There’s More to Streaming Than Netflix

As of this writing, the Netflix Instant catalog boasts more than 10,000 titles available for online streaming — a number that, as per the official Netflix rhetoric, seems colossal. But the landscape of this digital paradise may not be quite so idyllic. As classic film enthusiast Jaime Christley reminds us,…

Five Porn Stars Who Tried to Make the Leap from XXX to Recording Artist

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights gets pulled out of the nightstand drawer this weekend as Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd.) gives it a 35-mm big-screen run this Friday through Sunday. Several of the film’s funniest moments involve drug-addled cocksman Dirk Diggler’s attempts to record “You Got The Touch” and…

300 Sequel Offers More Bloody Hunks and Eva Green

Man, woman, gay, straight, bi: There’s something for everyone in 300: Rise of an Empire, the XXL sequel to the also-larger-than-life Greeks-in-shinguards extravaganza 300. In that picture, directed by Zack Snyder and based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the three-day Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., the Spartans and…

An Irresistible Playdate with Elaine Stritch

“I’ve got a certain amount of fame, I’ve got money — I wish I could fuckin’ drive,” 86-year-old Elaine Stritch carps just a breath into Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, a gift of a documentary celebrating its subject’s brittle brilliance, still-here indomitability, brash comic truth-telling and principled refusal to wear anything…

Alain Resnais Imagined the Whole Memory of the World

Alain Resnais’ last completed film, Life of Riley (2014), presents a group of aging friends who plan, hope, wish, dream and scheme after they learn that one of their own is dying. The doomed man, George Riley, never shown onscreen, is enlisted to join an amateur theater production in the…

Three Reasons Why HBO’s Looking is the Perfect Show for Women

(Spoiler alert: The following piece discusses up to the February 16 episode of Looking.)HBO’s Looking has had a tough time winning over its intended fans. Upon its premiere, Gawker’s Rich Juzwiak yawningly summed up the political achievement of creator Michael Lannan’s wonderful half-hour dramedy about three homosexual men in San…

The Meh Wayback: Mr. Peabody & Sherman

First, the pleasant surprises. In puffing up the slight, absurd Mr. Peabody and Sherman shorts from Jay Ward’s The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show into an 82-minute 3D save-the-timestream child-distractor, director Rob Minkoff and his many writers have preserved a few of the hallmarks distinguishing the Dada, deadpan, almost primitive original,…

AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire to Premiere June 1

It’s official, AMC announced the premiere date for its new series Halt and Catch Fire,the drama set during the PC boom in Dallas. The show will debut Sunday, June 1 at 9 p.m. CST. The show takes place in the early 1980’s and tells the story of the race to…

Liam Neeson Stomps Right Through Non-Stop

Action heroes with nothing to lose are the best kind, perhaps the only kind worth watching. In the opening seconds of Jaume Collet-Serra’s Non-Stop, Liam Neeson’s federal air marshal Bill Marks slumps in his parked vehicle, sloshing a few glugs of whiskey into a paper cup and stirring it up…

Miyazaki Bows with the Gorgeous The Wind Rises.

In 1998, Douglas Adams published a sweet, funny essay called “Riding the Rays,” about an excursion to Hayman Island to try a kind of underwater jet ski device called a Sub Bug because it afforded an opportunity to swim with manta rays. He wrote of his encounter with the creature:…

Penn, Teller and a Tech Millionaire In Tim’s Vermeer

First, let’s get this out of the way: There is no Santa Claus. Now, on to a perhaps even harsher truth: There are certain indications that Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, whose 17th-century paintings — like Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Music Lesson — show an extraordinarily delicate touch…

Who Killed the Romantic Comedy?

The corpse lay crumpled on the conference table, close enough that the studio executive could tug on the red heel of her Louboutins. She’d been lying there unnoticed, or perhaps just ignored, for quite some time. Her wedding veil was tattered and someone had spilled coffee on her white satin…

Meet Skinaflix, the Netflix for Aficionados of Old-School Porn

“Sex films sell, and other stuff doesn’t … or at least not nearly as well,” says film preservationist Joe Rubin. Rubin, 24 years old, is one of the creators working Skinaflix, a VOD-style streaming video service he calls “the Netflix of porn.” At Vinegar Syndrome, a separate DVD/Blu-Ray–centric home video…

Oscar-Nominated Movie Summaries From a Mom

The Oscars are coming! Yay! I haven’t seen any of the movies, on account of the stupid infant and his inability to take care of himself for three hours, so I have no idea which new movies are the best new movies. I also have no idea what the outside…