Now that the Casey Anthony case is over — not guilty on all murder counts, guilty only of four misdemeanors — will cable news be able to give it up? More specifically, will Dr. Drew? This case has become cable news’ hillbilly heroin and it’ll be hard for them to…
For a movie called Larry Crowne, it sure is tough to get a solid read on the character of Larry Crowne. Directed, co-written by and starring Tom Hanks in that title role, the film seems to want to be some kind of post-recessional pick-me-up, an “It Gets Better” video for…
The two hours and 34 minutes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon are loaded with unimaginable violence, but only one spasm left the audience speechless at the theater where I watched it. They cheered the robot-on-robot slugfests, rendered in terabyte-straining slow motion and splashing Decepticon blood (oil?). The destruction of…
We suppose you could call it a drive-up movie theater. This Friday, the Filmmobile, a straight-outta-LA school bus catering to all things cinematic, sets up shop outside the Kessler Theatre for a night of solar-powered film screenings, live music, and bingo under the stars. Currently in the midst of a…
From Tad Friend’s New Yorker profile of Anna Faris (which Jezebel.com reblogged under the headline “Hollywood Insiders Admit Hollywood Hates Women”) to the glass-ceiling-shattering pressure assigned to last month’s Bridesmaids (which has thus far outgrossed every previous Judd Apatow project since Knocked Up), a case could be made that 2011…
The documentary Audience Award winner at this year’s Sundance festival, Buck follows itinerant horse trainer Buck Brannaman as he applies his uniquely humane and frankly astounding methods in four-day clinics around the country. If that sounds as exciting as watching hay turn yellow, director Cindy Meehl finds the real story…
“I am angry,” Conan O’Brien admits in Rodman Flender’s tour doc Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop. “I’m trying not to be…but sometimes I’m so mad I can’t even breathe.” Prohibited from appearing on television for six months after his early 2010 break with NBC, Conan hit the road, capitalizing on his…
Pixar’s Cars franchise takes a sharp turn from NASCAR mayhem and red-state-targeted ’50s nostalgia to 007 espionage with the upgraded sequel Cars 2, though in its delivery of Matchbox-machine superheroics for its young male demographic, it stays true to its prime function as an advertising vehicle for merchandise. Nonetheless, if…
Dear KERA-FM, Are you trying to break my heart? I thought we had something good going here. I listen to you daily, I pledge when drive time comes around, and I laud you in public, telling every person I know (and even those I don’t) about all of the new…
Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds, opens nationwide this Friday. Two days ago, however, the film was screened for press in New York and L.A. and the buzz has been, well, less than friendly. Yesterday, Drew McWeeny from HitFix posted his review, calling the film “awkward, uneven,” and saying it “packs…
It’s 10 minutes before a human character appears on-screen in Green Lantern, a personality-free franchise-launcher that builds toward a quaint, if explosive, argument in favor of the nebulous quality of “humanity.” Via a heavily CGI’d prologue, we learn the universe is patrolled by a group of fearless, multispecies warriors called…
The path of post-superstardom is a treacherous one for big-screen comedians, paved as it is with second-rate opportunities for dramedy schmaltz (See: Robin Williams in Patch Adams), wretched remakes (Steve Martin’s Pink Panther retreads) and talking-animal kiddie crap (Eddie Murphy’s Dr. Doolittle do-overs). Mr. Popper’s Penguins finds Jim Carrey choosing…
The otaku flooded downtown Saturday on their annual migration. From far and wide they came, like salmon in spawning season, to home: A-Kon. It was the 22nd year for North America’s largest anime convention this past weekend, and like almost every year since it began, it was bigger than the…
Yeah, OK. Now I’ve seen Bill Cunningham New York, too. And yeah, it’s cool, passionate and compassionate. Anyone who can’t find something to love about the movie and the man is a bad person. A very bad person. Bill Cunningham is a cool guy. Charming. He’s certainly passionate about his…
If you spend any time in Twitterville, you’ve probably read puh-lenty on Bill Cunningham New York, the documentary about a beloved New York Times photographer who captures people going stylishly about their business for “On the Street with Bill Cunningham.” The movie opened in March and now everyone who has…
Amblin Entertainment. It’s the production company founded in 1981 by Steven Spielberg. You have, without any doubt in my mind, seen an Amblin film at some point in your life. The best Amblin films were the ones that took you away from everyday troubles and made you believe in something…
A big-bang demolition derby, J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 seems bound for box-office glory. Opening three weeks before the Fourth of July, this Steven Spielberg-produced, kid-centric 21st-century disaster flick could well hang in at theaters till the 10th anniversary of 9/11—an event that haunts Abrams’ surefire blockbuster nearly as much as…
(Editor’s note: We mistakenly ran a full review of Beginners in last week’s issue, though the film opens this Friday at the Magnolia. To read the complete review, visit www.dallasobserver.com.) Playing an emotionally asphyxiated illustrator whose cancer-stricken dad comes out of the closet at age 75, Ewan McGregor looks positively…
The finest Western you’ll see this year, The Princess of Montpensier is set in aristocratic 16th-century France, in the heat of Counter Reformation. Mélanie Thierry’s father barters her for the titular title, marrying her off to Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet’s shy, pained prince—instead of her heart’s first choice, Gaspard Ulliel’s Duke de…
Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), a rampant 15-year-old only child, has two presiding preoccupations, detailed in rapid voiceover throughout Submarine: a broody classmate, Jordana (Yasmin Paige), and the flatlined sex life of his parents (show-stealers Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins), brought to crisis by the arrival of mom’s glam-guru old flame…
Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki) is a royal terror, and the court fears Caligula-like horrors should he come into his royal succession. Samurai Shinzaemon Shimada (Koji Yakusho) is secretly recruited to preclude this possibility with his sword, leading the title’s dirty baker’s dozen on a hit-job quest. Set in 1844, in…
Cinematographer Tat Radcliffe’s gray Turin sets the monotone of The Double Hour, while director Giuseppe Capotondi softens promising material to mush for the refined digestion of sophisto audiences. Guido (Filippo Timi, Vincere’s Mussolini), a retired policeman turned security guard, is a habitué of speed-dating events, where he meets Sonia (Ksenia…
