In the roughly 112 years that Hollywood has been churning out feature-length films, radio disc jockeys have made for some interesting, if not iconic, cinematic characters. Record spinners really started appearing onscreen in the 1970s—back when DJs were still able to pick their own music—and here are some of the best. Stevie Wayne, The Fog […]
Robin Williams
Robin Williams Could Always Find the Raw Seriousness in His Comedy
Even those of us who loved Robin Williams as a performer would have to say that sometimes he was too much—too wired, too pleading, too on. There were times when I'd see him nattering away on a late-night talk show, or suffer through a performance such as the one he gave as a wacky, healin'-'em-with-laughs […]
La Cage Aux Folles
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Suggestivism
In art, there’s a time to be bold—like, say, immersing a crucifix in a jar of your own urine—and a time to be subtle. The latter is the focus of “Suggestivism,” the latest exhibit at the Grand Central Art Center. Everything in this show is a bit elliptical, surreal and generally nonliteral, such as Ornamented […]
Suggestivism Opening Reception
In art, there’s a time to be bold—like, say, immersing a crucifix in a jar of your own urine—and a time to be subtle. The latter is the focus of “Suggestivism,” the latest exhibit at the Grand Central Art Center. Everything in this show is a bit elliptical, surreal and generally nonliteral, such as Ornamented […]
Dead Poets Society
How does a boarding school poetry teacher get a bunch of pubescent, tight-ass yuppies to give a damn about Walt Whitman? If you’ve ever seen the 1989 film Dead Poets Society, you know that first you have to rip up their text books. Then, try holding your lectures anywhere but the class room. A dark […]
New Reviews
TRANSFORMERS See “Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em.” (Countywide) ALSO SHOWING: LICENSE TO WED A blitzed-looking man stumbling out of a screening of this dreadful excuse for unromantic comedy volunteered that the best part of the movie was when Robin Williams got socked in the jaw. Couldn't agree more, but if you like your Williams spewing rat-a-tat […]
Again With the Serious Face
As Charlie Fineman, a New York dentist who lost his wife and three young daughters in one of the September 11 plane crashes, Adam Sandler sports a mass of bedraggled locks and walks with his head hung low, the sounds of the city drowned out by The Who or Bruce Springsteen blaring from his ever-present […]
Voter Fraud
Barry Levinson hasn't made a movie of note in almost a decade—since 1997's Wag the Dog, to be precise, and even that was less a work of substantial relevance than a bit of lucky timing based on someone else's better novel. Granted, it had its moments—at last, it seemed, Levinson had found his range as […]
Pause N Effect
Click may be the first Adam Sandler movie in which the high concept isn't dependent upon the star. Sandler comedies tend to take his standard character of the petulant man-child with anger-management issues, and place him in different wacky situations: elementary school (Billy Madison), the golf course (Happy Gilmore), the '80s (The Wedding Singer), and hell […]
Special Screenings
Aladdin. This Disney animated musical comedy certainly was a charmer when it was originally released, although sadly it aged faster than an open carton of milk. We all seemed to completely max out on Robin Williams around 1998 or so, and this movie doesn't exactly make us miss the furry funnyman. If you take your […]
New Reviews
we recommend AKEELAH AND THE BEE See Film feature. (Countywide) UNITED 93 See Film feature. (Countywide) also opening HARD CANDY See Film feature. (Countywide) LOOK BOTH WAYS An unassuming, unadventurous, but likable dramedy about dying and grief, Sarah Watt's debut feature has been something of an audience-pleasing award repository, in Australia and abroad. It's not […]
Pop Your Go Pills, Then Read
REGISTER GOES GAY! This pub loves, loves, loves to kick Irvine-based Freedom Communications and its flagship daily newspaper The Orange County Register of Santa Ana around the block for assorted foolishness. We really do. It's kinda sick, really. But since we so zealously tee off on, oh, metro columnist Gordon Dillow's loony rants, opinioneer Steven […]
Eyes Wide Open
While Japan is renowned for taking other countries' products and making them smaller and cheaper, America—especially Hollywood—is famous for just the opposite. Our movie studios routinely snap up the rights to elegant little foreign films, then stuff the remakes so full of money that they lumber across the screen like gazelles force-fed to the size […]
Rhino, Interrupted
Patient: Death to Smoochy Profile: Very funny film about the sleazy world of children's TV in which hero Smoochy, a fuchsia rhinoceros, is set upon by everyone from drug-addled children's performers to Nazis to, yes, Harvey Fierstein. Funny, but the pacing in the second half gets so pumped-up, with one misadventure following another in such […]
The Longest Story Ever Told
Patient: The Majestic Profile:Interminable film about guy mistaken for war hero though he can't remember who he is, which is fortunate for him since he's starring in what my colleague Manohla Dargis says “may just be the most boring movie ever made.” Think Sullivan's Travels meets The Longest Day meets The Frank Capra Catalog meets […]
Two Anal Probes!
Profile: Stop me if you've heard this one—burnt-out college profs chase otherworldly beings in an action-comedy that is curiously lacking in action and is not the least bit funny. Think Ghostbusters grinding its gears meets Men in Black meets Ghostbusters doing 25 mph in a 65 mph zone meets Tremors meets Ghostbusters dropping its tranny. […]
