But how much more badass might she be if her stunts were rooted in reality? For example, Jackie Chan can do — or could do — most of the things we saw him do in his movies; the blooper-ridden end credits attest to that. But from the start, Jukkalan’s tricks are aided by, well, tricks […]
Rod Lott
Posted inArts & Culture
Aroused
For the film, Anderson interviews 16 female porn stars — including Alexis Texas, Asphyxia Noir and other obviously invented names — about what got them into the business, what they get from it, and what misconceptions they’d like to clear up. In other words, she gives them the opportunity to appear human. In doing so, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
‘Mohicans’ by the numbers
0 Hollywood studio productions star Daniel Day-Lewis had appeared in previously 1 Academy Award win: Best Sound $10,976,661: its opening weekend box-office gross 4 words of dialogue that landed on Entertainment Weekly’s list of the best romantic movie lines of all time: “I will find you!” 3 actors who played a totally different Hawkeye: Alan […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Numbers Station
In the latter, he again dons gun and badge as Emerson, a black-ops agent for the CIA. When his latest assignment messes with his head (it involved multiple shooting deaths, including one kid), he’s temporarily reassigned to a new, less stressful gig: playing babysitter at Blackleg Minor, an unofficial Army base in England. There, Katherine […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Stripped / Nailbiter / American Mary
First, in Stripped, debuting feature director J.M.R. Luna updates the been-there scenario of college-age assholes on a holiday of hell by applying a coat of found footage to it. In this case, four friends gather to make the 21st birthday of one of them memorable, beginning with 8 a.m. bowl smoking before heading to Vegas, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Rolling Thunder
Now available in a Blu-ray from Shout! Factory that puts MGM’s 2011 burn-on-demand release to utter shame, the film stars William Devane (the POTUS of last summer’s The Dark Knight Rises) as Maj. Charles Rane. After spending a grueling seven years as a prisoner of war, he returns home to San Antonio, Texas, to a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sadako 3D
This time, that creepy, crawling girl with the stringy black hair known as Sadako (Ai Hashimoto) comes not through TV sets, but computer and smartphone screens. The cursed VHS tape is now a cursed video clip of a live suicide, and anyone who views it immediately kills himself or herself. Well, anyone except pretty, young […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dark Skies
The first sci-fi-heavy effort from Blumhouse Productions, that mighty machine of menace that brought you the Paranormal Activity pictures, the film focuses on the Barrett family. Lacy (Keri Russell, TV’s The Americans) is a Realtor; Daniel (Josh Hamilton, J. Edgar) is an architect, but currently unemployed in the midst of the Great Recession. Because of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Identity Thief
Yes, it’s stupid. But it stars Jason Bateman, one of the scant few actors currently working who can turn the otherwise throwaway line “The fuck you are” into a genuine laugh. Recently seen showing his dramatic side in Disconnect, Bateman reunites with Horrible Bosses director Seth Gordon as Sandy Patterson, a Denver family man whose […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Howling
Reunited with his Piranha screenwriter John Sayles, Dante spins a suspenseful, spooky and spoofy tale of TV anchorman Karen White (E.T. mom Dee Wallace in her best role), ordered by her psychiatrist (Patrick Macnee, TV’s The Avengers) to take some time off following a traumatic, near-death experience that has left her with amnesia. Said sojourn […]