In 1997, 87-year-old Richard Lusk flew from California to Florida to claim an $11 million prize he believed he’d won in a sweepstakes. The day after he returned home empty-handed, he had a stroke. Four months later, he bought a second plane ticket to Florida and stubbornly knocked on their…
It’s possible to love a work of art, a piece of music, or even a comic strip to the point of near-speechlessness. That’s the problem with Joel Allen Schroeder’s heartfelt but largely inarticulate documentary Dear Mr. Watterson, which tries to capture the almost mystical appeal of Bill Watterson’s newspaper strip…
Imagine an alternate history for Vince Vaughn. What if, 18 years ago, instead of rehearsing Swingers during the day and sampling Los Angeles’ starlets at night, he channeled his sexual energy into masturbating for cash at a sperm bank? He could have become Delivery Man’s David Wozniak, father of 533…
Few men wear a dress as meaningfully as comedian Chris Lilley. Since 2005, he has sported the pinstriped schoolgirl uniforms of his native Australia to play Ja’mie King, a perfect little monster created by an ungodly mix of wealth, vapidity, and cheerful cruelty. Ja’mie returns to HBO on November 24…
Through the soaring windows of the Mandarin Oriental Miami, it’s hard not to notice the blue skies and matching azure water. Most people find Miami’s beachy, serene views relaxing. But for fans of The Hunger Games, the vacation vista could just as easily conjure images of blister-forming nerve gas, vicious…
“This movie has been written about in books — go figure — and there’s discussion about whether or not it’s actually a zombie movie. And I can tell you it’s not; it’s not a zombie movie.” So says director Thom Eberhardt about 20 minutes into the commentary for his low-budget…
AirwolfberlinJonathan Brandis hanged himself 10 years ago this week at Sixth and Detroit in Los Angeles, in the second-floor hallway of an apartment building south of Hollywood near a decent doughnut shop and a cat groomer. He was 27 years old. And he was my first big crush. If you’re…
It had to happen: There’s so much voiceover narration in today’s movies, so much needless verbal play-by-play, that it was only a matter of time before somebody made a picture narrated by that life of the party himself, Death. The Grim Reaper delivers the opening monologue of The Book Thief,…
From the mid-1990s to somewhere around 2006, Hollywood bankrolled a number of romantic entertainments targeted to — though not made exclusively for — black audiences. Pictures like Love Jones, Brown Sugar, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Something New provided a showcase for actors of color, a refreshing change…
Hey geeks, did you happen to catch Thor 2: The Dark World this past weekend? If not, you were one of the few who didn’t, considering that Marvel’s latest entry into its cinematic universe raked in an estimated $86 million during its debut weekend. But if you did, however, you…
With summer and its blockbusters behind us, here are five films worth heading to the theater to see this month. Kill Your Darlings Sex, intrigue, Beat poets, Harry Potter — Kill Your Darlings just happens to contain some of our all-time favorite things. Director John Krokidas brings to the cinema…
Among the Avengers, Thor should reign supreme. Sure, Captain America is the de facto leader, but even he — like the others — is just a jacked-up human. Thor is a god. Or if not quite a god, as he demurs, he’s the next best thing: a flying titan with…
Richard Curtis has so much to tell us about life. Seize the day! Show people you love them before it’s too late! Don’t let the right one get away! His movies — those he writes, directs, or both — are so packed with info-feeling that they become restless jumbles of…
How is it that no one had yet made the Lucien Carr-David Kammerer murder story into a movie? It’s an irresistible tall tale from the Beat back catalog — how, once upon a time in the mid-’40s, the finger-snapping legends-to-be (Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs) all coalesced around the radiant rebel Carr…
Besides its cast, a parade of Brit aces the likes of which we haven’t seen since the last episode of Wizard Boy Has a Sad, the quality that most distinguishes Mike Newell’s adaptation of the best-titled of all English novels is its healthy fullness. In the decades since David Lean’s…
She was a lonely princess. He was a cocky civilian. And after she escaped the palace, the unlikely couple fell in love. It’s the plot of Roman Holiday and — according to this soapy romance from director Oliver Hirschbiegel — the true-enough story of the last two years of Princess…
Here’s how disastrous the MPAA rating system has become. How I Live Now, Kevin Macdonald’s stellar adaptation of Meg Rosoff’s uncommonly smart and insightful near-future young adult novel, has won an R rating. The film is apocalyptic in the most literal sense, as in, an apocalypse occurs, harrowing the characters…
While guest-hosting a TV variety show in 1964, Dean Martin ridiculed a hot new rock ‘n’ roll act with his trademark blend of cocksure innuendo, aw-shucks buffoonery, and inebriated syntax: “Now, something for the youngsters — five singing boys from England. . . . They’re called the Rollin’ Stones. I…
Weight-loss and weight-gain performances are tricky things. Robert De Niro’s heavily mannered turn in Raging Bull just has to be great — he gained 60 pounds for it, didn’t he? For his role in The Machinist, Christian Bale dropped to a sub-skeletal 122 pounds; he looked like a walking, talking…
Photo by Jay Maidment – © 2012 MVLFFLLC. TM &2012 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.Thor: The Dark World just doesn’t compare to the 2011 original, in spite of its few redeeming qualities. That’s the consensus among this paper’s film critics on this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, available now. Listen to…
Phoenix’s only LGBT-focused film festival, Desperado, is coming back to the Paradise Valley Community College in January 2014. Although the film schedule has yet to be announced for the upcoming incarnation, last year featured a mix of locally and nationally made independent films with an eye toward queer issues. Tickets…
Regulars of local English pub George and Dragon may have spotted a familiar face if they happened to catch the Halloween episode of The Price Is Right last week. (If they were playing hooky from work that particular morning, that is.) Namely, they saw the pub’s always jovial owner David…
