The title refers to the booze-soaked, foul-mouthed, likely STD-infected clown (British stand-up comedian Ross Noble) who meets an early, accidental demise while performing at an only child’s 10th birthday party. Because that’s what happens when kids tie your shoelaces together, causing you to trip and fall face-first into the butcher knife left precariously pointing upward […]
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13 Eerie
At least not at first. Six forensic-science students are boated and then bussed into a body farm adjacent to the 13 Eerie Strait Penitentiary for a “Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team” exercise. It’s a field exam to test their wits and skills for FBI readiness, with corpses placed carefully around the island grounds. The plan […]
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Tormented
Instead, I got what amounts to a feature-length commercial for said Shock Labyrinth. Also in 3-D (if you have the proper player), Tormented opens with 10-year-old Daigo (Takeru Shibuya, who acts primarily by blinking) putting a gravely injured rabbit out of its misery, much to the horror of his fellow classmates and his mute older […]
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How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life
That she should be honored to be subservient. That a 28-year-old blonde bombshell would have trouble landing a beau until some 51-year-old man came sliming along. I’m being harsh, but this Dean Martin/Stella Stevens pairing — now part of the burned-on-demand Sony Pictures Choice Collection — engages in all of these and more. I wasn’t […]
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Enlightened: The Complete First Season
This is not to denigrate her Oscar-nominated turn as 1991’s Rambling Rose or her work as muse to David Lynch, most notably in Blue Velvet or Wild at Heart — all solid and accomplished. It’s just that her role here as Amy Jellicoe is the most complex and multilayered character she’s been given. Amy represents […]
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Easy Money
Front and center in every sense is a fantastic Joel Kinnaman (The Darkest Hour, TV’s The Killing and our new RoboCop), commanding the screen with real star power as JW, a college student with a brilliant mind for business, but practically destitute himself. So desperately wanting to be part of the cocaine-and-cognac crowd, he spends […]
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Zero Dark Thirty
Some, including Republican Sen. John McCain, accused director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who last collaborated on The Hurt Locker, of falsely suggesting that intel gleaned through torture is what led the CIA to bin Laden. The ensuing controversy hit fever pitch. Is ZDT a nearly journalistic work? Is it morally repugnant propaganda? Mostly, […]
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The Collection
Those who haven’t seen the original film are urged to do so before diving into this sequel. It begins where its predecessor ended, and try as the opening credits might, they fail to adequately acclimate any newcomers, who may be lost. Not that the new film is deep or complex. It does, however, work best […]
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Feelin’ hot, hot, hot
Illustration: Brad Gregg This once again proves that our landlocked location boasts some damn fine-looking people. Country music’s comely couple, who will celebrate their second anniversary this May, were ranked alongside other paparazzi-worthy duos like Jay-Z and Beyonce, Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres, and Barack and Michelle Obama.
Posted inMusic
SXSW 2013: OK Sweetheart / Defining Times / Samantha Crain
OK Sweetheart knows how to write a pop tune, whether it’s a slow ballad or a peppy, full-band sing-along. The Tulsa quintet showed both sides of their prowess during its set. The latter were marked by enthusiastic clapping from the band and audience. This energy carried over to the songwriting, as the bass lines were […]