MCN Critics Roundup Film Reviews Box Office Hell Interviews DVD Reviews Posters du Jour While Michael Mann's take on the legendary outlaw bank robber John Dillinger is largely saved from its flaws by Johnny Depp, it's also lacking the soul and humanity that might have made elevated it to the extraordinary. ...more at MCN Weekend.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs	48.5	54.6	47	48	-n/a
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	46.8	45.8	50	49	n/a
Public Enemies	28.6	27.3	26	25	n/a

Wilmington on Movies
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Hurt Locker, and The Girl from Monaco
by Michael Wilmington

The creators, especially the writers, don‘t have many fresh ideas, except to pop in  a feisty little swashbuckling weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg voicing) modeled on Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean—and to have John Leguizamo’s spazzy sloth Sid go papa-mama-mad at the parenthood of woolly mammoths Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) and run paternally amok, eggnapping three T. Rex eggs, with predictably dire-dino results.

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Voynaristic Review
Brüno
by Kim Voynar

As Brüno, Cohen makes no attempt to soften the punches as he stares America's homophobia right in the face and dares it to blink first. While Brüno's completely outrageous and inappropriate in almost every conceivable way, there's nothing superfluous in the way he's refracting cultural mindsets and values back at us. And it's not a pretty sight.

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Voynaristic
The Fame and Misfortune of Michael Jackson
by Kim Voynar

Jackson hadn't been anything even vaguely resembling a normal person, at least publicly, for many years. The plastic surgeries, the bizarre marriages, the fabled Neverland ranch where he sought never to grow up, and worst, the charges of pedophilia, haunted him to his grave. "Wacko Jacko" was fair game for the tabloid press and talk shows, and I have to wonder if any person who ever wrote a tabloid tale about him or wrote a Jackson joke for a late-night talk show host ever paused, even for a moment, to consider that there was a real, hurting person underneath the horror mask celebrity had made of him. I rather think not.

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MCN DVD Wrap
Spaceballs

I came away from watching the Blu-ray edition of Spaceballs thinking that it had probably hadn’t lost much in 22 years, and the intervening release of three tepid prequels to George Lucas’ original gem actually made the parody that much sharper. True, most of the gags have grown whiskers, but even the most obvious of them—Pizza the Hutt, the droid Dot Matrix—carried a warm nostalgic glow. It also was great to see the talents of SCTV vets John Candy and Rick Moranis used properly on the big screen.

Also ... Do the Right Thing, Jonas Brothers, Princess Protection Program, Two Lovers, Education of Charlie Banks, and more ... .

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Wilmington on DVDs
Two Lovers, My Dinner with Andre, Do the Right Thing
by Michael Wilmington

Phoenix's Leonard is a nebbish with soul, like the roles Nic Cage used to do before he got trapped in action movies (he should start doing more of his old specialty again), or that Woody Allen cornered in his prime. The movie itself reminds you of a story by Phillip Roth or Bernard Malamud, one of the great Jewish-American lit writers of the ‘60s. Michelle, in a way, is the shiksa goddess whom Roth or Allen‘s horny heroes are often chasing, and part of the movie’s fun and power is watching her searing, girlish sexiness and his exquisite suffering.

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Los Angeles Film Festival 2009 Wrap
by Kim Voynar

The stars and film fans were out in force for the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival, whose slate included indie fest circuit faves, arthouse foreign fare and mainstream popcorn flicks. Fun at the fest ranged from Johnny Depp and Christian Bale on the red carpet for Public Enemies, to transforming robots in summer tentpole Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, to the anime brilliance of Hayao Miyazaki in the Americanized version of Ponyo. Here's a wrap of reviews of some of the diverse films from the fest.

DP/30 LA Film Festival Audience Award Winners
Shohreh Agdashloo The Stoning of Soraya M.	Jeffrey Levy-Hinte Soul Power

Frenzy on the Wall
Vassup, Bruno
by Noah Forrest

There seems to be a lot more scripted action in this film than there was in Borat, rather than extended scenes of Bruno just talking to regular folks.  But as in Borat, the film excels when Bruno is playing the interviewer.  Whether he is confusing “hummus” and “Hamas” while interviewing an ex-Mossad agent and a Palestinian politician or he’s convincing Paula Abdul to sit on some Mexican…uh, “chairs,” the film really makes its most cogent points in these scenes.

