Screen
Team Jarmusch
It’s amazing how popularity can change perception. When Stephanie Meyer’s 2005 novel, Twilight, cracked The New York Times bestseller list, vampires were brought back into the mainstream in a big way. Beginning in 2008, Meyer’s series was adapted into five movies and...
The way to dusty death
Style is half the picture. Story is the other half. William Shakespeare’s 17th-century play, The Tragedie of Macbeth, might be one of the greatest stories...
You should mount ‘Olympus’
The only explanation that makes sense for the existence of Olympus Has Fallen is that someone found a 1990s action movie on VHS underneath Joel Silver’s bed and paid to have Gerard Butler digitally transposed over Steven Seagal. The Die Hard franchise may be hiking ...
Many unhappy returns
The hackneyed, half-assed backstory for the lead character in Happy Death Day involves the tragic loss of her mother, which doesn’t actually feel sad...
‘Astro Boy’ seems dated
Lovely dollops of wit and warmth float through the big screen version of Astro Boy, the latest Japanese TV cartoon to make it to the big screen. But the look, themes and slam-bang "Transformers" violence of that 1960s animated series make this every bit as dated as "...
Hawkes’ virginity Hunt-ed
America’s Puritanical origins mean that “sweetly sexual” may sound oxymoronic, but that phrase absolutely defines The Sessions, the softest and kindest movie to ever feature a star of Mad About You buck nekkid. Although nudity being “integral to the role” is a con ...
Hurts so good
In the lead up to its release, I can only imagine how many times director Lenny Abrahamson had to clarify, “No, you’re thinking of...
When the system wins
It doesn’t take long for Alex Cox, University of Colorado Boulder assistant professor and director of such cult classics as Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Walker and The Highway Patrolman (which screens at the International Film Series on Wednesday, Oct. 5), to show his ...
An orgy of one
Why do you want to dance?
Why do you want to live?
Well, I don’t know exactly why, but I must.
That’s my answer too.
—Boris Lermontov and...
‘Fish Tank’ has same strains of ‘Precious’
LOS ANGELES — Mia is 15, all elbows and anger, going at her life in a rundown apartment complex in Essex as if it were one long skirmish in British filmmaker Andrea Arnold's exceptionally well-crafted drama, "Fish Tank...
Tom Cruise’s foreign policy
If you conceived a child back when Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch, it would now be old enough to tell you to move on. Despite welcoming back rapists and murderers when they win a Super Bowl, modern society seems intent on holding a grudge against a guy who, at ...
