This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury” Is it a satire on uber-action movies such as “Rambo,” or is just a self-consciously clunky piece of moviemaking hoisted on its own satiric barbs? That’s a puzzle that’s posed but never really answered by the super-bad “Poolboy: Drowning [...]
BY GENE TRIPLETT “Wild Bill” Wellman’s first major movie mission was in danger of crashing numerous times before it finally landed at the first Academy Awards ceremony. But “Wings” did make it to the 1929 Oscars, swooping up the very first best picture trophy and best engineering (special effects) honors to boot. Now, with the [...]
If you didn’t catch up with “Drive” on the theater circuit, don’t miss this exhilarating ride on its home video run. Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson”) directs sure-handedly from a brilliantly stripped-down script by Hossein Amini (“The Four Feathers”) based on the novel by James Sallis about a Los Angeles loner (Ryan Gosling) who works as [...]
There’s nothing like a gnarly-cute family of whales in dire distress to pluck a nation’s heartstrings, ignite an international media frenzy, mobilize the National Guard, foster a truce between big oil and Greenpeace and bring about a thaw in the Cold War. That’s the cumulative effect of “Big Miracle,” a feel-good nature drama inspired by the [...]
“Chronicle,” the impressive debut picture of director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis, mashes up conventions of several genres – from teen-angst dramas to superhero sagas (most notably “Spider-Man”) to found-footage films (think everything from “The Blair Witch Project” to “Paranormal Activity” and “Cloverfield”) – yet still manages to seem novel and innovative. For freshmen, [...]
NEW YORK – Sandra Bullock remembers exactly where she was on Sept. 11, 2001, when two hijacked jetliners crashed into Lower Manhattan’s Twin Towers. She was at a boutique hotel in Soho. But, being a media-savvy celebrity, she declines to say exactly which hotel, for fear that her revelation would be interpreted as some sort [...]
Paul McCartney was in New York the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, sitting on a plane that was taxiing out for takeoff on a flight to Britain, where the singer planned to celebrate two of his kids’ birthdays. Then the captain announced that there’d been a “terrible accident,” and McCartney looked out the window to [...]
Praise be to Vera Farmiga for proving to be as miraculous behind the camera as she is in front of it with “Higher Ground,” one of 2011′s bravest dramatic creations, now available in a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack. Many a filmmaker would be daunted by this bold screenplay based on a memoir by Carolyn [...]
This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Spork” “Spork” only metaphorically refers those funny little spoon-and-fork combinations that they sell in camping supply stores. In writer-director J.B. Ghuman Jr.’s cheeky teen comedy, due out on DVD Tuesday, it’s also the name of the film’s nerdy little outcast who somehow manages to [...]
Many a Sam Peckinpah fan and especially admirers of the wild and woolly director’s 1971 version of “Straw Dogs” rolled their eyes at the news that film critic-turned-filmmaker Rod Lurie (“The Contender”) had had the audacity to attempt a remake of this controversial story of savage survival instinct awakened in the soul of a pacifist. The original, co-written [...]