I’m not insulting you, dear readers — those are merely the three animals that figure prominently in the opening of Hong Kong’s action-comedy “The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman,” as broad as its continent’s schoolgirls are sexualized. Doug Liman (director of “Go,” “Swingers” and “The Bourne Identity”) serves as executive producer, which I take […]
Rod Lott
Posted inArts & Culture
Black Zoo
But Michael’s “children” are in danger — or is that endangered? — when greedy, swingin’ businessman Jerry Stengel (Jerome Cowan, “The Maltese Falcon”) keen on visiting a particular “striptease parlor” wants to take the land on which the zoo sits so he can rezone it as a residential district. Michael refuses to sign the contract, so […]
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Police Story: Season One
Shout! Factory has released the first season — all 22 episodes of it — on a six-disc set. It was worth the wait. Now I just pray the remainder will follow. “Police Story” makes for terse drama. As Wambaugh states on the bonus interview with him, the series is not about the cop on the […]
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Born of Earth
This means he has to:• Spout supposedly dramatic and/or serious lines like “Eggs? They weren’t eggs, you son of a bitch. They were my family!”• Convince his estranged sister-in-law (Jennifer Kincer, “Trust”) to let him take her and her punky, rebellious daughter (Shannon Zeller, “Seraphim Falls”) to the county fair. • Eventually fight the flesh-eating […]
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Buck
Could do without horses? You’re going to love “Buck.” Winner of the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, the documentary tells the story of Buck Brannaman, Wyoming-based horse whisperer. He travels three-fourths of the year, conducting clinics all over the nation on breaking horses — and sometimes their owners — of bad behavior. What’s […]
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Manhattan cocktail
That Internet thing has so hurt movie attendance that Hollywood’s resorted to gimmicks to lure people back to the ’plex. If it’s not unnecessary 3-D conversion every other week, it’s scratchand-sniff cards for “Spy Kids 4.” What if audience interactivity weren’t an afterthought, but a building block? With Manhattan Short Film Festival, the power to […]
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What a Rausch
A star of the 20th century’s neo-Dada movement, Robert Rauschenberg worked in many media, but his prints are the focus of a new exhibition at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in Norman. It opens Friday night with a free, public reception. No matter the medium, the man was a groundbreaker, according to Mark […]
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Scream 4
In the decade that has passed since the previous entry, the landscape has changed greatly for horror films. Gone are the sly, self-aware semi-parodies that the original “Scream” birthed; in vogue is the so-called “torture porn” of the “Saw” series. In its opening scenes, “Scream 4” uses this to its advantage, poking fun at the […]
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Dracula: The Vampire and the Voivode
In other words, it’s more than a little dry, and a lot like watching a slideshow. Instead of being a first-class treatment of its undeniably interesting subject, it can’t afford standard doc fare like film clips, so it settles for scrolling over movie posters for anything not in the public domain, leaving us with grainy […]
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The Others
Nicole Kidman, an actress I usually find unappealing, greatly impresses as a single mother living with her two photosensitive children in an old, dark house at the close of World War II. Soon after the arrival of a new house staff, her kids begin to speak of ghostly “others” in the abode (where shadows are […]