Few things represent childhood as accurately as dead babysitters and drag queens, so when we found out that local performer Becky Bodacious was kicking off her summer film series with Don’t tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, we nearly jumped off the roof with excitement. On Saturday, June 25, Becky Bodacious…
The movie theater is a great place to kill a few summer afternoon hours while catching up on some cinematic pop culture. But if you’re looking for a well-rounded experience to accompany your viewing, these five spots will have you fixed in no time. 1. The Dive-In: Swim up and…
Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline their dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Jackie: I very rarely say this about movies but… I really, really liked Super 8. It was a throwback to all of those…
A big-bang demolition derby, J.J. Abrams’ much-anticipated, greatly enjoyable Super 8 seems bound for box-office glory. Opening three weeks before July 4, this Steven Spielberg-produced, kid-centric 21st-century disaster flick could well hang in at theaters till the 10th anniversary of 9/11 — an event that haunts Abrams’ surefire blockbuster nearly…
Including glimpses of Sleeping Beauty in her glass coffin, the rings of Saturn, and a roadside Texas BBQ, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life bears forth a variety of forms — and invites as many reactions. You may feel amazed or muddled, softly spoken to or simply abandoned while watching…
When New Times blogger Michelle Martinez and her partner, musician E.J. Rodriguez, are not watching movies, they’re talking about them.They’ve even been known to stop a movie to discuss it. E.J.: For the longest time I thought of Will Ferrell as an overexposed actor who stretched his SNL skits out…
Greatly expanded from a four-page, single-situation story by Raymond Carver, Dan Rush’s first feature Everything Must Go is an ambitious if enervated vehicle for Will Ferrell — playing it straight as Nick Halsey, a middle-class drunk fired from his job and locked out of his suburban home by an irate,…
Nothing goes better with a movie than dinner (and perhaps vise versa), which Chow Bella has all figured out. Dinner and a Movie pairs all sorts of films with themed recipes each week.Today features Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere starring Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, and Chris Pontius, who examine their own lives…
Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline their dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Tyler: The Wolfpack is back and this time they’re trading a weekend in Vegas for one night in Bangkok. I thought it was…
A nebbishy screenwriter who longs to publish a novel, Gil (Owen Wilson) is tentatively working on a book set in a nostalgia shop — much to the open frustration of Inez (Rachel McAdams), his all-too-modern, rich-girl fiancée, who has a tendency to talk about him in catty, judgey tones as…
Most sequels are born of good box office rather than good ideas — if you build it and they come, you simply must build another one — but it’s hard to imagine a more calculating, creatively bankrupt piece of real estate than The Hangover Part II. Trade out Las Vegas…
Tenacious indie Kelly Reichardt has specialized in quirky, minimalist quasi-road movies in which loners come unmoored in some great American space. Meek’s Cutoff is that and more — one great leap into the 19th-century unknown. The members of a small wagon train crossing the Oregon Trail in 1845 follow their…
CANNES, FRANCE — The last-day screening of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s ruminative, challenging Once Upon a Time in Anatolia strengthened an exceptionally ambitious and coherent competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — although Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life won the Palme d’Or, Ceylan’s late entry shared the second place…
When New Times blogger Michelle Martinez and her partner, musician E.J. Rodriguez, are not watching movies, they’re talking about them.They’ve even been known to stop a movie to discuss it. Michelle: At times, 13 Assassins was so violent, I had to close my eyes. There are just some things you…
The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee “Scratch” Perry, which opens at Filmbar this week, is part chronicle Perry’s life, and part history of Reggae and Dub music (both pioneered by Scratch). Though Perry’s words are thickly slurred, often-subtitled, and clouded in a thick, low cloud of “smoke,” his…
After having sunk into self-important tedium with its two most recent overstuffed installments, Pirates of the Caribbean seemed destined for permanent burial at sea. And yet the soggy franchise and Johnny Depp’s foppish rapscallion return again for On Stranger Tides — to search for the fountain of youth, no less,…
An earnest, intermittently droll dramedy about a manic-depressive toy manufacturer and his bewildered family, The Beaver is a parable that’s not easily parsed. While director Jodie Foster fails to maintain a consistent tone — could there be such a thing as inspirational satire? — the movie’s lopsided wobble is undeniably…
CANNES, FRANCE — Midway through the Cannes Film Festival, the competition has been all about family — more specifically all about parents (and parent surrogates) and their troubled children, many of both types pretty much from hell. Brad Pitt seems a good bet for red-carpet glory as the domineering autocrat…
Erotic art has a history of being hushed, censored, or flat out destroyed.Secret Museums, playing at FilmBar for the rest of the week, is taking a more public approach. The subtitled documentary travels through the excavated streets of Pompeii, and the carefully guarded shelves of private collectors (and the hidden…
FOX announced last night that Napoleon Dynamite will attempt a (hopefully doomed) animated comeback mid-season of next year. This just in: the nerdy, annoying, nasal-voiced cartoon character may also accelerate the apocalypse countdown. Buckle up…
Nothing goes better with a movie than dinner (and perhaps vise versa), which Chow Bella has all figured out. Dinner and a Movie pairs all sorts of films with themed recipes each week.Today features The Third Man starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, who find themselves in the middle of…
Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline their dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies. Tyler: Going in to Bridesmaids, I was sure that you’d like this movie more than I would. I’m a big fan of SNL scribes…
