In Machine Gun Preacher (out in Dallas now), Gerard Butler plays real life ruffian biker turned gun-toating man of faith, Sam Childers. After a life of crime and drug/alcohol addiction, Childers and his wife (played by Michelle Monaghan) take up the cross in place of the bottle, the needle and…
Yesterday, James Wallace kicked off Mixmaster’s horror movie countdown with the stupendous slasher-flick Halloween. James mentioned that Halloween’s impact has made it so he can’t remember the exact first time he’d seen the film, but he can always remember the recent viewng. Everyone remembers Antichrist. Whether it’s the first viewing…
Halloween (1978) Most lists about the best All Hallow’s Eve-themed movies, or just the greatest Horror flicks of all time in general, finish it off with John Carpenter’s 1978 masterpiece of macabre but we’re starting this killer list out in style and taking a stab at giving you 31 days…
Despite only gracing the screen for eight short years thus far, actress Anna Kendrick has starred alongside some of Hollywood’s leading men and made herself into quite the leading lady, not to mention earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in 2009’s Up in the Air while…
One single scene captures the tricky tonal balance of Jonathan Levine’s cancer comedy 50/50. Adam, the straightedge radio producer played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, has just finished his first round of chemotherapy. It was tough, but the kindly gents IV’d next to him (Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer) made it…
At the Fashionistas event the other night at the Trinity River Audubon Center, the buzz wasn’t about the clothes on the runway. It was about the blond in the audience rocking a sparkly tube-dress and motorcycle mukluks. Is this a look now? Sequined mini cocktail frock with ugly strapped footwear?…
We’re watching Bravo’s Most Eligible Dallas every week so you don’t have to. This week, Drew attacks everyone around him. Can’t we all just push a buddon that helps us get along? Scene 1: Tara brings increasingly ubiquitous side character Daylon with her to the vet’s office to pick up…
Jerry Haynes has died at the age of 84. Rest in peace, Mr. Peppermint…
For his latest role in Moneyball — from director Bennett Miller (Capote), written by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List), and based on author Michael Lewis’ 2003 non-fiction book by the same name — Jonah Hill is switch hitting the comedy for the drama. Hill first…
By now, a good number of you regular theater goers probably checked out Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, which sped into theaters last weekend. One of the elements of the film that cannot be ignored is Ryan Gosling’s white quilted sateen racing jacket, emblazoned with a giant scorpion patch on the…
At the time of this writing, the Oakland Athletics sit at a distant third in the American League West, 18 games behind the Texas Rangers managed by Ron Washington, once the first-base coach under A’s wonderboy Billy Beane. The A’s have not had a winning season since making the playoffs…
In Brighton Rock, Rowan Joffe’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s 1938 novel, Sam Riley plays Pinkie, a baby-faced junior thug who takes advantage of his mentor’s murder to catapult himself to the top of their two-bit gang. An obstacle to his criminal dominance is Rose (Andrea Riseborough), a teenage waitress who…
Adapted from Muriel Barbery’s international best-seller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Mona Achache’s first film, The Hedgehog, follows two parallel storylines: one featuring a thoroughly insufferable little girl, the other a pleasingly grumpy middle-aged widow. Scrawny, bespectacled, precocious 11-year-old Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic), disgusted by the futility of her bourgeois…
Wholly unrelated to the 1975 Sam Peckinpah film of the same name, Killer Elite is distinguished by one no-mercy, eye-gouging, testicle-punching brawl, and one whoppingly indifferent screenplay. After a collateral-damage close call awakens his conscience — the first of many perfunctorily recycled bits to come — hitman Danny Bryce (Jason…
Once upon a time, Peter Gatien ruled clubland in New York. With spots such as Limelight and Tunnel, the impresario who wore an eye patch figured out all the post-Studio 54 strategies for getting people to queue up in order to empty their pockets. Chances are you know this already,…
Do you have the Gang together? Have you brushed up on your: Danny DeVito Tanned baby Cocaine priest Huffing Waitress infatuation Questionable coaching methods Creepy, creepy rivals Well, HAVE YOU? All of it could be on tonight’s quiz. You don’t know. We don’t know. We’re about to have a Charlie…
Rush Week is upon us. Did you hear me? Rush Week. While some of you are responding with, “What the hell is Rush Week?” others are either cringing in fear or donning facial expressions of apathy and disinterest without even trying. No matter your response to fraternities (school-sanctioned or otherwise),…
We’re watching Bravo’s Most Eligible Dallas every week so you don’t have to. The fourth episode finds formerly minor characters becoming thunder thieves. Read on. Most Eligible Dallas made its triumphant televised return on Monday after taking a week off for reasons I know not but support nonetheless. So, I’ll…
We’re not going to get the picks right, necessarily, but we’ve clocked serious hours watching the tube, so we feel like we’ve got insight into what “the people” want in their Emmy-winners. You know, “the people.” The couch people. The people who have cut their lifespans with a remote control…
Back in June, the first trailer for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo landed on the tangled interwebs, teasing those of us who can’t wait for the December 21 release of the film. Well, there’s another movie we can’t wait to see, and thankfully it’ll hit the big screen a month…
As stripped-down and propulsive as its robotic title, Drive is the most “American” movie yet by Danish genre director Nicolas Winding Refn. The film, for which Refn was named best director last May in Cannes, is a sleek, tense piece of work that, as a vehicle for Ryan Gosling, has…
What I don’t know: why these movies keep getting made. I Don’t Know How She Does It is based on Allison Pearson’s 2002 diaristic comic bestseller and directed by Douglas McGrath. But its real auteur is screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, scripter of wan workplace romantic comedies such as the limp…
