You are browsing the Movies category
June 30, 2007
The weekend is here so lots of free stuff is on tap for the L.A. Film Festival. The Festival Promenade on Broxton will be taken over by Family Day activities. There'll be screenings, games, giveaways, pony rides, a petting zoo, magician Ryan Majestic and characters from Playhouse Disney to... [continue]
| June 29, 2007
Last night I attended a screening of the 2006 Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award winning documentary God Grew Tired of Us, directed by Christopher Quinn. Fine, maybe I went because Brad Pitt was listed as one of the producers and I thought he and Angie might show,... [continue]
A CG rat, a couple documentaries, John McClane and a Swiss genius...should make for an interesting weekend in the theaters. Be sure to also check LAist's LA Film Festival coverage for some other gems playing around town this weekend. Ratatouille - As far as I'm concerned, Pixar has yet... [continue]
The L.A. Film Festival lumbers towards its final weekend today and The Director Lunch Talk series has its best interview yet. John Horn talks to Danny Boyle (Sunshine, Trainspotting) at 12:30 p.m. at the Target Red Room. Another free talk is on tap at 7:00 p.m. at the Hammer... [continue]
June 28, 2007
Once again Michael Moore is getting the last laugh. Claim that his films aren't documentaries, allege that his facts are wrong, complain that he's fat, etc., bro is getting a better deal on his latest work, SiCKO, than any other star in Hollywood - 50% of the gross. After... [continue]
Advertisement: LAist Continues Below!
June 28, 2007
There are some films, particularly foreign films--no, particularly foreign foreign films--where you have to throw your critic's hat out the window and just try to keep up. That's how I felt watching Half Moon. I'm fairly certain that there were many Iranian jokes and Persian allusions that I just... [continue]
Though Westwood is now a smoking ruin, I am happy to announce that Optimus Prime and his heroic Autobots have defeated Megatron and his dastardly Decepticons. For those of you now whining "spoiler!"--come on. Does anyone really not know how Transformers is going to end? Don't worry. They left... [continue]
Fact: John McClaine would beat the piss out of Jack Bauer. I know what you're gonna' say: "But c'mon Henry, Jack withstood Chinese torture. They've got that water on the forehead trick and shit" Oooh, Big deal. I bet Jack wouldn't trade 15 nights of Chinese torture for a... [continue]
June 27, 2007
Thousands of innocent Angelenos are expected to perish today when a highly advanced robot civilization descends on Westwood. However, the carnage is not expected to ensue until 8:15 p.m. so you'll have most of the day to get your affairs in order. That's right, the LA Film Festival is... [continue]
June 26, 2007
Last night’s afterparty at Element for What We do is Secret was like a study in culture conflict. What We do is Secret is a movie about a punk rock band called the Germs. Punk rock was not just a form of music. It was a form of rebellion.... [continue]
Today the festival begins with another Director Lunch Talk at 12:30 p.m. at the Target Red Room. Los Angeles Times writer John Horn talks with Scott Prendergast, director of Kabluey (screening at this year's LAFF). At 7:00 p.m., Who Let the Blogs Out?, a panel discussion of L.A. film... [continue]
What if someone made a movie about your high school? Maybe it was a movie about the class that graduated the year before you started school. But even if you didn’t know some of the characters, you are only one degree of separation away. What We Do is Secret,... [continue]
June 25, 2007
A good documentary tells a compelling story that may have otherwise remained unknown. The best ones do so through people you can't believe actually exist. Such is the case with The Town That Was. Using a blend of archival footage and recent interviews, directors Chris Perkel and Georgie Roland... [continue]
After traveling for an hour to sit in a crowded room of angry and crying people, I had a big fight with my partner right on the middle of the street. We were not assaulting each other for any of those men are from this planet, women are from... [continue]
The Los Angeles Times interviewed director Werner Herzog this weekend about his upcoming film, Rescue Dawn, and asked the German-born iconoclast why he has chosen to make Los Angeles his home: "We lived for a while in San Francisco, but it was too chic and leisurely," Herzog explains. "New... [continue]
Advertisement: LAist Continues Below!
