Screen
No bull! Shh…
A silent film reimagining Snow White shot in black and white and set in Spain, in which the heroine is a bullfighter, is not an easy sell. Who knows what lengths writer/director Pablo Berger had to go through to secure financing for this gothic reworking of a famous ...
An indecisive mash-up
I take notes as I watch films so that I can remember salient plot points, great effects, and idiotic story twists. During The Other Guys, I wrote down “buddy cop film from hell.” That might well sum up the weird mash-up that is The Other Guys, a movie that can’t ...
I’m-a let you finish, but…
I love it when people argue about whether a certain year was “good” or “bad” for film. It is one of the sillier movie debates a person can have, ranking only behind “Best Adam Sandler Movie” and “Worst Moment in the Star Wars Prequels.” Every year is a good year ...
The bacon of blockbusters
Hands down, my favorite discussion in the wake of Furious 7 doing to the box office what Vin Diesel does to elocution (which is to say, stomping it to oblivion): “Do we really need another Fast and Furious movie?” No. No, we do not. We also didn’t need to land on the...
Original sin
Every April, tiny flowers spread like confetti across the blackjack hills of Oklahoma. This is Osage Territory — land carved out and granted to...
No music, no life
Tower Records was once the place where many gathered to hear great new music, tell their friends about a record they just heard and, most importantly, to purchase it. Tower Records was the place where Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl worked the ...
Life, liberty and the pursuit of Elvis
Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki is in search of the American Dream. To find it, he loads up Elvis Presley’s 1963 Rolls-Royce with a camera rig...
On agents and agency
Melissa McCarthy is immensely talented, armed with a stunning repertoire of acting skills. So, of course, Hollywood sees her and claps its collective hands together, yelling “Make the funny lady fall down again!” Spy is writer/director (and frequent McCarthy ...
