Feb
19
In a pair-up as enticing as a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE combines the rich, nutty goodness of Nic Cage with the tasty junkiness of the Neveldien/Taylor directing team. Transporting Marvel’s tortured, soul-sucking biker to Eastern Europe, the sequel has him joining forces with Idris Elba and Violante Placido to save …
Feb
17
Amidst the swashbuckling felines, fast-talking lizards, and kung-fu pandas — plus a cat in Paris — that occupy this year’s Oscar nominees for animated feature, there’s actually a tale featuring human beings, stylized though they may be. In CHICO & RITA, live-action director Fernando Trueba (BELLE EPOQUE) joins forces with artist/designer Javier Mariscal and his …
Feb
16
Frankly, the closest I get to style is to wear a clean Blue Sun T-shirt with my jeans. But it doesn’t mean I couldn’t up my game if I had sufficient motivation, and, in the sponsored video below, Gillette has brought in André 3000 Benjamin (aided and abetted by fellow facial hair sporters Adrian Brody …
Feb
12
There was no shortage of curiosity when George Lucas announced that he was converting his STAR WARS features to 3D, and no little disappointment when it was revealed that the first film to undergo the process would be the almost universally reviled EPISODE I – THE PHANTOM MENACE. Nevertheless here we are at the longest …
Feb
10
There are compelling reasons why, when traveling, one should skip the chain lodgings and stay at one of America’s classic hotels. There’s the friendly and courteous staff, the opportunity to experience a true piece of Americana, and the chance that you’ll encounter a spectral manifestation that wants to rip your immortal soul from your still-screaming …
Feb
06
The balmy days of February have triggered an uncommon sense of renewal, nowhere more so than in the cinema, where, after a customarily dismal January (we’re looking at you, THE DEVIL INSIDE), there now come glimmers of hope in the entertaining and atmospheric THE WOMAN IN BLACK. Featuring a post-Potter Daniel Radcliffe as an emotionally …
Feb
03
What starts out as common, garden-variety crime thriller turns… bizarre, and then frightening, in director Ben Wheatley’s twisty new film, KILL LIST. The tale of middle class hit-man Jay (Neil Maskell), who with colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) goes out for one more job and discovers blood oaths, strange rites, and disturbingly grateful targets have been …
Jan
30
A story as relevant as yesterday’s headlines, or too late a tale? Some thirty years ago, Cinefantastique hailed Robin Hardy’s THE WICKER MAN as “the CITIZEN KANE of horror,” lauding the Anthony Shaffer-scripted story of a god-fearing police detective trying to solve a mystery within a community of Scottish pagans for its bold eroticism and …
Jan
23
The UNDERWORLD franchise’s relentless, death-dealing vampire, Selene (Kate Beckinsale), goes under ice at the beginning of UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING, and so does most of the series’ political intrigue, swapping out the power struggles from the previous entries in favor of even more chases, gunplay, and explosions — lots and lots of explosions. Awakened into a (nominally) …
Jan
19
A key passage in Tom Wolfe’s blistering architectural critique, From Bauhaus to Our House, recounts a tumultuous public meeting attended by the residents St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe housing project, called by the city to get input on how to salvage the seriously deteriorating facility and notable for ending with the assembled tenants joining in on the …
