Likely, that film opens with an unspeakable act that calls for retribution, and ends with said retribution being achieved. And in the middle are cat-and-mouse games and close calls and rounds of table-turning to keep conflict chugging. Cherry Tree Lane, however, removes that midsection, condensing the story to assumedly real time. In between its bookends, […]
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The Thompsons
Personally, I went in to The Thompsons relatively cold, having heard of its big brother, but never having caught up with it. In doing so, I felt like I had jumped onto a sitcom in its second or third week: I could immediately get into its groove without knowing the backgrounds of the players. All […]
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Searching for Sugar Man
Take, for example, Searching for Sugar Man. Currently up for the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award and new to DVD, the doc introduces us to the saga of the one-named Rodriguez, a criminally unknown singer-songwriter from the early 1970s whose career sank into obscurity in his native United States, but whose influence proved monumental in, […]
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Wake in Fright
Gary Bond (Zulu) works wonders as John Grant, the only teacher in the Australian desert town of Tiboonda, where the tiny, single-room schoolhouse is surrounded by sand and dust. On Christmas break, Grant heads for Sydney, but must spend a night in Bundanyabba before catching a flight the next morning. At least that’s the plan. […]
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The Fabulous St. Knicholas Cage — Shit Surf
The four-piece might become a National Treasure if it keeps producing music as good as it does on Shit Surf; this five-track effort is pretty Kick-Ass, not once rolling Snake Eyes. Shit Surf departs off like a maddened criminal flying Con Air with “Duane & The Eddies” boasting a guitar lick that will melt your […]
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Ex marks the hot
Photo: Renate Winter Conventional isn’t really Ex-Cult’s thing. The Memphis punk outfit, which is set to perform Monday at The Conservatory, inked a deal with a hometown label within a remarkably short time frame and played its first show mere months after formation. In the time since, an unwavering deluge of momentum has hurled these […]
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They’re gonna rock you, sucka
Peter Anthony Seay II, front man for Oklahoma City garage rockers Junebug Spade, has a million cool points for you if you catch the movie their name references. Take a minute to think about it, if you need to … Time’s up. “It’s from I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” Seay said. “We were debating a […]
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Tai Chi Zero
In an acting debut that deliberately doesn’t require him to act much, wushu champ Yuan Xiaochao plays Lu Chan, nicknamed “The Freak” from birth because a horn-like protrusion on the side of his forehead. When pushed, his eyes go milky and, for a brief time, he hulks out with brute force until blood spurts out […]
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The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
The film fills in the details of Holmes’ three-year spell of assumed death — “Only the facts have been made up,” teases a title card — by pairing the great detective with the great psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. Arguably more notable is that Solution is the first dilated-pupils depiction of Holmes, the only to tackle head-on […]
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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 […]