dvd of the week Despite writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s Herculean efforts at creating country noir and Ryan Gosling’s smolder, the film doesn’t quite work. The main reason is the film’s conceit, that the plot, focusing on three men in upstate New York over a generation, would be completely linear. In the first act, a daredevil motorcyclist…
As I sat down to write my review of Fruitvale Station, hundreds of people were marching past my building, drumming, cheering and chanting, among other things, “Justice for Trayvon.” They could have just as easily been chanting, “Justice for Oscar.” Fruitvale Station is the story of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old black man from Hayward who…
For the last few weeks, I have been passing movie theaters advertising Before Midnight, the third in the series of talky romances starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. I’ve heard that it’s fantastic, the best of the three; and the other two are considered minor classics. But I didn’t go. I am so sick of…
dvd of the week When I saw Harmony Korine’s exploitation art movie Spring Breakers, I knew what I was getting into: I was hoping to be horrified by the wrongness of the movie, but the kids in theater where I saw it were surprised by how horrifying, pornographic, disturbing and weirdly funny the movie is….
dvr this: HBO Sunday, June 16, 10 p.m. Last week, I told you to DVR the previous season, but now the new season has arrived. Rumor has it that it gets even bloodier, and even crazier than before, which is saying something. After co-existing with humans for several years, the vampires are being hunted by…
dvd of the week If you don’t have Netflix, you probably missed their 13-episode original series about the cruel world of Washington politics, which was also easily the best thing on TV this year. Starring Kevin Spacey in his greatest role – which is saying a lot – he is supported by Robin Wright, Kate…
dvr this I haven’t seen it yet, because it’s on my DVR, but there’s hasn’t been a TV movie I have been so excited about in eons. Steven Soderbergh’s film about Liberace and his last lover, the young, blond and clueless Scott Thorson, was too gay and too sexy to be a feature film, supposedly….
dvr this Netflix, Sunday, May 26 True, you can’t really DVR this, since Netflix is like a DVR in the sky. But the long awaited fourth season of Arrested Development arrives on Netflix Sunday with 15 new episodes available all at once. The style of this insanely wacky comedy about the dysfunctional Bluth family begat…
(CNN) — Franklin Graham, one of the country’s most prominent evangelicals, says the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service included two of his ministries. “I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us,” Graham wrote in a letter Tuesday…
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)…