June 25, 2007
Now that the frenzied first weekend is over, it should be much easier going at the L.A. Film Festival in terms of actually getting to see a movie. Virtually every film playing today shows either standby availability or tickets available at the door. Free events, unfortunately, are in short... [continue]
In an effort to create even more buzz for Michael Moore's latest film, SiCKO, the trailer will be projected tonight starting at sundown with full sound and subtitles on the outside of buildings near the headquarters of leading HMOs, insurance companies and hospitals in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco,... [continue]
June 24, 2007
A few weeks ago in this space, I predicted that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer would be the big-budget flop of the summer. Turns out I missed it by one week. Evan Almighty tallied a meager 32.1 million dollars at the box office over the weekend--well below... [continue]
The festival kicks off this morning with a director's coffee talk at the Landmark. Scheduled panelists include moderator James Mangold, Paul Haggis and the next Bond director Marc Forster. Tickets are $11. The big event today (and it's free!) starts at noon and runs until 6:00 p.m. at the... [continue]
June 23, 2007
Don't get me wrong, I love Beirut, but last Thursday I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend at Harmonia Mundi to the pre-screening of GYPSY CARAVAN...When The Road Bends. Written and directed by Jasmine Dellal of Little Dust Productions, the film is a documentary about five... [continue]
Horror movies seem to come and go in cycles. Just as the wave of Japanese re-makes tapered off, so-called “torture” porn began its ascent. Given that, it’s refreshing to watch a horror film like The Wizard of Gore that doesn’t fit neatly into any category. It certainly has its... [continue]
It's Saturday so expect lots of LA Film Festival action in Westwood. At 9:30 a.m. you can attend a free Hi Def Video Expo at Bel Air Camera. Other free events are the Made in L.A. screening at noon at the Mann Festival Theater, The Game of SKATE Tournament... [continue]
June 22, 2007
A man sitting to my left exited the theater at about the one hour mark, never to return. Were I not obligated to give the film a fair and complete review, I might have joined him. Rare is the movie that prompts that reaction in me (think Johnny Be... [continue]
Get this, there's another sequel coming out today. You're surprised, I know, I was too. Alas, in a summer of recycled story lines, the comedy genre takes center stage today with "Evan Almighty. With "The Office" on hiatus, I'm itching for some Steve Carell. He arrives, riding an ark,... [continue]
It's the first real day of the LA Film Festival so naturally a lot of films have sold out. But take heart--there are plenty of things to see. As of this morning, stand-by tickets are still available for Interview. Directed by Steve Buscemi and starring Buscemi and Sienna Miller,... [continue]
Advertisement: LAist Continues Below!
June 21, 2007
From time to time, LAist will take a look at the many book-to-film projects underway in Hollywood. We'll explore the books we love and why we're over-the-moon excited or just plain worried about the film projects that bear their name. When it was announced a few weeks ago that Steven... [continue]
Crispin Glover's 2006 directorial debut, "What is It?" is being trotted out once again this year, along with the Crispin Glover Show, complete with exclusive interviews and curious media hype. Today I deliver to you a slightly more critical perspective than the review that accompanied last year's LAist interview. I... [continue]
The LA Film Festival returns to Westwood tonight with the world premiere of Kasi Lemmons’ Talk to Me (not Talk To Me) at the Mann Village Theater. The film stars Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor and tells the story of Ralph Green, an ex-drug addict and convicted felon who... [continue]
June 20, 2007
There is just something about seeing old black and white films on the big screen that gets our motor ticking. Put them in old theaters and you have a winning combination. This year's series of the LA Conservancy's, Last Remaining Seats, has been a hit and selling out. There... [continue]
June 19, 2007
Hollywood, to corrupt Rabelais, abhors an iconoclast. This simple fact makes the long career of Crispin Glover all the more remarkable. Amazingly, it’s been almost twenty years since Glover’s infamous Rubin and Ed appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. Despite that apparent fiasco, Glover has continued to work... [continue]
June 17, 2007
Saturday night the Long Beach Art Theater was host to the premiere of the documentary, "One More for All my True Friends", the story of Orange County punk band Channel 3. The film was produced by Erik Carreon of Homeschool Productions. Channel 3 opened the bill at the very... [continue]
June 15, 2007
"I'm not trying, nor would I want to, to bring down the entire Hollywood filmmaking system or all of capitalism. And if I did, I'd probably get assassinated long before then," says Matt Hanson with a laugh, as he shows me around the gallery space for The Creators Series, a... [continue]
June 14, 2007
If ever there were a date to debut an expensive almost-sure-to-be-crap comic book sequel film, it would be June 15th. It's the summer, so kids are out of school and looking for a movie to waste their allowances on. It's PG enough that parents can take their youngest. And... [continue]
Aging but still prolific filmmaker Fred Wiseman, who is as well known for his unflinching, verité documentaries as he is for his unwillingness to release them on home video, will finally make his films available on DVD. Buried in the second-to-last paragraph of a ho-hum article about Wiseman's latest... [continue]
June 11, 2007
Singer/dancer/menswear icon Andre 3000 of Outkast will play singer/dancer/comedian Sammy Davis Jr. in a new biopic about the entertainer's romance with screen siren Kim Novak. Back in the mid-50s when quaint terms like "anti-miscegenation" were used to sugarcoat racist laws, Davis was an up-and-coming singer with a couple of... [continue]
Advertisement: LAist Continues Below!
