Slings and Arrows is a little-known Canadian comedy show about a Shakespeare troupe filled with goodies for fans of the immortal bard. Like most viewers, I first experienced Slings and Arrows after its cancellation. The series ran from 2003 to 2006, three seasons of six episodes each. Each season covered a different tragedy, all but Othello, as well as a smattering of theater jokes and general love interest/banter.
Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) argues that since parents send their children to sports camps, magic camps and other specialty camps, they should instead send their children to concentration camps. At least concentration camps would provide valuable life lessons. Although part of the humor is in the delivery, your reaction to this line is probably a good predictor of whether you will enjoy Whatever Works. Woody Allen’s latest effort takes him back to New York, with an old screenplay originally written for Zero Mostel. I am not yet sure where Whatever Works ranks in the panoply of Allen’s films, but Woody’s words in the mouths of this excellent cast elicited hearty laughter from the depths of my neurotic Jewish soul. [Read more →]
If you’re a fan of “what the heck is going on in Space” movies, then Moon is right up your alley.
While I hesitate to call it a science fiction film because there isn’t too much science going on, it does fall under that category. The premise of the movie is one that has been trotted out there before — a person spends too long in one place and starts to hallucinate. The place, in this case, is the Moon, where Sam Rockwell’s character of Sam Bell is closing out a multi-year stint mining for helium-3, a substance vital to Earth’s energy supply. [Read more →]
I saw Transformers: Rise of the Fallen, aka Transformers 2, in IMAX on Wednesday night. Oh, My Fuck! This movie is terrible, so terrible that it’s good in a bad way. I have tons of problems with the film. However, like Speed Racer, a film that totally embraced the “so bad it’s good genre,” Transformers: Rise of the Fallen is fun to watch.
It may be Christmas time in Chicago, but none of the ladies or gentlemen in The Merry Gentleman are enjoying the holidays, at least not at first. During the opening credits a professional killer commits a murder and a tearful wife leaves her husband for a new life. But do not be misled by this action-packed beginning. This is a thoughtful and deliberate film about a disparate trio whose lives are tinged by regret and hope. [Read more →]
Last year The Weekly Standard kindly published my ruminations on the yearly celebration of the 1958 camp sci-fi classic The Blob in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. If you haven’t been, go see the movie in the very theater where the blob-consumes-audience scene was shot. It’s a hoot. Indeed, I had so much fun reporting the event I decided to enter this year’s BlobFest short film competition. Check out my entry if you have a spare five minutes, let me know what you think, sympathize with my long-suffering wife and pugs, etc., etc.
Paula: We’ve talked about how the election of Barack Obama has changed the temper of race relations in this country. You’ve said you felt it. So have I. Obviously, the iconic value of the presidency means a lot. But I also think that much of our capacity to incorporate change in this country comes from our devotion to movies, which have taught us to see life in terms of simple dramatic narratives of change.
The dramatic narrative of Obama’s election is in the tradition of a Hollywood movie. [Read more →]
Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are a thirty-something, deeply-in-love unmarried couple expecting their first child but, lacking stable careers and roots, they still feel like children themselves. Burt and Verona take to the road, ostensibly to find a place to raise their child. But the real journey involves visiting friends and family while they try to decide what kind of parents they want to be. In this movie that has both comic and serious moments, the individual moments are better than the whole film. [Read more →]
When I first saw The Matrix back in 1999, I instantly became fascinated with its “virtual reality world” concept. At the time, and for many years afterwards, I saw the theme as a metaphor for the illusionary material world we live in — a world of time, space, and the assumption that we are all separate individuals. My belief, in line with what I had taken from kabbalah, was that in reality, we were all one united energy force. Call it God, the light, Buddha, Allah, the universe, sentient energy, whatever. The point was that this energy created our illusionary world in order to experience itself. After all, since it was an all-knowing, all-powerful energy, existence was pretty boring. This energy wanted to experience the one thing it couldn’t know: what it was like to not be it. So, it created an imaginary world of time and space and separated itself there into different material elements that eventually evolved into human beings. [Read more →]
I hear people say “that was the worst movie ever” all the time, but what really makes something THE WORST? The objectively worst movie ever was probably never released, but the subjective one… [Read more →]
After Georgia (Nia Vadalos) loses her job as a classics professor in a Greek university, she takes a job as a tour guide. Georgia wants to show the tour group the ancient wonders of Greece, but her groups want fun-filled tours of the beach and shops. My Life in Ruins is like one of those latter vacations. There is not much substance, but it sure is fun. [Read more →]
