The most volatile, least easily psychoanalyzed of ’70s auteurs in Peter Biskind’s classic New Hollywood tell-all Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, William Friedkin may have mellowed since unleashing The Exorcist, sliding into box-office hell, and marrying a major studio boss. Indeed, the recovering bad-boy movie brat — now 71, believe it…
Once, written and directed by John Carney, is a deceptively simple movie. It’s a narrative strung together by pop songs, but without the sheen (or arrogance) of most cinematic musicals. By day, a Dublin busker (Glen Hansard) sings Van Morrison on a street corner for spare change, which, on occasion,…
“I don’t mind if you take a shot of me eating,” says William Friedkin, between bites of an avocado sandwich, to the photographer busily taking his snapshot. “People know I do that.” Friedkin and I are downing a quick dinner in the green room of west Los Angeles’ Skirball Cultural…
The play Bad Seed opened recently at the Herberger. (See capsule). Fans of Bad Seed know there’s no “The” in the title of the play but that there is one in the title of the movie. They know that Monica’s lovebirds and that pesky lightning storm occur only in John…
There’s a unique challenge in designing superhero games: How do you make it fun to play a character who, by definition, is vastly more powerful than his opposition? Hulk encounters a purse-snatcher: Hulk smash! Hulk win! Hulk bored. With battles that one-sided, the thrill of being superheroic quickly wanes –…
Porky’s: The Ultimate Collection (Fox) When writer-director Bob Clark was killed by a drunk driver in April, the obits trumpeted his holiday classic A Christmas Story . . . but were somewhat reluctant to mention that, oh, yeah, he also wrote and directed Porky’s. But there’s no question which is…
Afro Samurai (Funimation) Airwolf: Season Three (Universal) Alone With Her (IFC) Breaking Point (Fox) The Complete Matrix Trilogy (Warner Bros.) Epic Movie (Fox) Escape to Canada (Disinformation) Fay Grim (Magnolia) The 40-Year-Old Virgin: Unrated 2-Disc Double Your Pleasure Edition (Universal) The Good German (Warner Bros.) The John Wayne Collection (Paramount)…
The Life: Cy Coleman and Ira Gasman wrote the music and lyrics for this seldom-seen Tony Award winner, with a book by Coleman, Gasman, and playwright David Newman, and we have Black Theater Troupes David Hemphill to thank for bringing it to town. This Drama Desk favorite tells the story…
Some perks of performing live when you’re, say, Wayne Newton, include the ladies, lingerie, and a whole lotta panties tossed onstage. If you’re a knob-twiddling techno Moog master laying low behind the Technics, you’d probably settle for a DVD or maybe some new shareware for your Linux-based laptop-music-making self. Duck,…
Maybe I’m a judgmental jerk, but when I think “car show,” I picture a trashy model in a hot pink thong bikini, draped over a gleaming hood and circled by ogling men who don’t stand a chance in hell of taking either commodity home. That’s what I used to think,…
Brandon Maldonado at Perihelion Arts: Maldonado’s paintings have a quirky and innocent appeal at first glance, but a closer look reveals surrealistic and complicated storytelling and a bubbly, and somewhat raunchy, illustrative style. He really shows his skill with a large oil painting called I Swallowed a Quarter. Maldonado’s dark…
After Shrek the Third, I asked the two smart preteen girls I had in tow what they liked about the movie. Projectile vomiting and multiple farts, they said promptly, best Shrek ever. Ordinarily, I’m not big on puke and flatulence, but, in this instance, I sympathized — there’s not much…
Jafar Panahi is a paradoxical populist. He makes crowd-pleasing art movies, often set in the midst of life — the urban crowd is one of his subjects — and is a virtuoso director of (non) actors. On the other hand, this most widely seen of Iranian filmmakers is also the…
The would-be cineastes recently seen fleeing the Museum of Modern Art’s screening of The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema in New York can’t say they weren’t warned. What exactly were these fussy museum-goers expecting from Slovenian philosopher and theorist Slavoj Zizek’s three-part shuffle through the hallowed halls of cinema? An Ebert…
If you’re looking for a laugh, find a kid raised on Grand Theft Auto and introduce him to Pac-Man. As he stares at you blankly, explain the addictive joy of eating dots and the simplistic genius of the neon-blue maze. When he sneers, “That’s it? It’s the same level over…
Pan’s Labyrinth (New Line) Guillermo Del Toro has made a career of mixing slam-bang special effects (Hellboy, Blade II) with creepy atmospheres (Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone). But with Pan’s Labyrinth, he’s used his entire palette for what will likely be remembered as his masterpiece. Mixing Franco’s Spain with fairy tales,…
Army of Shadows: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Arthur & the Invisibles (Genius) Bill/Bill on His Own (Brentwood) Bunny Whipped (Think) Caddyshack: 20th Anniversary (Warner Bros.) Chasing Liberty (Warner Bros.) Curse of the Zodiac (Lionsgate) The Dead Girl (First Look) Denzel Washington: Spotlight Collection (Universal) ER: The Complete Seventh Season (Warner…
A deserted back street. Some chick drops a scarf to start the deadly joust. Everybody scatters as the cops close in . . . Wait, those are the cops. Yes, it’s a mad world, especially at Firebird International Raceway, where Phoenix Five-O’s modified cruiser sometimes bests the best of the…
Four years after “Mission Accomplished,” 28 Weeks Later reminds us that the mission, whatever the hell it was to begin with, is now officially, apocalyptically fucked. The story thus far: Seven months have gone by since the Rage virus passed from chimp fang to British bloodstream in an animal-rights intervention…
Three noisy women and a worn-out premise rattle around trying to make contact in Georgia Rule, an incoherent dramedy of rampant parental insufficiency from director Garry Marshall. Marshall’s broad comedy has always made him a soft target for critics, but along with his duds (Beaches, Runaway Bride, and Raising Helen),…
“When women tell their truth,” says Jane Fonda, “everything changes.” She is sitting on a sofa in a room on the 15th floor of the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. She is noticeably tired, having arrived from Atlanta after midnight without any clothes or shoes but the ones she’s wearing,…
In the superbly tacit chamber piece Away From Her, intolerable pressure is brought to bear on the 44-year marriage between a college professor and his homemaker spouse after she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Grant Andersson (played by veteran Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent) and his wife Fiona (an artfully wrinkled…
