On the coattails of the release of what could be the biggest budget Hollywood-saturated zombie flick of all time (who better than a scruffy Brad Pitt to solve the world’s infectious crisis?), and the unbridled success of AMC’s zombie-centric drama-filled “The Walking Dead,” here are a few lighter love letters to zombies, each equally filled […]
Film
Posted inCulture
Movies You Could Eat!
Not your popcorn’s average film
Minnie Driver has hovered at the edges of fame, never quite an A-lister and only rarely earning the dubious distinction of a movie star with enough power to grace the tabloid covers. She did win a few awards for a British TV series (“The Deep”) recently, but really, why even talk about recent projects? Had […]
Posted inCulture
More Human than Human
With Monsters University,
Pixar goes to college
“Where’s the girl?” I’d taken my 5-year-old with me to see Monsters University—this year’s winsome prequel to Pixar’s 2001 Monsters, Inc.—and though he claimed he “liked all of it,” clearly he did not, in fact, like “all of it.” He missed the character every kid watching the first Monsters movie was supposed to identify with: […]
Posted inCulture
Apocalyp-dicks
This Is the End Provides rapturous laughs
There are many good laughs to be had in This Is the End—perhaps the first apocalypse movie centering around a Hollywood brat pack—but the best moment comes when pop star Rihanna slaps the ever-loving shit out of Arrested Development's Michael Cera. It is a slap for the ages, and so very, very gratifying. It's worth […]
Posted inCulture
Stranger in a Strange Land
Superman saves world, enjoys eating at IHOP
“Superheroes are the copyrighted property of big corporations,” comics writer Alan Moore recently told the Believer. “They are purely commercial entities; they are purely about making a buck. That’s not to say that there haven’t been some wonderful creations in the course of the history of the superhero comic, but to compare them with gods […]
Posted inCulture
Staff Summer Favorites
What to watch this summer
Wet, Hot American Summer (2001) With tube socks pulled all the way up, this spoof should be on the top 10 funniest movies ever. Early in their successful and very funny careers, Janeane Garofalo and Paul Rudd (in shorty shorts) play counselors at a summer camp doomed for destruction. Slapstick and clever sketch comedy and […]
Posted inCulture
Yippie-Ki-Yay!
Cowboys can be funny
At the height of his career, Billy Crystal starred in City Slickers (1990), a fish-out-of-water story about three New Yorkers who land on a Southwestern cattle drive by way of a midlife crisis. The smashhit came for Crystal on the heels of When Harry Met Sally (1989), and he had just hosted the first of […]
Posted inCulture
Doctor, doctor
Escape Fire proscribes more than two aspirin
The best story in Escape Fire—a documentary skewering the health industry that the recently departed Roger Ebert called “extraordinary” and gave his trademark thumbs up—is about a young soldier who has returned injured—both mentally and physically—from the war. Self-identified as a “hillbilly,” the young man explains that he would have scoffed at what he calls […]
Posted inCulture
Parents Just Don't Understand
After Earth: Parents Are the Same, No Matter Time or Place
M. Night Shyamalan: a dude who went from being crowned “The Next Spielberg” on the cover of Newsweek (circa Signs) to a guy who had his name laughed off the screen (circa The Last Airbender). Considering his last few f-ups, it's not surprising that After Earth—which he directed and co-wrote—doesn't feel at all like a […]
Posted inCulture
Mud = Best Film of the Year!
Matthew McConaughey = My New Boyfriend
OMG. OMG. O-M-Gee! Mud is wonderful. Have you been wanting a male companion to Beasts of the Southern Wild? Wait no more! Do you remember the tall tales of Big Fish? Check! Do you fondly remember River Phoenix in Stand By Me? Who doesn’t? Were you enchanted and spooked by the creepy-but-kind Boo Radley in […]
