Reviewer’s grade: C- Saintly 11-year-old JoBeth Smalls writes a letter to Santa Claus asking for revenge against the classmates and principal who torment her. What she gets is Klaus, a sweaty, dirty, foul-mouthed evil-twin version of St. Nick, who shows up with two alcoholic, porn-obsessed elves to wreak havoc on her enemies. After using […]
NULL
Posted inArts & Culture
Big Story in a Small City
ir public viewings. The bureaucratic and personal mix-ups are related with a perfectly straight face by director Gor Kirakosian, working from a story that recalls the deadpan satire of Nikolai Gogol. This one’s funny as hell and should do well on the film festival circuit. “?Doug Bentin
Posted inArts & Culture
Bitch
Reviewer’s grade: A Keira Leverton works in a record store and is a total bitch. She yells at and punches people she sees on the street and in her store. Leverton hates people, hates poseurs, hates life and hates her sister, whom she refers to only as “dipshit.” Everything makes her mad, including herself. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Something’s Burning
Reviewer’s grade: D+ This short vampire comedy could be called “Looking for Raimi,” as it borrows heavily and unsuccessfully from the tone of “Evil Dead II,” with globs of Sergio Leone, Edgar Wright and John Carpenter blended in, as well. When vampires rule the earth, they keep humans chained as sanguinary lunch pails on […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Try to Read This Without Wincing:
A cable broke on a leg extension machine at a YWCA facility in Akron, Ohio, in 2004, catapulting a steel bar forcefully at a 22-year-old football player working out for a shot at a college scholarship, hitting him squarely between his parted legs, whacking his left testicle. Three years later, he still walks gingerly and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Trail of Tears
Reviewer’s grade: C “Trail of Tears” weaves fascinating quotes with photographs, commentary and dramatic re-creation to educate about one of the most inhuman acts in American history: removal of the Cherokee to Indian Territory in 1838 and 1839. Produced by an American Indian company, the film doesn’t avoid the tribe’s slave-owning past or Cherokee-on-Cherokee […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Continuing Crisis
At least five convicted sex offenders in Florida’s Miami-Dade County have their official residence in a makeshift encampment underneath a bridge on the Julia Tuttle Causeway to Miami Beach, with the blessing of the state Department of Corrections, according to an April report by CNN. Officials say that the state’s tough zoning law for sex […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Man with a Moustache
Reviewer’s grade: A Ted wishes his mustache were like Freddie Mercury’s, but unfortunately, it more resembles Jason Lee’s in “My Name Is Earl.” In other words, it’s what I like to call a “disgustache,” prompting his girlfriend to leave him, passers-by to recoil in disgust, friends to disown him and others to mistake him […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
Reviewer’s grade: B- If skyrocketing prices at the gas pump haven’t already darkened your mood, check out “A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash” “? and you’ll be flat-out terrified. This Swiss-produced documentary sounds the alarm on the oil crisis, and if it occasionally indulges in doomsday theatrics (the musical score can be a bit […]
Posted inArts & Culture
My Secret Record
Reviewer’s grade: D This documentary comes across more like a mockumentary than the latest Christopher Guest film. Too bad it isn’t funny. At all. Following the breakout solo career of Matchbox 20 lead singer Rob Thomas during the writing, recording and release of his album “Something to Be,” this film “? directed by Gillian […]