Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life follows the controversial French singer and songwriter starting in childhood, where his big ears and Jewish genes don’t make for an easy upbringing in Nazi-occupied Paris. The kid hates piano lessons, preferring drawing sophisticated cartoons (some dirty) to music, unless the song is a ditty about cocaine. Those quirks work for […]
Rod Lott
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The Three Musketeers
In this showy but spirited box-office underperformer, the title fighters of Athos (Matthew Macfadyen, Robin Hood), Aramis (Luke Evans, Immortals) and Porthos (Ray Stevenson, Thor) are double-crossed by Athos’ girlfriend, Milady (Milla Jovovich, Dirty Girl and Mrs. Anderson), leaving their reputations smeared. One year later, young D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The […]
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Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
A self-taught filmmaker, Corman is famous for three things. The first is for making movies fast and cheap, but not always good. (At the typing of this sentence, his producer credits number 400 titles deep.) The second is for doing so while never losing a dime, which isn’t exactly true, but makes for great hype. […]
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Creature
It’s not like first-time director Fred M. Andrews doesn’t know what he’s doing — he opens Creature with a page straight from the Roger Corman playbook: bare breasts. I’m not sure why this particular full-frontal female chooses to swim in a swamp, but it means her death by alligator attack. Nearly every turn of the […]
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Doctor Who: The Robots of Death
Then portrayed by Tom Baker and his giant, 1977-friendly ’fro, the good Doctor and his pretty yet primitive companion, Leela (Louise Jameson), are stuck in a “metal world” in outer space until they can find their beloved TARDIS, which has gone missing. (For show virgins — or near-virgins like me — that’s the iconic time-traveling […]
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Thirteen Women
First, a circus performer’s trapeze act goes awry, killing her sister. Then a housewife stabs her hubby for no good reason. A horoscope of “You will not live until Christmas. You will meet death at your own hands” causes one woman to down a drink of “lemonade with bitters,” then turn a gun on herself. […]
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The Steel Trap
Jim Osborne (Joseph Cotten, Citizen Kane) is an all-American, suit-and-tie family man who commutes to work, where he’s the assistant manager of a bank. To get into the vault, he and his fellow execs take turns entering safe codes as a safety measure … but he’s smart enough to memorize the others’ numbers. That’s because […]
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Can it
Any given performance of Stomp brings the noise with paint cans, basketballs, oil drums, inner tubes, poles, hammers, garbage cans, brooms, drumsticks — enough to give its silent stars ringing ears and a migraine. “I’m probably going to be deaf when I get older,” said performer Guido “Guy” Mandozzi. “We have earplugs backstage, but you […]
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Game Change
If Sen. McCain’s choice of the largely unknown Alaska Gov. Palin as his veep choice seemed out of nowhere then, there’s good reason: Because it pretty much was. McCain, here played by Ed Harris (Man on a Ledge), wanted Sen. Joe Lieberman, but was talked into someone “more transformative” by hired gun Steven Schmidt (Woody […]
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Friends with Kids
Although long a screenwriter (Kissing Jessica Stein) and an actress (TV’s Notes from the Underbelly and 24), Westfeldt makes her directorial debut with this romantic comedy that co-stars four members of the Bridesmaids cast and opens Friday. She stars as Julie, best buds to Jason (Adam Scott, TV’s Parks and Recreation). Their relationship is pure […]