n a quietly compelling film about a marathon runner who moonlights as a hold up artist, Benjamin Heisenberg’s The Robber tells the true story of Johann Kastenberger in the days following his release from prison. After seven years of being locked up and running on a treadmill, the Austrian’s ready to integrate back into…
Considering the movie is 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 the title role, the film seems to want to be some kind of post-recessional pick-me-up, an “It Gets Better” video…
Nobody cries, “Stop the presses!” in Andrew Rossi’s Page One: Inside the New York Times; no one would dare. There’s a palpable fear that it could actually happen. Rossi’s documentary, which might have been called “Inside Baseball: Inside the New York Times,” opens with a montage of the press in…
A media organization covering the media is reflexive enough, but how about adding documentary filmmakers to the mix? “It was journalists reporting on journalism, and we were working as journalists covering that,” says Kate Novack, producer and writer of Page One: Inside the New York Times, a sprawling vérité group…
The two hours and 34 minutes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon are loaded with unimaginable violence, but only one spasm left the audience at the theater where I watched it speechless. They cheered the robot-on-robot slugfests, rendered in terabyte-straining slow motion and splashing Decepticon blood (oil?). The destruction of…
There’s something alluring about blood, violence and sex — especially when you combine all three together in one show. That’s the formula which makes HBO’s True Blood series so successful. Based on Charlaine Harris’ ongoing Sookie Stackhouse novels, the show follows mind-reading protagonist Sookie in her misadventures in a world…
Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline our dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Tyler: New tits. This whole movie is about Cameron Diaz’s character, Elizabeth Halsey, trying to make enough money to buy herself new tits…
In a world gone mad, one vagabond has the courage and the fortitude to stand up to the corrupt forces that tear all that is good asunder. This is the plot to Hobo With A Shotgun, and it is more than 80-minutes of hideously terrific cinema.The contest-winning Grindhouse trailer turned…
No Festival Required, a local group dedicated to sharing independent cinema, is holding a screening of its 2011 Selected Shorts this Sunday at the Phoenix Art Museum. The screening will feature award-winning short films by Arizona moviemakers, including Tucson’s Yuri Makino, as well as international directors, such as Bartek Kulas…
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…
Graphic artist Mike Mills starts something new with Beginners. Playing an emotionally asphyxiated illustrator whose cancer-stricken dad comes out of the closet at age 75, Ewan McGregor looks positively yummy in Beginners, a gay-is-okay dramedy from the distributor that brought us The Kids Are All Right. In fact, this semi-autobiographical…
“Okay, so my parents were married in 1955, and my mom knew my dad was gay, and my dad knew he was gay, and so I was, like, ‘Why in the heck did you get married?’ Like, what was going on? What was that time? It’s like this crazy paradox…
Sad news for fans of MTV stuntfest Jackass: Daredevil driver Ryan Dunn, one of the many thrillseeking stars of the hit cable show, died early this morning after a gruesome car accident in his home state of Pennsylvania. According to media reports, the 34-year-old was speeding home from a night out…
FilmBar’s dishing out a movie deal — three documentary shorts and a chance to ask questions and chat with the local creators for $3. The event, which starts at 8 p.m., is the latest installment of Such a Deal Monday — the theater’s weekly screening of a film (or three) for a…
Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline their dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Tyler: With this recent influx of pretty decent superhero movies: THOR, Iron Man — even The Dark Knight — DC’s Green Lantern doesn’t…
At first glance, Todd Berger’s The Scenesters is a murder mystery about dying hipsters, and a cat-and-mouse between filmmakers, detectives, and crime scene cleanup artists. There are hidden clues in the form of indie rock cds left at crime scenes, and a serial killer with a sense of humor. That’s…
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 that The Universe is patrolled by a group of fearless, multi-species warriors…
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…
Gavin Wiesen’s first film, as passive and vanilla as its title, continues the numbing trendlet begun in 2008 with Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist: dramatizing the stupefying dullness of privileged white teenagers in New York City. Protagonist George (Freddie Highmore) is an 18-year-old Upper West Side Bartleby, preferring not to…
Few things represent childhood as accurately as dead babysitters and drag queens, so when we found out that local performer Becky Bodacious was kicking off her summer film series with Don’t tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, we nearly jumped off the roof with excitement. On Saturday, June 25, Becky Bodacious…
The movie theater is a great place to kill a few summer afternoon hours while catching up on some cinematic pop culture. But if you’re looking for a well-rounded experience to accompany your viewing, these five spots will have you fixed in no time. 1. The Dive-In: Swim up and…
Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline their dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Jackie: I very rarely say this about movies but… I really, really liked Super 8. It was a throwback to all of those…
