In film after film from the late ’70s into the mid-’80s, the slobs — often led by writer-director-actor Harold Ramis, who died today at age 69 — trounced the snobs in each of their face-offs: at Faber College, at Camp North Star, at Sergeant Hulka’s Fort Arnold, against that ginger…
“Over the weekend, I won my first air sex competition,” says Steven Walters, gleefully lighting a cigarette. “I even beat out a sexy pole dancer.” It’s a sunny Monday afternoon in February and I’m sitting next to Walters on a bench outside of Crooked Tree Coffeehouse in Uptown. The busy…
Almost a pop history of Western culture’s relationship to female orgasm, Charlie Stratton’s In Secret is a spirited zip through Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, a sex-and-sin morality tale of the sort that has been the template for the last decade of Woody Allen dramas. Unlike those, In Secret boasts vigor and…
No matter what else he does, director Sam Raimi has two unassailable fan favorites under his belt: 1987’s Evil Dead 2, and the 1992 trilogy-capper Army of Darkness. (His first film, 1981’s The Evil Dead, is more “respected” than “loved” by the fans.) Released between those two films, Raimi’s 1990…
It doesn’t feature iPhones, Twitter or an internet, and yet Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop remains perhaps the most prescient sci-fi effort of the past 30 years — a work from 1987 whose continuing relevance is matched by the fact that no one would dare make it today. Or, at least, remake…
Here’s the last thing I ever would have expected out of Pompeii, that sword-thrust of 3D gladiator-vs.-volcano madness coming right at your disbelieving eyeholes. An hour or so in, when Vesuvius exhausts its portentous rumblings and blows its top (3D!), I legitimately wasn’t ready. Yes, all that third-act destruction is…
In 1990, the same year that Kevin Costner released the massive global hit Dances with Wolves, a curious thing happened in France. The name Kevin became the country’s most popular for new babies, a Gaelic moniker edging out national stalwarts like Antoine and Jules. Imagine if everyone in America suddenly…
The man who gifted the world with splatter-soaked classics like Surf Nazis Must Die, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead and The Toxic Avenger isn’t just bringing back one of his most classic franchises. He’s also bringing it to the Texas Theatre. The Oak Cliff movie house announced that Troma…
Actor, writer and director Crispin Glover owns an interesting piece of real estate in between the realms of independent cinema and pop culture. The lanky legend has pulled off brilliant performances in memorable, mainstream movies such as the one-armed bellhop in Hot Tub Time Machine, the conniving “Thin Man” in…
It’s a little sad that Colin Farrell has outgrown roles that require him to wear raggedy sweaters and say things like “For fook’s sake!” It had to happen, though. Farrell has always made a terrific bad boy, but he clearly knows he couldn’t be a scamp forever, and he seems…
Denton is a sneaky little son-of-a-bitch. They went off and planned and executed an international film festival with barely a peep. The line-up is beyond impressive and each day of Thin Line Film and Music fest is filled with shorts, features and local bands like Slobberbone and The O’s. Yeah,…
It’s a little sad that Colin Farrell has outgrown roles that require him to wear raggedy sweaters and say things like “For fook’s sake!” It had to happen, though. Farrell has always made a terrific bad boy, but he clearly knows he couldn’t be a scamp forever, and he seems…
Congratulations, Detroit. In 1987, Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop cemented it as the most violent city in the world, an honor the Motor City resented for decades until its powers that be realized they may as well erect a statue of Peter Weller and milk the tourism. Twenty-seven years later, the attention…
Director José Padilha’s long-delayed RoboCop reboot has arrived, and it’s neither an unalloyed (see what I did there?) triumph nor the travesty that partisans of Paul Verhoeven’s subversive Reagan-era classic had feared. At least, and at most, it’s different, taking bold liberties with the original text, as remakes should. One…
Though it’s difficult to pinpoint the typical Berlin Film Festival film, I’ve attended the festival enough times to attest that most pictures in the competition lean toward the somber end of the scale: You’re more likely to see a drama about immigrants in tough circumstances or children left to fend…
The endless love in question unfolds in that universe where shy, bookish teenage girls are always catalog-model beautiful, not a pimple in sight or a pound overweight, not a garment from Hot Topic darkening their closets. The movie tells us that 17-year-old Jade Butterfield (Gabriella Wilde) is “awkward” and has…
Almost a pop history of Western culture’s relationship to female orgasm, Charlie Stratton’s In Secret is a spirited zip through Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, a sex-and-sin morality tale of the sort that has been the template for the last decade of Woody Allen dramas. Unlike those, In Secret boasts vigor and…
Just as animated characters who look too human creep us out, could there be a phenomenon we might call the RomCom Uncanny Valley, a case when movie stars’ gorgeousness fully outshines our ability to believe their characters’ humdrum relationship problems? Radiant lovers make radiant love — and then argue about…
Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, both of which publish special daily issues at the major international festivals, may be the most famous movie trade magazines. But every morning at any of these festivals, including Berlin, most critics I know – and probably plenty of industry people, too – turn to…
If Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel hadn’t choked Salvador Dalí’s ladyfriend at that dinner party, film history would have played out differently. But hey, these things happen. The throttling was, quite literally, the sign of tension coming to a head between the two artists. The violence caused Dalí to walk away…
Does Bob Costas have pink eye? Yikes. #welcometoSochi pic.twitter.com/oPE7iTpkdb— Dan Ukrainetz (@Dan_Uk1) February 8, 2014 The lead-up to Sochi was filled with dire signs that Putin’s games were doomed. The toilets are weird! There’s no Chobani! They’re butchering thousands of dogs! My honey packet had a bee in it! And…
The lowly writer always seems to be on the bottom rung of the Hollywood food chain. They craft worlds and characters using nothing but their minds, a bottomless pot of extremely strong coffee and a social phobia that makes them hyper-vigilant of human behaviors and emotions. Then it slowly gets…
