Jul
31
Who the hell didn’t love FLIPPER? Cute ‘n’ cuddly (and how many sea creatures do you know get to claim those adjectives?), the titular bottle-nose dolphin of the classic sixties TV show was a real Up with People kinda mammal. You may not remember any of the specific episodes (didn’t most of them have to …
Jul
29
It’s turning out to be a pretty good year for unexpected international co-productions — check out the MMP ep on the superb Israeli/Australian stop-motion animated film $9.99 if you don’t believe me. Now Germany and Taiwan have joined forces, not for the exquisitely designed yet affordable home entertainment system you might expect, but for German …
Jul
24
Turning out to be a rough month for romance, isn’t it? ADAM, the new drama directed by Max Mayer and starring Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne, doesn’t skip back and forth within its time line or offer the narrative flamboyancy of (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, but that doesn’t mean that the course of love is …
Jul
21
Wow, midnight movies. I know they still happen, I just hadn’t recently heard of anyone basing a distribution pattern solely around the phenomenon. Nevertheless, the producers of DEADGIRL are rolling the dice on it, debuting their film at midnight this weekend (July 24 & 25, 2009), and dispatching the filmmakers and cast to screening cities …
Jul
19
The latest episode of the highly-regarded EDGY PODCAST REVIEWS offers hosts Daniel & Jana’s opinions on MMP and, to put it mildly, they kinda love it. Here, in fine, film industry tradition, are some excerpted quotes (trust me, I’m being fair in my selection): “…the length of the episodes are about 20 minutes and left …
Jul
17
Turns out there may be some trouble downloading the (500) DAYS OF SUMMER episode on iTunes, so this is a repost that hopefully will fix things. If you had trouble downloading on iTunes before, give it a shot again. If you wind up getting two copies of this ep, well, consider that twice the MMP …
Jul
16
Ain’t love grand? Uh, no, not necessarily, and especially not if you’re a character in an independent film, where relationships are far more likely to crash upon the rocky shoals of discord than find a safe harbor in Happily-Ever-Afterland. And I prefer that, really, especially since what passes for mainstream romantic-comedy these days usually turns …
Jul
15
I’m not going to say that IN THE LOOP — the new British political comedy directed by Armando Iannucci and based on his award-winning BBC sitcom THE THICK OF IT — is going help put the last eight years of U.S./Great Britain relations into context, but at the very least, I think it provides some …
Jul
09
I do so love the comedy of discomfort — you know, the kind of thing that pokes us where we’re tender, has the nerve to call attention to it, and then makes us laugh at our sensitivity. Doesn’t really get done often, because there’s a grand risk involved: This is the kind of thing where …
Jul
02
Well, here’s a nice, nasty way to kick off your July 4th weekend. LOS BASTARDOS is spare and brutal, a survey of the suburban wasteland that finds two illegal immigrants (non-pros Jesus Moises Rodriguez and Ruben Sosa) staging a home invasion and finding that their hostage (Nina Zavarin) is too benumbed to care. Director Amat …
