film distribution market, it's a wonder that it took YouTube so long to find its way to the big screen. YouTube partnered with Ridley Scott's company Scott Free and director Kevin Macdonald …
Oprah Winfrey to Receive Oscar's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
Oscar periodically bestows the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award upon individuals "in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry." Furthermore, honorary statuettes are awarded for "extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state …
Jerry Lewis Out as MDA Chairman and Telethon Host
My favorite TV show of all-time was canceled. We all knew it couldn't last forever, but who would have thought Jerry Lewis' departure from the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Annual Labor Day Telethon that he created would get ugly. It was …
Apes on the Brain
I pricked my finger and took a blood oath never to break an embargo by revealing my true feelings for a film before it opens. Something tells me 2oth Century Fox won't mind the following breach. Rise of the Planet …
$20 Million Persuades Jennifer Lopez to Stick With American Idol
Fran Leibowitz once said, "If you're going to watch TV, watch TV." It's amazing how a comment made in passing on Late Night with David Letterman had the power to change the way I look at things. These eight words, …
Review: The Smurfs
I remember re-writing the narration in my head the first time I saw the trailer: “From Raja Gosnell, the Academy Award-slighted ‘director’ of such box office (s)hits as Big Momma’s House, two steaming helpings of Scooby-Doo, and a movie in …
Halo-Loving Marathon Xbox Player Now Wears One
My dad used to harp, "Instead of going to the movies, why don't you read a book?" Nowadays, a parent's battle cry is, "Why don't you stop playing video games and go to the movies?" If heeded, the latter admonition …
Free Outdoor Screening of Top Gun Tonight
Liberty Station’s third annual Summer Movie Mania continues tonight with a free 25th anniversary outdoor screening of Top Gun. A favorite of locals, we played to a capacity crowd when I screened the movie at the Oceanside Pier earlier this …
Dig a Hole: G.D. Spradlin
Gervase Duan Spradlin. With a handle like that, it's no wonder he grew up to be one tough hombre. G.D. Spradlin — attorney, independent oil producer, mayoral candidate, and one of the few men brazen enough to dare face down …
Dig A Hole: Polly Platt, Production Designer, Producer, and Screenwriter
Polly Platt first met Peter Bogdanovich in the summer of 1961. At the time, Bogdanovich was working as the artistic director for a theatre in Phonecia, New York. The director describes the encounter in his book Who the Devil Made …
Interview: Brit Marling, Co-Writer and Star of Another Earth
Brit Marling first met Mike Cahill while attending Georgetown. One of Mike’s short films won the Georgetown Film Festival. Brit saw it, introduced herself and soon began appearing in Mike’s other shorts. It’s been a good working relationship: Brit stars, …
Review: Love Etc.
Love Etc. began with an, “I do.” Executive producer Jonathan Tisch and his bride-to-be Lizzie spent a day standing on line at New York’s City Hall Marriage Bureau waiting for a license. Surrounded by couples united under an umbrella of …
A Re-butt to "Cowboys & Aliens: Daniel Craig, Fitted Chaps. Er, Fit Chap"
Look closer, Mr. Lickona. All that's missing is the DNA taken from Jon Favreau's lip-prints.
Kristen Stewart Out As TS Autistic Druggie Convict in Mom's Movie
Photo at left: Tiny Lister Looks like "Snow White" won't be drifting after all. Kristen Stewart, long-rumored to don four hats as a transsexual yardbird with autism and a nasty drug habit, will not star in her mom Jules' directorial …