In Jesse Peretz’s Our Idiot Brother, Paul Rudd plays Ned, a kind of Upstate New York version of “The Dude” Lebowski — a man out of time, blinkered enough to be living the hippie dream. In the film’s first scene, Ned is “entrapped” into selling pot at a farmers’ market…
Join me in obsessing about British actor, comedian, writer, commentator and all-around adorable young curmudgeon David Mitchell. He’s worth obsessing over, if you’re in need of a new source of laughs, because he’s as funny as Ricky Gervais. Maybe funnier. And he’s all over YouTube, thanks to the BBC channel…
We’re watching Bravo’s Most Eligible Dallas every week so you don’t have to. For introductions to the cast members, check out last week’s recap of the premiere. There’s a lot to rehash, so on with the show! Scene 1: Decked out in his finest athletic sweater, Matt stops by his…
Maybe the real question should be: Why haven’t more reality show participants killed themselves? With this week’s apparent suicide by hanging of Russell Armstrong, the 47-year-old estranged spouse of one of Bravo’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the death toll from reality TV increases by one. There have been other…
With this week bringing the release of not one but two ’80s remakes — the bloody double bill of Conan the Barbarian and Fright Night — the proverbial final nail will be driven into the coffin as we lay yet another cinematic summer** season to rest. But was it so…
A cinematic reboot for the patron saint of 98-pound weaklings, Conan the Barbarian is both truer to the vision of its character’s creator, Robert E. Howard, and more satisfyingly pulpy than John Milius’ 1982 movie incarnation. Director Marcus Nispel, along with no fewer than three screenwriters, eschews the lugubrious mythmaking…
Directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by David Nicholls, based on his novel, One Day stars Anne Hathaway as Emma, a too-serious would-be writer in Coke-bottle glasses and combat boots. She’s nursing a crush on Dexter (Jim Sturgess), her too-good-looking rich-boy college classmate. She’s earnest, tenacious and…
With last night’s premiere of Most Eligible Dallas, a new group of campers arrived at the Bravo-lebrity summer camp. In addition to shining a sometimes unforgiving light on our fair city, the show introduces a possible new franchise. Bravo’s brand-making fixation on the seemingly wealthy (Real Housewives) and the people…
If The Weather Channel is to be believed — Delkus is on vacation and CBS 11’s Larry Mowry thinks it could be Friday — we could have rain today. RAIN, people. In honor of and in hope of this forecast, we’re taking a cue from DC9 (even though Pete is…
I first spoke to Jesse Eisenberg, on behalf of Gordon and the Whale, two years ago at Comic-Con when he was promoting Zombieland. He was polite, said thank you and answered all my questions with witty and comical honesty. A few weeks ago I spoke with him again when he…
More than just the Hollywood It Girl of the moment, Emma Stone is a real actress, and in The Help, she gets an ostentatious, Oscar-baiting Big Scene in which to prove it. Stone doesn’t need this kind of relic of old-school Hollywood to show off her chops. But this is…
Is there such a thing as a sincerely calculated naiveté? Or, put another way: Does Miranda July have any idea of how annoying she is? On the basis of The Future, writer/filmmaker/performance artist July’s second feature, I’d guess that she must. A fabricator of her own screen image, July —…
Money-back guarantees feel like such a remnant of the old economy. Does the depressed consumer class even expect companies to make good on their advertised word anymore? But maybe the dream of free slices scammed from over-promising pizza parlors springs eternal. At least that’s the game being run on Jesse…
Watching them detox on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab 5 with Dr. Drew, it’s sometimes hard to remember what the twitching, vomiting, weeping, roof-climbing celebrities did before they succumbed to the addictions that landed them on a cable-TV reality show. Some were one-shot wonders, like Amy Fisher, aka the Long Island Lolita,…
The concept of a dive-in movie seems pretty straightforward. You bring the main necessities — swimsuits, floaties, snacks (safely waiting 20 minutes after you eat before entering the water) and a positive mind-set — and the owner of the pool provides a winning flick. Throughout the summer, various water parks…
The latest descendant of the half-century old de-evolution concept that began with Pierre Boulle’s novel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an origin story. Predicting an ape-supremacist future, Rupert Wyatt’s film is set in a contemporary America so preoccupied with the Chinese and the coming Singularity that it’s…
This morning I got an alert from Google telling me I was mentioned somewhere on the Internet. Naturally, I clicked on the link so I could read what nice or horrifying things were said. In this case, it was an article posted by my pal Russ Fischer over at /Film…
We get it, OK? We live here too, and we know what’s going on. We’re not even going to mention what everyone keeps talking about. So, by all means keep updating your Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter (and giving us reason to drink), but ask yourself this: Is your bitching going…
A uniquely Freudian entry in the body-switching comedy canon, The Change-Up stars Jason Bateman as standard-issue anal-retentive lawyer/family man Dave, and Ryan Reynolds as Dave’s classically anal-expulsive stoner/playboy childhood friend Mitch. When sober, Dave begrudgingly tolerates Mitch’s wild-animal routine. One night, when both are drunk, Dave admits he’s secretly jealous…
There may be nothing as Old Hollywood as the narrative about a pretty girl summoning up a dose of pluck to triumph over adversity. And yet Brit Marling — the lithe, stunning co-writer and star of 2011 Sundance Film Festival hits Another Earth and Sound of My Voice, who gives…
It may not be on Bravo or have Andy Cohen’s head talking after it airs, but HGTV’s Design Star is just as addictive as any of the Top Chefs, Platinum Hits or Work of Arts out there. The latest season of Design Star premiered with the same panel of expert…
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and though many of you might disagree with that statement because it’s ball-sweat hot (even my metaphorical balls are sweating), it really is the best time of the year because it’s Shark Week. Shark Week! The one week of the year where…
