Heading it is comedian Patton Oswalt (Young Adult), here doing a variation of his ever-reliable, ever-lovable teddy-bear character as Randy. A second-generation Scoutmaster of the Boy Scouts of America, he has inherited his father’s once-vibrant Troop 5516. Today, however, in an Xbox age, enjoying the great outdoors holds no appeal to most kids. As one […]
hot
Posted inArts & Culture
All Superheroes Must Die
The low-budget effort’s premise takes a page from Saw: Tired of “asshole goody-two-shoes getting in the way,” the career criminal who calls himself Rickshaw (James Remar, TV’s Dexter) wants his archenemies — this story’s superheroes — to play a game. He has kidnapped 100 innocent civilians, rigged them to explosive devices and scattered them across […]
Posted inArts & Culture
End of Watch / Officer Down
David Ayer has spent much of his career chronicling the life of Los Angeles law enforcement in his screenplays for Training Day, S.W.A.T. and Dark Blue, and directing Street Kings. With End of Watch, he pulls double duty. The result is an invigorating, pulse-pounding crime drama. Through a found-footage gimmick that really isn’t necessary to […]
Posted inMusic
At bat
Curtis Grimes’ life reads like your classic country narrative: A promising baseball prospect ditches his chance at a shot in the big leagues for a girl, only to come away heartbroken a short while later. But instead of picking up the bottle, he picked up a guitar, and what sounds like the character in so […]
Posted inMusic
Laura Leighe — The Laura Leighe EP
But it’s not like there isn’t good pop music being made, and one of the brighter spots is the angel-faced and -voiced Duncan native Laura Leighe, who seems more concerned with connecting to her listeners than selling them a product. Her EP’s opener, “Find Me,” is a saucy and masterfully produced single with a clever […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Thompsons
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 […]
Posted inArts & Culture
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 […]
Posted inArts & Culture
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 […]
Posted inArts & Culture
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 […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Zero Dark Thirty
Some, including Republican Sen. John McCain, accuse 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 controversy is at a fever pitch. Is ZDT a nearly journalistic work? Is it morally repugnant propaganda? […]