“The Myth of The American Sleepover” seems so genuine, so honest, so middle-America, there literally were parts that I thought had to be filmed in my neighborhood, at my high school. (Instead, it’s suburban Detroit.) The actors portraying the kids do so well because they’re kids themselves, precious few with any acting credits before or […]
Rod Lott
Posted inArts & Culture
Yakuza Weapon
For the uninformed, the yakuza is the Japanese equivalent of our mafia — an underworld crime syndicate where loyalty is value No. 1. Break that, and there’s hell to pay! In this Sushi Typhoon offering from co-directors Tak Sakaguchi (“Mutant Girls Squad”) and Yûdai Yamaguchi (the similarly wacky but overlong “Battlefield Baseball”), Sakaguchi also stars as […]
Posted inMusic
Various Artists — Chronicle: Music from the Motion Picture
While that name — and arguably, most of the acts on the 12-track compilation — screams “off-putting teen band,” that’s not the case. The disc holds wide appeal, from tweens to their middle-aged parents. (Just don’t tell the tweens.) Manchester trio The Longcut could also describe its six-minute-plus contribution, “Told You So,” whose uptempo darkness […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)
Well, readers, welcome to the “much worse.” Turns out that when writer/director Tom Six promoted his original film by saying the sequel would make it look like “My Little Pony“ by comparison, that wasn’t just a good sound bite. “Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)” makes its big brother look positively innocent. To Six’s credit, he […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story
Really? Well, for those who compete in the Monopoly World Championship every four to five years, it is. After a predictable opening sequence of The Drifters’ song playing over Atlantic City tourist footage, freshman feature director Kevin Tostado introduces us to them and, unfortunately, stays focused on them. Sad to say, the “Story” promised by […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Talking Heads: Chronology
While official Warner Bros. compilations of the Heads’ mind-bending, envelope-pushing videos allow for a glimpse of the art-rock band at its most creative, this 18-track disc is the next best thing to catching them live — outside of Jonathan Demme’s “Stop Making Sense,” of course. “Chronology” kicks off with a 1976 mic test that captures […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Police Woman: Season Two
For that success and a winning performance, she was rewarded with Emmy nominations for three of its four seasons, and a shiny Golden Globe. But let’s not raise the flag for feminism: As good as Dickinson was in it, the show was a hit because of her then-incredible hotness. After all, it was spun off […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Catechism Cataclysm
In the misbegotten words of Texas businessman Clayton Williams, just relax and enjoy it. The goofy, socially awkward Father Billy Smoortser (Steve Little, TV’s “Eastbound & Down“) is in a rut, so he’s forced by his church to take his annual vacation a little early. He reveals his big plans to his too-patient superior: He’ll […]
Posted inArts & Culture
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation — Grave Danger
He’s played an Elvis impersonator on an episode of “The Golden Girls,” parodied himself on Margaret Cho’s “All-American Girl” sitcom, and served as a guest judge on that taste vacuum known as “American Idol.” Under the column marked “mitigating factors,” however, was choosing to direct a Very Special Episode of “CSI” in 2005, when the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Dead
Your expectations for greatness, however, should be tempered. Despite a few surface tweaks, “The Dead” is just zom-business as usual. Shot and set in the West African desert, the film’s hero is U.S. Air Force Lt. Murphy (Rob Freeman, “Saving Private Ryan”), the lone survivor of a plane crash now stranded in a wasteland that’s […]