ALIEN TRESPASS (2009) A fun little comedy that’s also a gentle homage to classic low-budget sci-fi flicks of the 1950s. Eric McCormack plays both a pipe-smoking scientist and an alien who, after his flying saucer crashes on earth, attempts to recapture a one-eyed monster that escaped from it. It perfectly nails the cheesy look and [...]
Read MoreForever (2006) The best documentarians have one thing in common: a palpable curiosity about the world and the people who inhabit it. Heddy Honigmann, the German-Peruvian-Dutch filmmaker, has a particular talent for engaging with seemingly ordinary people in public places and teasing out their individual stories and charm. In Forever she visits the famous Père-Lachaise [...]
Read MoreMUTANT CHRONICLES (2008) Here we have an entertaining hybrid of sci-fi, action and rampaging humanoids that want to eat us. Thomas Jane (The Punisher) plays a tough-as-nails soldier sometime in the 28th century who leads a group of brave and capable souls, including Ron Perlman’s man of God, on a suicide mission deep into the [...]
Read MoreCHOP SHOP (2007) If you haven’t seen any of the three films Ramin Bahrani has made so far, this is a good one to start with. As real as a documentary but more intimate in many ways. Bahrani has an invisible visual flair and skill at creating genuine characters and very tangible geography for them [...]
Read MoreOdd Man Out (1947) Director: Carol Reed The troubles; the endless struggle for Irish independence, are the hook on which director Carol Reed (The Third Man) hangs this British film noir. James Mason stars as Johnny, an Irish revolutionary, who plots a payroll robbery to help finance the movement. When things go awry, Johnny finds [...]
Read MoreWho’s That Knocking At My Door (1967) Director: Martin Scorsese Its Scorsese’s debut picture, but don’t let that lead you to expect an amateur celluloid hack-job. Harvey Keitel stars in my personal Scorsese favorite. It’s the story of young lovers and regretful pasts. I’ll say no more. With a great soundtrack and stunning visual aesthetics, [...]
Read MoreME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW – (2005) Comedy/Drama – Rated R This is maybe the strangest sweetest movie I’ve ever seen that deals with usually taboo sexual practices and makes them into something lovely. The director Miranda July, who also stars, is a cross-medium artist by profession, so this little gem is a [...]
Read More comedy, drama, DVD, Me And You And Everyone We Know, R, willFORBIDDEN ZONE (1982) Before there was Oingo Boingo, There was The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo. The Mystic Knights were a performance art group that consisted of over a dozen people performing elaborate vaudeville style acts. In 1982, Richard Elfman decided it was time to make a film, and after working on the film [...]
Read More Danny Elfman, Forbidden Zone, Oingo Boingo, RIchard Elfman, Spook, staff pickChungking Express (1994) Director: Wong Kar-Wei Wong Kar-Wei’s films speak in a romantic language incomparable to any other. Chungking Express tells us two tales of desire. The first examines a heartbroken police officer consumed by loneliness. He battles rejection with the excessive indulgence of expired, canned pineapple. That is, until he meets a mysterious blonde [...]
Read MoreBEST IN SHOW (2000) Directed by Christopher Guest My girlfriends and I first saw this when it was in theaters nine years ago. We went into it not knowing anything about it, but we came out of the dark theaters into the sunlight still laughing hysterically. This is a most excellent movie, with every actor/actress [...]
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