Based on the novel by early 19th-century journalist Thomas De Quincy (whom Price plays), the film from notorious schlock director Albert Zugsmith (Sex Kittens Go to College) is, to put it bluntly, nonsense. Should you choose to embrace that nonsense, you’ll be greeted with lots of falling bodies (including a bird), Asian women as slaves, […]
trailer
Posted inArts & Culture
Chernobyl Diaries
From the mind of Paranormal Activity maestro Oren Peli and first-time director Bradley Parker, the film follows six 20-somethings (including former boy bander Jesse McCartney) taking an “extreme tour” of the town of Pripyat, abandoned since the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster of 1986. They’re not supposed to be there, but it wouldn’t be extreme if […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Girl
Premiering Saturday, The Girl is the first of two high-profile biopics of the master filmmaker to hit screens this season. The other, simply titled Hitchcock, is a larger-budget feature with a whiff of Oscar bait, yet there’s room enough for both. While that forthcoming film focuses on the making of 1960’s Psycho, The Girl concerns […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Tortured
That said, I’m a big boy. I can take it. That’s my way of saying I kind of dug the evil game it plays, mammoth faults and all, because how often does that happen? Having a child kidnapped is something I hope never to experience, yet that’s the premise behind this nasty little thriller, which […]
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Argo
There’s no way the movie industry could have resisted this stranger-than-fiction yarn. The film chronicles how CIA operative Tony Mendez (Affleck) saved the six by establishing a phony cover story that they were a Canadian movie crew scouting locations in Tehran for a science-fiction cheapie titled Argo. Details of that real-life mission would not be […]
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Beyond the Black Rainbow
Ostensibly, the film’s plot — wait, perhaps I should put that word in quotation marks, and then quotation marks around that set of quotation marks just to be safe. Yeah, I’ll do that. Let’s start over. Ostensibly, the film’s ““plot”” centers on Elena (Eva Allan, TV’s Caprica), a young woman trying to escape the labyrinthian […]
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Sinister
Had I been watching it at home, alone, on a dark and stormy night, my neck likely would be sore by the end of it, from making repeated glances behind the couch — you know, just to be safe. It’s this year’s Insidious: well-built, respectful of audience members’ intelligence and yet genuinely freaky. Ethan Hawke […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Hot wheels
Patty Wagon cook Andrew Jacobsen, owner Bryce Musick and Melissa Jacobsen Photo: Mark Hancock A permanent restaurant was always the end goal for Bryce Musick and his family, owners of Patty Wagon. “When we opened our food trailer in July of 2011, it was the first of many consecutive 100-degree days,” he said. “On a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Knight watch
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US” lang=”EN-US”> Jack Walker is one of the lucky ones: Officially, he’s Batman. Living a dream of arguably millions, the British-born actor dons cape and cowl — not at a theater near you, not on any Bat-channel, but in the flesh, before your eyes, in cities worldwide, in the Batman Live arena tour. […]
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Rock of Ages
Taking place in the hair-metal heyday of 1987, Rock of Ages jumps from Broadway to the big screen, and lands on its face with a thud. If it’s not the year’s most misbegotten big-studio project, I don’t wish to be exposed to what is. Talking and singing in a baby voice akin to nails on […]