Yesterday I was shocked to hear reports that legendary actor David Carradine was found dead, hanged from an apparent suicide in his hotel in Bangkok. I immediately felt that things did not add up. Carradine was 72 years old, rich, famous and still working. True, he had spoken of suicide many times in his life, but that had been years ago. Many artistic people go through such turmoil in their life (as do many others), but once 72 years old, it would seem that you had decided to live. I also found it strange that he was in a hotel in Bangkok. If you’re depressed, contemplating ending your life, you’re generally at home, bed ridden, a shut-in, maybe abusing drugs and alcohol. You’re not gallivanting in an international party city, staying at the Swissotel. Something was fishy here, and this morning, with further reports released about his death, it became clear that this was not a suicide, but rather an accident that will cast a shadow over the strange and wonderful career of David Carrradine. [Read more →]
You would think that a film about a prostitute played by a twenty-one year old porn star (Sasha Grey) who can claim over one hundred and sixty-five porn films would be mildly interesting, or at least contain some racy scenes. You would be wrong on both fronts. I am not sure why the two elderly couples walked out of the theater the night that I saw the film, but I suspect it had more to do with boredom than shock. [Read more →]
I am a recovering Catholic. I attended a Catholic grade school, high school and even a Catholic University for a while. To say that I was not amused would be an understatement. It really didn’t take me very long to realize that there were some glaring inconsistencies in church doctrine. Once I was old enough to start thinking on my own, what I call “The age of reason”, the hypocrisy became much too burdensome. [Read more →]
Obviously I take my movie watching somewhat seriously. I mean, I write a blog about it, and that’s a bit above and beyond where most people go with their movie watching. I try and walk a fine line between movie snob and movie goer, but there is one place where I seem to be the movie snob asshole guy, and that’s AT THE MOVIES! [Read more →]
“Dr. Langdon, what a relief. The symbolist is here,” Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgård) says dryly to Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks). I understand his lack of enthusiasm. Let us all pray we never hear that greeting again. This convoluted plot is as murky and confusing as the copious underground Roman passageways, where much of this film takes place. Only an exciting final thirty minutes comes close to bringing this film redemption. [Read more →]
What do you do when you’ve taken a great concept, squeezed it until it’s bled dry, and made it a non-viable entity? In cinema, the answer is the “reboot”. And the best way to reboot a franchise is with a “prequel”. Following the path led by George Lucas and the Star Wars prequels, movie makers are revisiting some of the best sci-fi concepts that have been ruined by greed, and the American need to make each sequel to a movie (insert Schwarzenegger accent here) “Biggah, bettah, with even moh exploshons!” Star Wars worked to a point, with each prequel getting better and better. (Best in my opinion was The Clone Wars movie and animated series). Star Trek‘s new movie was mostly very good, with an interesting twist on the “reboot” concept, using an alternate timeline. Terminator Salvation, though, falls woefully short of these rebooted prequels. [Read more →]
Let’s do the whole combination, facing away from the mirror. From the top! Five, six, seven, eight! If these words resonate for you, you should finish reading this and then immediately step, kick, kick, leap your way to the closest theater showing Every Little Step. At a time when no career choice seems safe, even those who are not fans of musical theater will marvel at the passion and commitment of those in this documentary, as they pursue careers that are never a safe choice. [Read more →]
I saw an early screening of the new Sam Raimi movie, Drag Me To Hell. It’s a movie that Raimi fans have been dying to see, since Raimi has taken a break from the Horror genre for a few years, working on movies such as The Quick And The Dead with Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio, A Simple Plan starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thorton, For The Love Of The Game with Kevin Costner, and of course, most recently and profitably, Spiderman 1-3. But Raimi has a core of dedicated fans from his Evil Dead series, as well as movies like Darkman and Army Of Darkness. For those dedicated fans, Drag Me To Hell is a fun, scary, funny thrillride. For those who are not fans of Raimi’s mix of slapstick and horror, Drag Me To Hell absolutely, unequivocably sucks ass! [Read more →]
Captain James T. Kirk does not believe in no-win scenarios. As a cadet at Starfleet Academy, when faced with the Kobayashi Maru simulation, Kirk reprogrammed the test to change its conditions and thus became the first cadet to defeat the Kobayashi Maru. He “cheated” but he received a commendation for original thinking. Star Trek director J.J. Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman found themselves in a similar situation. After six films and numerous television spin offs, what more could be done with a franchise whose original characters and cast are beloved, but the lead actors are approaching eighty? Like Captain Kirk, they cheated, but the result is original and thrilling. And, it is well worth the $12.50 ticket price to see Star Trek in an IMAX theater. [Read more →]
