Can we talk about Robert Downey Jr.’s beard for a minute? It’s not quite pencil thin, but it’s distressingly narrow; a strip that connects tweezed sideburns with a manicured mustache and a chin strap. It’s decidedly not fashionable; the look really hasn’t been hip since the late 1990s, which is when the third installment of…
dvd of the week David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas, considered one of the greatest literary achievements of the last two decades by many critics, was thought to be impossible to adapt for film. There are six narratives that take place in wildly different times and spaces and they’re connected in weird and wonderful ways. The…
SACRAMENTO – The Senate today passed legislation authored by Sen. Mark Leno that reforms California’s drug sentencing laws for simple possession. SB 649 allows counties to significantly reduce incarceration costs by giving prosecutors the flexibility to charge low-level, non-violent drug offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies. The bill also gives judges discretion to deem a non-violent…
It has been a while since I saw something on screen and said out loud, “Oh, my God.” But I did that while I watched Graceland, Ron Morales’s taught indie thriller about kidnapping, child prostitution and poverty in Manila. Early in the film, Marlon (Arnold Reyes), the driver for the rich and sleazy Congressman Manuel…
Billy Elliot the Musical opened on Broadway in November of 2008 and closed in January of 2012, but originally premiered in London in 2005 and is still running today. The musical, based on the 2000 film of the same name, shares many of the same creative team that made the 2000 film such a big…
Oblivion The screening at which I saw Oblivion was, as many advanced screenings are, hosted by a local radio station that had given away passes to contest winners. Usually, someone low on the totem pole at the station gives away T-shirts and tries to get the crowd excited that they got to see a movie…
dvd of the week When I read that Silver Linings Playbook was about two psychologically troubled people, I was initially concerned. So many film depictions of crazy are just crazy awful. I wasn’t encouraged when the first few scenes of the film took place in a mental hospital. But shortly after Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper)…
dvr this Turner Classic Movies, Sunday, April 21, 1 a.m. While the musical Hair is a beloved classic, there is an unspoken problem with the staged version. It doesn’t really have much of a plot. The movie, on the other hand, which was directed by the great Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,…
Before I delved into Tyler Perry’s hysterically moralistic potboiler Temptation, I need to tell you I am going to spoil the plot in this review, because in order for you to know just how awful the movie is, I need to let you know about its ending. You’ve been warned. Like most of Perry’s movies,…
dvr this Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, April 13, 12:45 p.m. Imagine it’s 1932, and you’re gay, or you are sexually attracted to men but don’t use the word “gay” to describe it. But you know. You hear there’s a movie starring an Olympic swimmer, in which he’s wearing only a loin cloth. So, you go…