June 9, 2007
- 2 local acts to check out today: Sexy, electro-pop superstars (who recently got played on Pete Tong's BBC 1 Radio show) Taxi Doll at LA pride, and red headed, 22 year old, piano songstress A Fine Frenzy (who will be touring this summer with Rufus Wainwright) at the... [continue]
June 8, 2007
Believe it or not, Ocean's Thirteen actually out-Grindhouses Grindhouse. Not in violence or cursing or explosives per se, (it does have a PG-13 rating), but in hearkening back to the good ol' days when movies were fun, dagnabit, Clooney and co. have Tarantino beat. Of course, that's not necessarily a... [continue]
Ocean’s Thirteen continues the series’ cynical tradition of putting famous actors in sleek, stylish clothes and having them act cool. That’s really all there is to say. If you’ve seen either Ocean’s Eleven or Twelve, then you’ve basically already seen Ocean’s Thirteen, too. It’s almost tragic that a filmmaker... [continue]
June 7, 2007
Could it be? Did someone finally out ArcLight the ArcLight? If one of The Standard hotels built a theater, it would look like the new Landmark. The most accurate way of describing it is “boutique”. The Landmark is all about the visual angles; sloping fixtures light the theaters and... [continue]
After a week without a sequel, we're back at it with the lovable scoundrels of "Ocean's 13". Sure, watching the same group of guys we've seen plunder Vegas and steal a Faberge egg plan another elaborate heist is rehashing already trodden ground, but I'll be damned if it isn't... [continue]
June 3, 2007
7:13 - Saddest Realization of the Night: Although this was theoretically an awards show, it was in actuality a two-hour commercial for Transformers. I don't know how much of what happens on stage makes it to air, but the live feed in the Blogghetto was all Transformers, all the... [continue]
6:36 - Total Number of Celebs Who Have Visited the Blogghetto: 1. 6:34 - Dane Cook visits us in the Blogghetto. Despite my lack of interest in his comedy, he seems like a laid back, personable dude. Even though I like capping on him, I really don't dislike him.... [continue]
6:22 - It's your last chance to text in your vote for Best Movie. I know it hasn't even opened yet, but I bet that somehow Transformers will win. 6:21 - Mike Myers gets a well-deserved laugh after he thanks his parents for teaching him to "never sell out"... [continue]
6:00 - The FIB-u-less Orbit gum lady (What kind of accent is that? Is she South African? British by way of Argentina?) gives the Dirtiest Mouth award to Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes. Their acceptance speech, which is delivered by not-so-silent Bob, is only one sentence long but somehow... [continue]
5:46 - Total number of celebs who have visited the Blogghetto: 0. 5:44 - It's time for the next movie spoof, something about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 5:41 - Sacha Baron Cohen (looking handsome as ever) berates Will Ferrelll for not calling him after their tender on-set moment in... [continue]
Advertisement: LAist Continues Below!
June 3, 2007
5:30 - I can hear the press people and the MTV handlers trying to corral Jack Nicholson in the next tent over, which apparently isn't easy to do. We here in the Blogghetto have been promised by MTV that they will try to get as many celebs as possible... [continue]
5:09 - Cue Vegas-style dancers and an old people's choir singing songs that are deliberately bleeped out. 5:06 - Sarah on Paris Hilton: "To make Paris Hilton more comfortable in jail, I hear they're going to make the bars of her cell out of penises." Big laughs. "I just... [continue]
MTV, the network whose prescient forays into reality programming placed it in the vanguard of youth-oriented television, has decided that since this little ole thing called the Internet is catching on big with the kids, the way to capitalize on the immediacy of Web 2.0 is to brodacast the annual... [continue]
June 1, 2007
At long last, little Judd Apatow is becoming a man. It all seems like it went by so fast- first his middle/high school days (Freaks and Geeks), then college (Undeclared), and who could forget when he lost his virginity? Well, the boy is finally settling down, via the new... [continue]
From old-timey comedians like Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Oliver Hardy (Stan Laurel's rotund partner) to character actors like Sydney Greenstreet and Victor Buono to wild men like John Candy and Chris Farley, Hollywood has always had a special place for fat men, especially the funny ones. But in a... [continue]