How well do you know your Harry Potter trivia? Does the name Nicholas Flamel ring any bells? He was the alchemist responsible for “the Sorcerer’s Stone” in the title of the inaugural Harry Potter book and movie adaptation, but Flamel is more than a J.K. Rowling creation. He was an actual alchemist who born in …
The Twilight Saga: New Moon Directed by Chris Weitz Are we to expect more from a feature film than from an average episode of a daytime soap? That’s one of many questions to be begged not only of casual moviegoers but of even the most hardened fan of Stephenie Meyer’s socially negligent Twilight series as …
A true action hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger is also the ultimate source of classically terrible and amazing films. Forget G.I. Joe, Schwarzenegger is the real American hero proving that in America it’s as easy to have a lucrative film career without talent or experience as it is to be a senator of a major state without …
Confession: I enjoy things that are so bad they’re good so much that when it comes to television I honestly can’t differentiate between the bad and the good. With the success of shows like Rock of Love (now on it’s third season) it would appear that the worst you make a show the better television …
Actor Nicholas Cage has “lost two homes in New Orleans worth a total of $6.8 million in a foreclosure auction Thursday…Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Bank purchased (one of) Cage’s (homes)…(in New Orleans) French Quarter appraised at $3.5 million for $2.3 million. For the second home, the Bank “paid $2.2 million for Cage’s 2523 Pataniya Street property …
Troma’s dug deep into the depths of Ukraine’s smut factory to unleash this skeezy compilation of Soviet shorts from trash hound extraordinaire Yakov Levi. All the shit sharin’, prostitute slangin’ and babushka fearin’ you could hope for is finally here. Shameless Tasteless, features everything from anal dares gone wrong to dance floor abortions (gone right?) …
It happens pretty often where you see a movie for the first time and it has the ability to give you shivers. It moves you and makes you feel a certain way, unlike anything else. Sometimes, you are lucky enough to see those movies in a theatre and lose yourself for a few hours. When …
Duncan Jones made his debut with the film Moon, released earlier this year. Now talk of the talented director’s next film is buzzing about. Variety reports that Jones has recently signed on, with Jake Gyllenhaal in mind to be his leading man; his latest script endeavor is called Source Code, being released by Universal. Ben …
2012 Directed by Roland Emmerich This review is SPOILER ridden so beware. Then again, if you’ve seen any disaster movie made since 1960 then nothing will be a surprise. Trust me. Judd Apatow, Tina Fey, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell and all the other maestros of contemporary comedy should be afraid, as there is a new …
Exploding vehicles (and heads), decapitations, a whole lot of nudity and an overexcited Quentin Tarantino are just the starting point for Not Quite Hollywood: the wild, untold story of Ozploitation!, Mark Hartley’s jaw-dropping history of Australian genre cinema. Forget Picnic at Hanging Rock: it’s more a case of let’s blow up Ayers Rock and set …
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men Dir. John Krasinski John Krasinski deserves some enormous kudos for bringing such a faithful, intelligently constructed and nontraditional adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s writing to the screen–even a flawed one such as Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Wallace’s work defies filmic adaptation, and it takes incredible heart and chutzpah to even …
Warning: Unabashed Geekery To Follow Ah, I remember fondly the years of Tolkien mania, that stretch of time spanning 2001 to 2004 back when The Lord of the Rings was busting up box office records and sweeping the Oscars, and Frodo and Gandalf were names familiar to social groups outside your average D&D gatherings. I …
The leaves are stirring and Oscar season is right around the corner. This year it has been announced that the old pro Steve Martin will be back to host with the friendly Mr. Alec Baldwin. This will be Alec’s first time hosting while Steve is an old pro making this third time the charm. It …
Filmmakers are confronted with the perennial challenge of intriguing their audience with new cinematic experiences – the challenge of innovation.When a traditional genre transcends time, it is often altered to slake this thirst for the new.Consequently, such an evolution has altered one of America’s most stylish genres of the 1940s, film noir.The introduction of color …
With 2012 fast approaching I anticipated a surge in the apocalypse genre, but so far all I’ve really heard about is the obviously titled movie 2012 and, the one I’m most looking forward to, The Road. However, this week The Hollywood Reporter reported that Fox has some plans for the end of the world too. …
Punching The Clown Directed by Gregori Viens The very best independent films somehow avoid the pitfalls of a low budget–showcasing great performances or beautiful cinematography against all odds. Punching the Clown achieves something nearly as impressive: it works despite its limitations. Writer and lead actor Henry Philllips has crafted a pseudo-autobiography so genuine and likable …
So, it was announced as of April 2009, that Guillaume Canet’s incredible French thriller Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One) will receive the ultimate Hollywood retouch. An English language remake. Not much was heard after that announcement, but now according to Variety magazine Miramax and Focus Features will be handling this one. Tell …
I feel very compelled to write about foreign actresses. Many I admire, some are colleagues, and most are around my age. There is so much young female talent circling around France, my adopted home country. Someone had to write about it! So here is a list, and those to look out for in upcoming films, …
Philippe Mora’s Mad Dog Morgan, a violent true story and a 70’s classic that forever changed the way international audiences saw Australian cinema, is being released in a two-disc limited edition DVD set on November 24 from Troma. Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now) plays Mad Dog Morgan, Australia’s most notorious criminal, with all the …
Once upon a time a good movie was in theatres. Don’t you love that story? I think the more fitting opening would be “once in a blue moon”. Well, you can cut your own hand off and strap that chainsaw to your arm because The Evil Dead is back! Yes, it’s true! And oh how sweet …
An Education Directed by Lone Scherfig Let’s start with the bad. Carey Mulligan’s Jenny is just slightly too self-assured and forthright for a sixteen year old. The lurch from light-hearted to a darker tone midway through the film is marginally clumsy. And the running time is about 5 minutes too long: the ending grates somewhat …
Writer-director Richard Kelly hasn’t been around too long, but his three features have all been the subject of intense debate: Is Donnie Darko the great sci-fi fable of the 2000s or a teen angst pretension pit? Is Southland Tales, as the Village Voice’s J. Hoberman contends, a a “visionary” film, or creative control gone horribly …
The Fourth Kind Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi Seventy-one years after Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast convinced the American public of a real-time alien-invasion, writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi tries a similar gimmick by presenting a cinematic re-creation of supposedly true occurrences in and around the small town of Nome, Alaska, that suggest an alien …