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, […]
Mary
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Flatlined
Hundreds of Oklahomans in need of free dental care packed the Oklahoma Mission of Mercy in Lawton last month. Photo: Clifton Adcock On a cold February evening at the Comanche County Fairgrounds in Lawton, a steady stream of people entered the building and walked between the cattle gates erected on either side herding them to […]
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From board to booked
District Attorney David Prater Photo: Mark Hancock Mack Martin, an attorney for the board members, called the charges unfair. “What they did is not a crime,” he said. “That’s my opinion, and my opinion is just as important as David Prater’s.” But the D.A. contends he had no choice after he offered not to pursue […]
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Smashed
New to Blu-ray and DVD after a too-brief theatrical release, the indie drama is reminiscent of 1988’s Clean and Sober, also a sturdy-enough addiction movie that lives and dies on its central performance — in other words, one actor shoulders the entire burden, elevating what is otherwise unremarkable (but not incompetent) material. He or she […]
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The Frankenstein Theory
Wait, wait! Don’t run off! This one’s better than the average entry, even if it’s not so revolutionary to change the minds of those who despise the delivery system. It opens Friday at AMC Quail Springs Mall, 2501 W. Memorial — one of about 15 theaters nationwide to get it. The picture’s snowy setting is reason […]
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Smashed
Opening today exclusively at AMC Quail Springs Mall 24, 2501 W. Memorial, the indie drama is reminiscent of 1988’s Clean and Sober, also a sturdy-enough addiction movie that lives and dies on its central performance — in other words, one actor shoulders the entire burden, elevating what is otherwise unremarkable (but not incompetent) material. He […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Frankenstein
And, in the early ’90s, he starred as the mad doctor in Frankenstein … for TNT, not Kenneth Branagh. Provided you missed it on during its CableACE Award-nominated broadcast, the better-than-average production is now alive — alive! — on MOD DVD from Warner Archive. Bergin’s Dr. Frankenstein is even more enterprising than in the Mary Shelley […]
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‘Poppins’ pops
Disney’s national touring production of the Mary Poppins musical is great, fun and colorful. Its cast is excellent, too, with one strange exception: Mary Poppins herself. As Mary, the magical nanny, Madeline Trumble was the only one who seemed overly showy, clearly putting on a performance, whereas the rest of the actors were much more […]
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Safety Not Guaranteed
Feature-debuting director Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed marks the rarest of indie comedies — the speculative kind — as Jeff, a cocky magazine writer (Jake Johnson, TV’s New Girl) in Seattle, relies on his intern, Darius (Aubrey Plaza, TV’s Parks and Recreation), to use her feminine wiles to get close to the lonely grocery clerk/would-be […]
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Sweep well
Photo: Kyle Froman Few get to act dirty in a Disney musical. Con O’Shea-Creal does, because that’s what you do when you’re cast as the chimney sweep of Mary Poppins. Taking a visual cue from Dick Van Dyke’s performance as Bert in the beloved 1964 film, O’Shea-Creal spends much of the stage show covered in […]