It’s been a long music career for Oklahoma City songstress Camille Harp — one that’s lasted as long as she’s been alive, really. “I was born into it. It was never having to decide if I was going to do this or do that,” said Harp, born to country-musician parents. “I’ve been asked when I […]
torrent
Posted inArts & Culture
Endeavour
Set in 1965, the Masterpiece Mystery telefilm finds young Detective Constable Endeavour Morse (Shaun Evans, Being Julia) at a career crossroads, thinking of quitting the force when a big case diverts his attention: the disappearance — and subsequent murder — of a poetry-loving student. Needless to say, it’s not the only corpse that will show […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cherry Bomb
The title refers to a stripper (Julin Jean, The Final) who is raped on the job by five guys in the “champagne room” at 3 a.m. Because one of them is a big construction honcho in the community and properly lawyered up, the cops do nothing. In revenge, her estranged brother (John Rodriguez) accidentally kills […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Of Dolls & Murder
What are nutshell studies? CSI viewers might recall season seven’s year-long arc of dollhouse miniatures of the crime scene left at each crime scene (“I think Malibu Barbie did it”). Those were based on the real-life models ranging from 1-inch- to 1-foot-scale, made with an über-meticulous attention to detail in the 1930s by the unheralded […]
Posted inMusic
Django, Kill! (If You Live Shoot!)
After helping steal a trunkful of Wells Fargo gold, half-breed Django (Tomas Milian, Traffic) and his fellow minorities are not only denied their share by Oaks (Piero Lulli, My Name Is Nobody) and his evil white bandits, but gunned down and dumped in a mass grave they were forced to dig. Being the hero of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Deep Blue Sea
Written and directed by Terence Davies — who performed such duties on 2000’s well-received The House of Mirth and 1992’s The Long Day Closes — the film announces its dreary, depressing nature right from the opening scene, in which Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz, Dream House, The Lovely Bones) decides she wants to die. So she […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Black Limousine
At an AA meeting, Jack meets Hollywood actress Erica Long (Bijou Phillips, Hostel: Part II), who’s just as messed-up as he is. When he later sees her while on his job, he attempts to strike up a relationship, despite her extreme reluctance. His ability to listen wins her over, so things begin to look up […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Zoom In: Sex Apartments
The 1980 Japanese film is part of Impulse Pictures’ “Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection,” which would equate to a hard-R rating here. While nudity is often, it’s all above-the-belt, frontally speaking, and this work in particular is like a Skinemax flick with an actual plot, and where sex is integral to the story. Well, sorta. That […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Too Big to Fail
For this streamlined adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s nonfiction best-seller of the same name, director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) centers the story around the one man who had possibly the worst great job at the time: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson (a very good William Hurt, The Incredible Hulk). In trying to prevent […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Extraterrestrial
The Spanish-language film is a boy-meets-girl story under the threat of an alien invasion. Julio (Julián Villagrán) and Julia (Michelle Jenner) awake in her apartment after a drunken one-night stand neither remembers. Of more concern is that the streets are empty and an alien ship hovers overhead menacingly. They’re pestered by a nosy neighbor (Carlos […]