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 […]
review
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
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 inMusic
Barry spritzer
Rock has The Beatles, jazz has Miles Davis, rap has Tupac, and adult contemporary has Barry Manilow. The man who became an icon for molding “Mandy,” “Copacabana (At the Copa)” and “Can’t Smile Without You” into chunks of pop-culture history is a natural showman with a gleaming voice, penchant for flashy stage attire and a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Andy hardy
See through the eyes of Andy Warhol at The Cult of Personality, a new exhibit opening Friday at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art. Celebrity Polaroid portraits shot by the legendary pop artist will be on display, along with two Warhol paintings and portraits by Harold Stevenson, Warhol’s contemporary and colleague. Taken in preparation […]
Posted inMusic
Grand Duel / Keoma
They should also take the back cover’s claim of “two masterpieces” with a grain of salt, even two for good measure, although both films are indeed better than average. That goes especially for Lee Van Cleef, who enjoyed another career in Italy cranking these things out, with little regard to quality. However, Grand Duel — […]
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 […]
Posted inArts & Culture
42nd Street Forever: Blu-ray Edition
That adds up to nearly four hours of absolutely outrageous ads. Trust me: Whether you watch in a single sitting or several, it’s a real car-chasing, cycle-revving, bomb-exploding, fist-punching, karate-chopping, foot-kicking, gun-shooting, knife-throwing, laser-blasting, woman-screaming, race-baiting, acid-pouring, eye-gouging, head-chopping, phallus-castrating, breast-squeezing, bed-writhing, succubus-sucking, wrist-tying, drug-injecting, butt-whipping, panty-ripping, bikini-filling, disco-dancing, jail-busting, snake-attacking, robot-battling, voodoo-pinning, slime-invading, dominatrix-singing, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lucky Devils
Either that, or men just had bigger balls back then. You decide. This amenable little action-packed drama begins with a bang, in the form of a daring bank robbery gone sour: Guns blaze, a body tumbles down a stairwell, another falls from a third-story window. Then the camera pulls back to reveal it’s a movie […]
Posted inArts & Culture
This Means War
• that a woman as beautiful as Reese Witherspoon can’t meet a guy;• conversely, that a man as handsome as Tom Hardy can’t meet a girl;• that Reese’s character would come to date Tom and Chris Pine — CIA partners — at once;• that video stores remain hotbeds of activity;• that Chelsea Handler is hysterical;• […]