The film’s fatal mistake? Perhaps it was director Bryan Singer embracing the 19th-century nature of the story as tightly as he did Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie for his own Superman Returns. These days, to satisfy family audiences, it’s evidently not enough to revive an old-fashioned tale; you have to hip it up with nods […]
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Posted inArts & Culture
On the Road
Walter Salles’ On the Road extends a fragmented blip on the map of American poetry — one that doesn’t necessitate resurrection. An ode to poet Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation, On the Road fails to elicit nostalgia for all things Beat, but not for lack of ambition. Its Americana backdrop depicts the unbridled beauty […]
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Who’s Minding the Mint?
It finally has made its DVD debut thanks to the Sony Pictures Choice Collection. Jim Hutton (TV’s Ellery Queen) is one huge reason. An unheralded Everyman of comedy (because he died too young to get the respect he deserves), he plays Harry Lucas, a U.S. Mint inspector whose boss suspects he’s on the take. He’s […]
Posted inMusic
Trading places
Between being a band, helping manage a record label/recording studio and maintaining a full-time day job, time management is crucial. Maybe that’s why Josh Griffin and Jonathan Eldridge — the two-man crew behind Oklahoma City blues-rock outfit The Trading Co. — have taken to writing songs and playing shows at the same time. “We’ve done […]
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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXV
While none are classics, the four episodes collected here make for a terrific representation of the comedy series’ range, as our host (Joel Hodgson or Mike Nelson, depending on the ep) and his trusty robot friends rip bad movies a new one from the corner of your screen. They can lampoon no-budget sci-fi (1986’s Robot […]
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Advance to the Rear / Don’t Go Near the Water / The Honeymoon Machine
The subgenre of lazy-day laffers used to be standard-issue Tinseltown fare, as three new, made-on-demand releases from Warner Archive show. From 1964, “Advance to the Rear” is a Civil War comedy starring the legendary Glenn Ford (“Superman: The Movie”) as Jared Heath, captain to a Union army of misfits who get in trouble for retreating […]
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Winter in Wartime
In 1945, teenage Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier, in his acting debut) is intrigued by the Dutch Resistance movement to Nazi occupation going on almost literally in his own backyard. He rides his bike alongside marching, jackbooted soldiers as if it’s standard operating procedure for a child to do. But when a British plane crashes spectacularly in […]
Posted inMusic
Jack Rowdy – Jack Rowdy
With red dirt, pop, ballads, gospel and hot country all receiving attention, it’s easy to see that Jack Rowdy (an Oklahoma City band, not a man) has studied up. Far from being a radio pastiche, Jack Rowdy infuses each of its tunes with enough muscle from the self-stated “classic rock and ’80s hair metal” influences […]
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Zenith
Contrary to the belief of film execs, not everyone hitting the cinemas at Christmastime wants to see Reese Witherspoon in a romantic comedy or Jack Black being tied up by little people. For those seeking a decidedly different, off-off-Hollywood experience, you’ll get it — and then some — in “Zenith.” The self-described “retro-futuristic steampunk thriller” […]
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Gulliver’s Travels
I’ve been suspicious for some time, but now it’s official: I am tired of Jack Black’s overaged rocker shtick. Sorry, Jethro, but you can be too old to be a rock ’n’ roll doofus, and Black is. In “Gulliver’s Travels,” he brings that character to Jonathan Swift’s 1726 scathing satire, and the result makes little […]