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 […]
naked
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 […]
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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
It’s certainly not short on action; Holmes gets into a street brawl, disposes of a bomb and destroys a bachelor party, all before the main plot gets going. That involves what criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris, TV’s Mad Men) may have to do with anarchist activities around town, and what he wants with […]
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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
Meatballs
Things such as:• the kid-vocalized “Are You Ready for the Summer?” theme song;• the nerd, Spaz (Jack Blum, Happy Birthday to Me), getting a milkshake dumped on his head;• clown counselor Murray downing so much club soda that he burp-talks, “Oh, really? Really?”;• the fat guy, Fink, getting depantsed;• the rival camp’s entire basketball team getting depantsed (don’t accuse Meatballs […]
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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 inMusic
Evolution theory
Denton, Texas-based singersongwriter Sarah Jaffe broke through in 2010 with her first full-length album, Suburban Nature, boasting a beautiful sound, charming voice and lyrical wit, all evidenced by the single, “Clementine.” It won her spots playing shows with Norah Jones and The Old 97’s, so she could have just leaned on that sound for a […]
Posted inMusic
The Moody muse
It only makes sense that Australian-born, Canadian-raised singer-songwriter Ruth Moody has enjoyed her illustrious career, filled with Juno Awards (Canada’s answer to the Grammys), Billboard-charting albums and more than a dozen appearances on A Prairie Home Companion. After all, she’s been groomed for it since birth. “When I was growing up, there was music everywhere. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Breast intentions
It’s not unusual for pregnant women to feel less than beautiful, and Oklahoma City artist Kelly Brinkmeyer was no exception. During her pregnancy in 2007, she channeled this frustration and killed two birds with one stone: learning to love her body while creating art — some nudity required. It was a hot July day when […]
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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 […]