Porky’s: The Ultimate Collection (Fox) When writer-director Bob Clark was killed by a drunk driver in April, the obits trumpeted his holiday classic A Christmas Story . . . but were somewhat reluctant to mention that, oh, yeah, he also wrote and directed Porky’s. But there’s no question which is…
Afro Samurai (Funimation) Airwolf: Season Three (Universal) Alone With Her (IFC) Breaking Point (Fox) The Complete Matrix Trilogy (Warner Bros.) Epic Movie (Fox) Escape to Canada (Disinformation) Fay Grim (Magnolia) The 40-Year-Old Virgin: Unrated 2-Disc Double Your Pleasure Edition (Universal) The Good German (Warner Bros.) The John Wayne Collection (Paramount)…
The Life: Cy Coleman and Ira Gasman wrote the music and lyrics for this seldom-seen Tony Award winner, with a book by Coleman, Gasman, and playwright David Newman, and we have Black Theater Troupes David Hemphill to thank for bringing it to town. This Drama Desk favorite tells the story…
Some perks of performing live when you’re, say, Wayne Newton, include the ladies, lingerie, and a whole lotta panties tossed onstage. If you’re a knob-twiddling techno Moog master laying low behind the Technics, you’d probably settle for a DVD or maybe some new shareware for your Linux-based laptop-music-making self. Duck,…
Maybe I’m a judgmental jerk, but when I think “car show,” I picture a trashy model in a hot pink thong bikini, draped over a gleaming hood and circled by ogling men who don’t stand a chance in hell of taking either commodity home. That’s what I used to think,…
Brandon Maldonado at Perihelion Arts: Maldonado’s paintings have a quirky and innocent appeal at first glance, but a closer look reveals surrealistic and complicated storytelling and a bubbly, and somewhat raunchy, illustrative style. He really shows his skill with a large oil painting called I Swallowed a Quarter. Maldonado’s dark…
After Shrek the Third, I asked the two smart preteen girls I had in tow what they liked about the movie. Projectile vomiting and multiple farts, they said promptly, best Shrek ever. Ordinarily, I’m not big on puke and flatulence, but, in this instance, I sympathized — there’s not much…
Jafar Panahi is a paradoxical populist. He makes crowd-pleasing art movies, often set in the midst of life — the urban crowd is one of his subjects — and is a virtuoso director of (non) actors. On the other hand, this most widely seen of Iranian filmmakers is also the…
The would-be cineastes recently seen fleeing the Museum of Modern Art’s screening of The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema in New York can’t say they weren’t warned. What exactly were these fussy museum-goers expecting from Slovenian philosopher and theorist Slavoj Zizek’s three-part shuffle through the hallowed halls of cinema? An Ebert…
If you’re looking for a laugh, find a kid raised on Grand Theft Auto and introduce him to Pac-Man. As he stares at you blankly, explain the addictive joy of eating dots and the simplistic genius of the neon-blue maze. When he sneers, “That’s it? It’s the same level over…
Pan’s Labyrinth (New Line) Guillermo Del Toro has made a career of mixing slam-bang special effects (Hellboy, Blade II) with creepy atmospheres (Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone). But with Pan’s Labyrinth, he’s used his entire palette for what will likely be remembered as his masterpiece. Mixing Franco’s Spain with fairy tales,…
Army of Shadows: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Arthur & the Invisibles (Genius) Bill/Bill on His Own (Brentwood) Bunny Whipped (Think) Caddyshack: 20th Anniversary (Warner Bros.) Chasing Liberty (Warner Bros.) Curse of the Zodiac (Lionsgate) The Dead Girl (First Look) Denzel Washington: Spotlight Collection (Universal) ER: The Complete Seventh Season (Warner…
A deserted back street. Some chick drops a scarf to start the deadly joust. Everybody scatters as the cops close in . . . Wait, those are the cops. Yes, it’s a mad world, especially at Firebird International Raceway, where Phoenix Five-O’s modified cruiser sometimes bests the best of the…
Four years after “Mission Accomplished,” 28 Weeks Later reminds us that the mission, whatever the hell it was to begin with, is now officially, apocalyptically fucked. The story thus far: Seven months have gone by since the Rage virus passed from chimp fang to British bloodstream in an animal-rights intervention…
Three noisy women and a worn-out premise rattle around trying to make contact in Georgia Rule, an incoherent dramedy of rampant parental insufficiency from director Garry Marshall. Marshall’s broad comedy has always made him a soft target for critics, but along with his duds (Beaches, Runaway Bride, and Raising Helen),…
“When women tell their truth,” says Jane Fonda, “everything changes.” She is sitting on a sofa in a room on the 15th floor of the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. She is noticeably tired, having arrived from Atlanta after midnight without any clothes or shoes but the ones she’s wearing,…
In the superbly tacit chamber piece Away From Her, intolerable pressure is brought to bear on the 44-year marriage between a college professor and his homemaker spouse after she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Grant Andersson (played by veteran Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent) and his wife Fiona (an artfully wrinkled…
There’s a photograph of Sarah Polley from the Disney movie One Magic Christmas. The still is enormously endearing, less because the Canadian 4-year-old looks adorable in blond bangs and a woolly cap than because her lower lip is stuck out in an attitude of mutinous pugnacity that foretells not only…
Last weekend will remain in my memory as one of those rare weekends when each of the plays I attended was what people here rather regrettably refer to as “Broadway caliber.” On Friday, I saw an Actors Theatre production of The Pillowman so magnificently acted and so deeply disturbing that…
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Phew. It looked for a second there as if theater audiences were actually going to make it through an entire season without one troupe or another dusting off this mammoth musical warhorse. But, thanks to the efforts of Arizona Broadway…
There was a time in my life when I might have actually enjoyed Pocket Pool a little bit. Back when I was 12, giving myself migraines from staring at scrambled cable porn, the notion of a game where I could “win” pictures of girls in their underwear would’ve seemed pretty…
To Catch a Thief: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Starring Cary Grant as a cat burglar and Grace Kelly as a hot-to-trot heiress, this is easily one of Alfred Hitchcock’s slightest films, especially coming on the heels of Rear Window; indeed, its idyllic setting on the French Riviera suggests it was…
