For most of the last decade I have preferred seeing Sydney Pollack in front of the camera instead of behind it. Hey, he’s done great work – Three Days of the Condor, Tootsie – but the one-two punch of Random Hearts and Sabrina… shudder. Anyway, is that the future of Kevin Smith? There was Vulgar, … Continue reading
George Clooney has a busy 2007 ahead of him. Michael Clayton and Oceans 13 both come out, so he’ll be doing the junket hustle (by this time next year I may have interviewed him five times). He’s directing Leatherheads, a romantic comedy set in the early days of football, and then he’ll be gearing up … Continue reading
This past year was so filled with quality documentaries that I put out a list of the ten best – and I still left many, many qualities films off. But one movie I didn’t leave off was Street Fight – in fact it was my number one doc of the year. And now I have … Continue reading
We’re just weeks away from the release of Smokin’ Aces, the gonzo new Joe Carnahan shoot-em-up. I know a number of message board regulars have seen the film in the last couple of weeks, and the response seems to be uniformly “kicks ass.” There have been a couple of cool updates in the world of … Continue reading
I keep on meaning to write about the total clusterfuck surrounding Weinstein Co’s Factory Girl, the George Hickenlooper biopic about Edie Sedgewick. I touched on it briefly a couple of weeks ago when Bob Dylan’s lawyers threatened to sue the fuck out of the movie for possibly claiming that Edie died due to negligence by … Continue reading
A terrible thing happened to our nation in September of 2001 – Aqua Teen Hunger Force went on the air. Now it’s getting a movie, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters, and the fans of the anthropomorphic happy meal will get to see them on the big screen this March. All of … Continue reading
UPDATED! Update follows at the endMovies get bounced around the release schedule all the time, but rarely is there as big and sudden a leap as Hollywood Pictures has made with their giant crocodile-but- we-want-you- to-think-it’s-a-serial-killer movie Primeval, which has moved from April to… January 12, two weeks from now! That’s a big change, which … Continue reading
Smell is, unless you’re John Waters and in possession of a few hundred Odorama cards, the toughest thing to get across in cinema. Most films rely on Pavolovian reactions to visuals to indicate the ideas of smells, but rarely try to actually get odor across. Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer, in his adaptation of … Continue reading
I imagine that the Spider-Man movies have been a tough sell in Japan – after all, the Nipponese grew up with a Spidey who rode around in a big mechazord thing. But our friends to the East have embraced Tobey Maguire and friends, and they’re jonesing for Spider-Man 3 just as much as we are. … Continue reading
Will the travails of Mel Gibson never end? After getting drunk and revealing his true thoughts about the Chosen People and then mistaking a female police officer’s breasts for a sweet confection, Mel hoped to bounce back with Apocalypto, his gory Mayan epic. The film opened well, but soon imploded – the movie has made … Continue reading