Josh Tate

Anyone interested in movies is familiar with Ain't It Cool News and anyone familiar with Ain't It Cool is familiar with the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow. The Roadshow was originally scheduled to make a stop in South Central to screen Friday next Friday, but lily-livered politicians decided to pull the permit at the last minute. Fortunately, the Roadshow decided they had to make a stop in L.A. so they've now scheduled a 10th anniversary...

If a film has an intriguing premise and solid acting, I'm willing to forgive the occasional odd directorial choice or weak script moment. This is especially true with low-budget films and specifically the case with Into the Arms of Strangers. As the film opens we meet Andy (Ron Carey) and his wife Erin (April Wade). They appear to be a loving couple but cracks soon begin to show. Andy has been suffering from amnesia...

There is an unrelenting bleakness that inhabits every frame of Asger Leth's Ghosts of Cite Soleil. As he notes in the film's press materials, "Haiti has the third-highest rate of hunger in the world, behind only Somalia and Afghanistan. Its people have less access to clean water and sanitation than residents of Ethopia or Sierra Leone...life expectancy is lower in Haiti than in Sudan. By every measure, Haiti's 8 million inhabitants are living in...

Sometimes I prefer to watch the film that completely and utterly fails than the one that half-succeeds. With the true catastrophe you can always laugh at the unintentional humor, take a trip to the bathroom without the least bit of hurry in your step, even check baseball scores on your cell phone and share the results with inquisitive aisle-mates. The almost-there movie, on the other hand, maddeningly demands your constant attention. You keep thinking...

While rightly lauded for originating The Office, I think Extras is Ricky Gervais' true masterpiece. I mean, how can you possibly top Harry Potter flicking a rubber into Dame Diana Rigg's hair? I'll tell you how--have David Bowie improvise this song for Gervais' hapless Andy Millman. Unfortunately (really unfortunately), Gervais decided against another season of the show, but Season 2 is now available on DVD. Buy it. Watch it. Live it. What else is...

To those glorious fools who had hoped against hope that The Island might mark the beginning of the end for Michael Bay's filmmaking career, I am loathe to tell you that such wishes now appear to be in vain. Transformers left the North American box office in a twisted wreckage of smoking metal this week, taking in a (groan) record-setting 152.5 million dollars in its opening 7 days. With regard to Mr. Bay, it...

While most of the country was out watching Transformers over the holiday, we in Los Angeles were lucky enough to have the chance to see Rescue Dawn. Directed by the great, mad German Werner Herzog (and inspired by his own 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly), Rescue Dawn tells the story of Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale), an American fighter pilot who was shot down over Laos in 1966, captured and tortured by Pathet...

Ahead of the Wednesday holiday, the DVD pickings this week are awfully, awfully slim. When the first season of a Sci-Fi channel TV show is the bestselling new DVD on Amazon.com you know you're looking at a fairly dreary list of new titles. A few of them, though, do merit interest either because they're pretty good (Puccini for Beginners) or pretty awful (the Corey's Dream a Little Dream 2). If you're looking for some...

Pixar's Ratatouille was tops at the box office this weekend, raking in a healthy 47.2 million dollars. While that number was well below previous Pixar films like Cars (60 milllion) and The Incredibles (70 million), it was more than enough to take down Bruce Willis and Live Free or Die Hard which pulled in 33.1 million. Both movies enjoyed across-the-board good reviews and should show decent legs in the coming weeks. Last week's clunker...

The L.A. Film Festival wraps up today with a gala screening of Danny Boyle's Sunshine at 7:00 p.m. at the Wadsworth Theatre. One hundred dollars will buy you a ticket to the screening and admission to the party afterwards (or you can wait until July 20th and see it when it opens wide). The rest of the day is filled with screenings (no more free music or panels--boo!) There is a free screening, though,...