Film

Listen, Or You’ll Miss It

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Funny story. The theater where I saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy saw fit to place the film on the screen next door to a big action movie (I assume the new Sherlock Holmes). This had no real bearing on my enjoyment of the Gary Oldman-led Cold…

Who’s That Girl?

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo It feels like a cold, hard winter without the kids from Hogwarts to bring children of all ages out to the cinemas, and the first installment of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit is still over a year away. For those in need of a literary…

Feeling the Love

The Muppets Walt Disney Pictures They certainly don’t make them like they used to. The Muppet Show ran five seasons between 1976 and 1981 and brought a rare kind of experience into American homes. Not since The Flinstones beforehand (or The Simpsons to follow) did a program have the ability…

Behind the Curtain

J. Edgar Warner Brothers J. Edgar Hoover is a titan of America’s recent past. For decades, under eight presidents, he was head of the FBI and stood watch over the country through some of its most trying times. For that alone, Hoover’s story is perfect fodder for the big screen,…

Mystery Science Theatre 3000’s Cinematic Titanic comes to Davis on Nov. 4, 2011

On Friday, Nov. 4, Mondavi Center in Davis will host Mystery Science Theatre 3000 live on stage. Cinematic Titanic is a movie-riffing show that features the original creators of the Peabody Award-winning cult-classic series MST3K, continuing the tradition of riffing “the unfathomable,” “the horribly great” and the just plain “cheesy”…

Infinite Improbability

Moneyball Columbia Pictures In the 1996 film The Fan, Gil Renard (played by Robert De Niro) tells his son, “Baseball is better than real life–it’s fair.” Of course, Renard turns out to have a few screws loose, but this is a lovely statement about the great American Pastime. Sadly, anyone…

It’s a bomb, bro

30 Minutes or Less Red Hour/Columbia Pictures Real friends will do anything for you. They’ll always have your back, be your shoulder to cry on or kick you in the ass if you need it and buy you a beer afterward. They may even help you rob a bank if…

Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens Universal Pictures There is some truth in advertising. Cowboys and Aliens offers exactly what its title suggests. There are plenty of cowboys and aliens (more of the former than the latter–cowboy hats are cheaper than elaborate CGI sequences). Even cowboys’ more traditional foils, the Indians, are thrown…

The Corporate Ladder

Horrible Bosses Amid the giant robots, British wizards and buff super heroes, this past weekend Warner Bros. injected some much-needed laughs into what has been a pretty ho-hum summer movie season so far (with the exception of Cars 2). Horrible Bosses may not carry with it gargantuan effects or titanic…