Yeah, that kind of feel-good. Based on a true story and scheduled to open Friday at AMC Quail Springs Mall 24, Hysteria unfolds in late 19th-century London — a time when modern medicine amounted to a jar of leeches, theories about germs were “poppycock,” and the plague of the era was hysteria among women. Per […]
movie
Posted inArts & Culture
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
That’s especially true for Spirit, considering it was directed by the acquired-taste tag team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who gave the world such amped-up, anti-establishment thrillers as Gamer, Crank and its now-immortal Crank: High Voltage. By (thankfully) replacing non-returning director Mark Steven Johnson, Neveldine/Taylor automatically make this follow-up cooler. They get their mitts […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Accident
Masterminded by a lonely, paranoid widowed man who looks like Dwight Schrute and goes by the name of The Brain (Louis Koo, Triple Tap), a group of four carries out hired hits by making them look like accidents, and remarkably, using no weapons. In the opening hit, for instance, a Triad gang boss is felled […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Kill Speed
Flashy, yet trashy, Kill Speed is as generic as its meaningless title implies. It so wants to be another shit-goes-fast blockbuster like The Fast and the Furious, which gets name-checked in a roundabout way, but on a small budget. I believe such a thing is not impossible. One just has to do what writer/director Kim […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Project X
So much potential is built in the first 15 or 20 minutes, in which mild-manner high school loser Thomas (Thomas Mann, It’s Kind of a Funny Story) is goaded into hosting a party while his parents are away. The goal, per obnoxious buddy Costa (newcomer Oliver Cooper), is for the rest of the student body […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Miss Minoes
Tibbe (Theo Maassen, Black Book, Interview) is a newspaper reporter so shy, he risks unemployment because he can’t bring himself to talk to people. Luck comes to his apartment window in the form of Minoes (Carice van Houten, Black Death, TV’s Game of Thrones), a young woman who gives him a scoop that turns into […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Demoted
Luckily for Klein, as the head honcho of Treadline Industries tires, he checks out early, leaving the tire company in the hands of Ken (the too-good-for-this David Cross, TV’s The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret), a nerdy, put-upon salesman/laughingstock who’s long been the target of fellow salesmen Rodney (Michael Vartan, Colombiana) and Mike (Sean […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Monster Brawl
If the answer is “yes,” then the feature film Monster Brawl was made for you. If you let it, watching it can be a ball. Just know going in it offers neither plot nor story — it’s a series of bouts in the ring, pure and simple, with eight monstrosities summoned from around the globe […]
Posted inMusic
A crappy show
Austin, Texas-based garage musician Orville Bateman Neely stays busy. He produces records for the likes of The Strange Boys, drums for A Giant Dog, co-fronts Bad Sports and runs sound at Austin venue Beerland. Oh, and currently on its first national tour, his own band, OBN IIIs, plays 10 p.m. Saturday at The Blue Note […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island / Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island
Young Sean (Josh Hutcherson, The Hunger Games) is the only returning cast member from 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, meaning dad Brendan Fraser is nowhere to be found, replaced here by Fast Five‘s Dwayne Johnson as stepdad Hank. (That’s called trading up.) Wasting no time, the movie has Sean and Hank crack […]