A simple, powerful act of bearing witness, We Were Here is a sober reminder of the not-too-distant past, when gays were focused not on honeymoon plans but on keeping people alive. David Weissman’s oral history of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco also explores the specifics of psychogeography: Vividly recalling…
We get the escapism we deserve, I guess: Just as 1930s Hollywood distracted Depression-era audiences with glitzy Fred and Ginger musicals, Harvey Weinstein is answering our Occupy-preoccupied times by releasing two Oscar hopeful fantasies in the same week. Both present the sad lives of Old Hollywood stars, but the soft…
“The revolution will not be televised.” So Gil Scott-Heron asserted in 1970, and so it was not — at least not on American TV. As demonstrated by The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, however, Swedish television was another story. Black nationalism lives and breathes in this remarkably fresh documentary assembled by…
“I don’t think about the home where my films will land,” says Alexander Payne, free-range in a film culture fenced off into art house and multiplex, to the detriment of both. He describes the audience that he writes for as “my best friends and myself . . . Then your…
It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights. It’s time to meet the Muppets. Again.In Disney’s franchise reboot The Muppets, the perpetually meta monsters attempt a comeback after years out of the spotlight. Meanwhile, the actual behind-the-camera filmmakers (including the picture’s co-writer and leading man Jason Segel) attempt…
Sure, the star of the week is turkey and all its fixin’s. But while folks reunite with their families for their annual Thanksgiving feast, another family of sorts will reunite on the big screen: the fuzzy, funny Muppets. Jason Segel’s reboot The Muppets finds the goofy gang disbanded, with Kermit…
Oddly enough, when the opening credits of the latest episode of Project Accessory flashed across the screen, I heard an unusual dragging sound coming from the television. Kkkrrrrr. Kkkrrrrr. Kkkrrrrr. It was like a claw was slowly dragging itself across a rough surface, nearly echoing off and echo off an echo. It got louder and…
Just days before the 30-year anniversary of the death of American actress Natalie Wood, Los Angeles authorities announced this morning that they’ll be reopening the case for additional investigation. The actress, best known for roles in Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story, and Splendor in the Grass, was married to…
Dragonslayer is a film that sets out to capture a generation: the lost boys and girls born during the Reagan Administration now stumbling and tumbling through a kind of dystopian Southern California, bathed in the warm rays of the western sun. To call it a love song to an entire…
As life-or-death dramedy, The Descendants poses several important questions: Why has it taken Alexander Payne seven years to follow up on his critically beloved, box-office boffo, Merlot-squelching Sideways? And what has blunted this gifted writer-director’s edge? Payne topped his debut feature, the provocatively obnoxious abortion comedy Citizen Ruth (1996), with…
Flea almost cries. Twice. There’s your four-word summation of The Other F Word, a half-poignant, half-absurd documentary on punk-rocker dads, self-described as “a coming of middle-age story” that thrills to the sight of, say, Rancid’s Lars Frederiksen, who looks like a tattoo parlor and a Claire’s fell on him simultaneously,…
The single advantage the awful Twilight movies have over Stephenie Meyer’s awful-but-gripping novels is that, unlike the books’ sad sack, movie Bella Swan is a spiky, populist heroine. On film, Kristen Stewart beautifully underplays (or, for all I know, overplays to the absolute peak of her abilities) Bella’s deadpan ordinariness,…
while the weepy chicks and their mothers line up, yet again, to watch two shirtless, underage boys fight over a girl in Twilight: Breaking Dawn (Part I), true vampire fans will have plenty of classics to keep them occupied. Whether steeped in realism, indie schlock, or deep pathos, they know a…
Marilyn Monroe was known and celebrated for her full figure and ample curves, which have dominated much of the discussion in anticipation of two new Monroe biopics: My Week with Marilyn and Blonde. Last year, the films’ directors announced that Michelle Williams would take on Monroe in My Week with Marilyn and Naomi…
If there is some blessing in the reality show Project Accessory, is that my the end of the season, I should probably be proficient in spelling it. Why do my fingers want to fly immediately to the “s” after the first letter? Why, why? Am I the only one? Couldn’t…
Watching Pearl Fryar select a plant from the discards of the local nursery is a little like getting to see Michelangelo pick out a piece of marble. And what Fryar creates with the number of cast-off shrubs and trees — over a number of years of patient trimming and sculpting…
Sometimes it’s a one-night deal, and sometimes they stick around for weeks, so when it comes to seeing an independent film at one of the local theaters, you’ll want to plan ahead. That’s why we’ve wrangled must-see flicks screening in the Valley this month. Prep your bowl of popcorn and…
A resounding “yes” to the question trembling on every lip: There is life after Hereafter! Clint Eastwood goes deep into Oliver Stone territory and emerges victorious with J. Edgar. Although hardly flawless, Eastwood’s biopic is his richest, most ambitious movie since the Letters from Iwo Jima-Flags of Our Fathers duo,…
Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre is something of a comeback for the Finnish filmmaker. His warmhearted comedy of underdog working-class solidarity, made with a mixed Finnish-French-Senegalese cast in the French port city Le Havre, was the most warmly received movie — at least by the press — shown in Cannes. The…
Phoenix native Kara Gasperone’s interest in movies and TV is all over the board. The local blogger and professional therapist likes to indulge in shows with a little chaos and prefers shelling out her movie money at local film spots like FilmBar for a more unique experience.What are you watching?I always Tivo…
Local blogger Kelsey Strothers’ current obsessions have a big influence on her television-viewing habits. Her passion for all-things-DIY has her watching hours of HGTV — and she’s not afraid to admit it. But don’t let her reality TV ways fool you, she’s also into food documentaries that focus on food (she works…
After the biting social commentary of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) and the political satire of Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008), says John Cho (Harold himself, visiting ASU for a Q&A with Kumar’s Kal Penn on Oct. 24), “the most radical move was to…
