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Dallas-based filmmaker and playwright Eric Steele, Second Thought Theatre, and Aviation Cinemas have combined their might to produce a unique combination of stage and screen, The Midwest Trilogy, with preview performances at 8pm, March 15-17, and regular performances Thursdays-Sundays, March 22-April 8, at the Kalita Humphreys Theatre. The evening centers around two short films by … Continue reading
His first movie in since Sideways (2007), writer-director Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings) is also perhaps his best movie to date. That’s saying a lot, considering the rest of his filmography includes Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999), and About Schmidt (2002). It’s delicate blend of drama and comedy … Continue reading
Anyone who felt cheated and pandered to after seeing Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-bait movie War Horse or disappointed by the fizzle of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull pay heed: The Adventures of Tintin (his first CG-animated escapade) is quintessential Spielberg, an action-packed ride steeped in old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure that recalls Raiders of … Continue reading
On the heels of last week’s release of a full-length trailer for the mega-anticipated The Avengers comes yet another teaser, this time a two-minute trailer for the German market featuring two scenes not included in ads here stateside. (Downside: They’re dubbed in German.) Go nuts here.
In 1910, Thomas Edison debuted a four-minute silent short film titled “A Trip to Mars”, kicking off a century-long, on- and off-again love affair between moviegoers and our sister planet. With the 90-day Mars Exploration Rover Mission mission now in its astounding ninth year, the increasing discussion of a manned mission to Mars as a … Continue reading
After toiling on low-budget, B-grade features for a few years, Peter Fonda arrived as a talented and promising young actor and filmmaker with the release of Easy Rider in 1969; he almost immediately sank back into toiling away on low-budget, B-grade features. Among the most oddball of these — and that’s saying a lot about … Continue reading
Sucker Punch isn’t just a triumph of style over substance, it also clubs logic into submission and kills subtlety in its sleep. A mash-up of what feels like every 14-year-old geek’s favorite pop culture tropes, it’s a whole lot of noise that adds up to little more than Inception for hormonal 14-year-old boys. The scant story (which … Continue reading
Steeped in fear, paranoia, and dread, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a tidy and compelling psychological thriller by writer-director Sean Durkin that deftly charts one woman’s shattered psyche. It’s one of the best such films since Roman Polanski’s Repulsion or Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing, but much more accessible. Elizabeth Olsen (younger sister of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen) … Continue reading
The notion of Johnny Depp in another movie based on a novel by Hunter S. Thompson sets a certain level of expectation, thanks to the actor’s memorable turn in Terry Gilliam’s surreal, chaotic 1998 adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Viewers going into Depp and writer-director Bruce Robinson’s version of Thompson’s The Rum Diary will be … Continue reading
The latest installment of my ongoing Movie Night column for Lit Monthly has posted on the mag’s recently (and quite nicely) revamped website. This time I take a look at some classic films from the silent era. Click on the photo read more.
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