As soon as its wonderful animated opening credits finish, however, The Wicked reveals its true nature as your below-average, everyday, unimaginative horror movie. It’s wicked, all right — just not in the word’s positive connotation. Although not to be confused with the Broadway smash Wicked, this flick also is about a witch (Cassie Keller, Hostel: Part […]
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Posted inFood & Drink
Through the grapevine
Photo: Shannon Cornman Michael David’s Zinfandels, especially 7 Deadly Zins, are well-established in the state, but now the California winery’s higher-tier wines are finally available. In keeping with the deadly sins theme, the upper-tier Zinfandels are named Lust, Gluttony and Sloth. Not the jammy, soft David wines we’ve seen thus far, these bigger and brawnier […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sinister
Had I been watching it alone, on a dark and stormy night, my neck likely would be sore by the end of it, from making repeated glances behind the couch — you know, just to be safe. It’s 2012’s Insidious: well-built, respectful of viewers’ intelligence and yet genuinely freaky. Ethan Hawke (Daybreakers) plays Ellison Oswalt, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Nature Calls
Heading it is comedian Patton Oswalt (Young Adult), here doing a variation of his ever-reliable, ever-lovable teddy-bear character as Randy. A second-generation Scoutmaster of the Boy Scouts of America, he has inherited his father’s once-vibrant Troop 5516. Today, however, in an Xbox age, enjoying the great outdoors holds no appeal to most kids. As one […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Zorro
Zorro movies always are better in theory than execution, but this is one of the more enjoyable efforts, because for once, the swashbuckling Spanish superhero is interpreted by the Italians. Therefore, the dish has a slight spaghetti-Western flavor. French screen idol Alain Delon (Le Samouraï) gallops into town as Don Diego, only to see his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sinister
Had I been watching it at home, alone, on a dark and stormy night, my neck likely would be sore by the end of it, from making repeated glances behind the couch — you know, just to be safe. It’s this year’s Insidious: well-built, respectful of audience members’ intelligence and yet genuinely freaky. Ethan Hawke […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Frankenweenie
A film of stop-motion animation, it is a feature-length version of a charming but unremarkable live-action short he made for Disney in 1984, about a kid who revives his beloved dead dog via lightning bolts. The House of Mouse found the end result so odd and macabre that it shelved plans to send it to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Knight watch
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US” lang=”EN-US”> Jack Walker is one of the lucky ones: Officially, he’s Batman. Living a dream of arguably millions, the British-born actor dons cape and cowl — not at a theater near you, not on any Bat-channel, but in the flesh, before your eyes, in cities worldwide, in the Batman Live arena tour. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
ParaNorman
But while Coraline sustained a masterful level of Grimm-like creepiness, ParaNorman is only fitfully brilliant. The premise is promising. Eleven-year-old Norman Babcock (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee, Let Me In) has a familiar problem: He sees dead people. Lots of ’em, actually, which makes him something of a pariah in the hamlet of Blithe Hollow, Mass. […]