Got an interesting film suggestion? Know of something good in the works? Just want to tell me I’m rubbish? Drop me a line at dave@chud.com, and I’ll respond to any letters in future columns. TALES FROM THE ODD WEST I had a great time slapping together the “theme” section of last week’s column (about flicks … Continue reading
Interviews with foreign language directors are always interesting, because you’re never quite sure if the translator is telling you everything. Not to cite what has now become a cliché, but it really is like Lost in Translation where they speak for minutes, and you get a few seconds recap. With Takashi Shimizu, he’s been working … Continue reading
Somewhere Jonathan Frakes weeps. It seems a foregone conclusion that Team America: World Police, a puppet movie parody of Jerry Bruckheimer action films inspired by Thunderbirds, will make more money on its opening day than his live action big screen adaptation of that same show. The second film from South Park creators Trey Parker and … Continue reading
Hell yes. If anyone needed to be told that Billy Crystal was about four years past his Oscar hosting prime, then I’d like to sell them my comic collection for Overstreet value times two. The Academy Awards have recently been hampered by one overriding force of evil… bad telecasts. Aside from Steve Martin’s smart and … Continue reading
We ran a cool contest recently for the upcoming Drawn Together cartoon on Comedy Central. We had three prizes: Third was Reno 911 Season 1 DVD, Second was Chapelle’s Show Season 1 and the awesome grand prize was South Park Seasons 1 through 4. The lucky winners are: Third: Glenn Thomas, OR Second: Art Hultz, … Continue reading
Rumormongering about the upcoming Superman movie is now the top pastime of 1 out of 8 American adults. In fact, there is a magazine starting up that will cater specifically to this group of enthusiasts, Krypton Krap, which will have advice on things like starting your own false rumor, three easy steps to getting your … Continue reading
Festival Fury: The 2004 Toronto International Film Festival Sometimes, technology blows. HDTV, smart phones and talking toasters are well and good, but when something fails for no appreciable reason, angry hijinks ensue. About a month ago, I spent nine days in Canada, guzzling films in the cinematic marathon that is the Toronto International Film Festival. … Continue reading
I spent quite a few years in Boston, and in the mid ‘90s Brad Anderson kept cropping up as the name to watch, largely because of films like Next Stop Wonderland. But that sort of romantic escapism, grim as it sometimes was, didn’t do much to prepare anyone for Session 9, Anderson’s flawed but intriguing … Continue reading
Director Richard Loncraine obviously liked working with his pasty Wimbledon star Paul Bettany, as he’s following the striking British thesp to his next project and taking over the vacated chair on the Harrison Ford action-thriller The Wrong Element. Which I always thought was cobalt. In the flick, Ford plays a bank security honcho who is … Continue reading
Now that director Antoine Fuqua is apparently doing a little time in Director Jail to serve penance for King Arthur, his next project American Gangster (aka Tru Blu, aka The Return of Superfly) has completely crumbled. Fuqua recently dropped out of the project over the obligatory “creative differences”, and now Universal has yanked the plug … Continue reading