Personally, I went in to The Thompsons relatively cold, having heard of its big brother, but never having caught up with it. In doing so, I felt like I had jumped onto a sitcom in its second or third week: I could immediately get into its groove without knowing the backgrounds of the players. All […]
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The Possession
Now that the former has followed the latter onto Blu-ray and DVD, the difference is startlingly clear: The Possession is by far the superior ghost story. I’d expect nothing less from Evil Dead mastermind Sam Raimi, who produced it under his Ghost House Pictures banner, which has brought some of the better entries in the […]
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Searching for Sugar Man
Take, for example, Searching for Sugar Man. Currently up for the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award and new to DVD, the doc introduces us to the saga of the one-named Rodriguez, a criminally unknown singer-songwriter from the early 1970s whose career sank into obscurity in his native United States, but whose influence proved monumental in, […]
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Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft
Another: H&G: WOW is directed by David DeCoteau, whose dirt-cheap filmography includes 1313: Giant Killer Bees! (exclamation theirs), Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 and the forthcoming A Talking Cat!?! (exclamations and question mark theirs). In this flaccid effort, Hansel and Gretel Jonah and Ella (real-life sibs Booboo and Fivel Stewart, respectively) play orphan […]
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Wake in Fright
Gary Bond (Zulu) works wonders as John Grant, the only teacher in the Australian desert town of Tiboonda, where the tiny, single-room schoolhouse is surrounded by sand and dust. On Christmas break, Grant heads for Sydney, but must spend a night in Bundanyabba before catching a flight the next morning. At least that’s the plan. […]
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Bolo
Bolo is a punch used by boxers — a wide, sweeping uppercut. It also is the title of Fall Films’ latest local production. We recommend skipping the former and taking the latter. With free beer from Titswiggle Brewing Co. and live music beforehand from local harpist Jessica Tate, Bolo premieres Saturday at City Arts Center. […]
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Tai Chi Zero
In an acting debut that deliberately doesn’t require him to act much, wushu champ Yuan Xiaochao plays Lu Chan, nicknamed “The Freak” from birth because a horn-like protrusion on the side of his forehead. When pushed, his eyes go milky and, for a brief time, he hulks out with brute force until blood spurts out […]
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The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
The film fills in the details of Holmes’ three-year spell of assumed death — “Only the facts have been made up,” teases a title card — by pairing the great detective with the great psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. Arguably more notable is that Solution is the first dilated-pupils depiction of Holmes, the only to tackle head-on […]
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Suddenly
Especially for generations who were introduced to Ol’ Blue Eyes via Cannonball Run II, it’s easy to forget Sinatra could act, and in Suddenly, he does that quite well as John Baron, an assassin for hire who takes over a nice family’s home in the small town of the title in order to whack the […]
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Game Change
If Sen. McCain’s choice of the largely unknown Alaska Gov. Palin as his veep choice seemed out of nowhere then, there’s good reason: Because it pretty much was. McCain, here played by Ed Harris (Man on a Ledge), wanted Sen. Joe Lieberman, but was talked into someone “more transformative” by hired gun Steven Schmidt (Woody […]