And - Poland's Video Review of Brüno

DP/30 Weekend Showdown
Mark Boal/Kathryn Bigelow The Hurt Locker	Anne Fletcher The Proposal

Voynaristic Review
Public Enemies
by Kim Voynar

Is Public Enemies (A) an astute exploration of the mind and soul of one of the century's most notorious bank robbers; (B) a Robin Hood tale about a legendary folk hero/outlaw; (C) a good/evil story about an outlaw and the law man who brings him to justice; or (D) None of the above?

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The Ultimate DVD Geek
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Criterion Collection
by Doug Pratt

"It's an interesting thing, shooting a movie with septua and octogenarians as extras because, you know, extras, normally, from the standpoint of the production team, do not engender a lot of sympathy. In fact, a lot of times they're sort of considered to be the most problematic department. It gave me a whole new take on how difficult and confusing the process of making movies is, to people who have never read the script and have no idea what it is you're trying to do. These are people who are very frail. It's like you don't kind of realize how frail somebody who's seventy-eight is until they have to stand up and hold a glass of lemonade for 13 hours and be in continuity. So, I have a newfound respect for extras."

"Being a master of the medium is an enviable gift. Hitchcock had it, Tati had it and Guy Ritchie once read about it in an inflight magazine. On the evidence of Public Enemies, Mann, it’s sad to report, seems to have misplaced it."

"Suddenly, it was a sort of game for me. Not to be masculine. To be indestructible."
Claire Denis On Finding Her Voice As A Filmmaker

"Making a good movie is like getting an ice sculpture out of a block of ice. There's something beautiful in there, but it's fragile and you have to find it."
How The Era Of The Schlockbuster Came To Be

Is Brüno "Mincing Minstrelsy"?

Trailering Almodovar's Broken Embraces (In English)

Good Examples Of Why It's Best Not To Respond To A Cricket

The Careening Career Of A Screenwriter Turned Celeb Journo Turned War Correspondent

"Coppola is displaying a strange combination of self-pity, neediness, professional work ethic, and sentimentality. Coppola did not like the pillows and complained all afternoon about the various kinds that were rushed to the spot; he rejected every one."
An Excerpt From Herzog's "Conquest Of The Useless"

Michael Bay's Top 5 Outbursts

"Making money full-stop is a problem for auteurs."
"Whatever Happened To The Great American Film Director?"

Citigroup, Relativity Settle Dispute On Structure Of Sony Pictures Deal

Locationing Public Enemies

John Anderson's More Informed Look Than Most So Far At Whom Brüno Is Dandling Or Distressing

More Changes At Tribeca

Shawshank Redemption Goes West End

Diller Disinvites A Quarter Of Evite's Employees

M. Phillips Considers The Public Enemies HiDef Palette

Ken Roberts, 99, Father Of Tony, Voiceover Announcer; Heard In Radio Days

IndieWire Inquires About IndiePix Exodus

"Who is Nimród Antal?"

Is Jean-Jacques Beineix The Rodney Dangerfield Of Gallic Auteurs?

Universal Lands Film Rights To "Asteroids" Arcade Game, Which Has Neither Characters Nor Story; Joins "Candyland" And "Battleship" On Studio's Slate

Trailering Peter Billingsley's Couples Retreat

Washington Post Attempted To Sell Lobbyists Access To Obama Officials And Their Editorial Staff In The Publisher's Home For A Cool $25,000 A Pop

Amazon Gets Longer Windows For Some Indie Pics Than Other VOD Suppliers

Kim Morgan Considers Malden In Baby Doll

Agnès Varda Goes To The Beaches

Trailering Planet 51

Shi Pei Pu, The Real M. Butterfly, Was 70

Tracking Searchlight's Marketing Challenges For (500) Days Of Summer

Why Are Vampires So Bloody Popular Today? The Times Inquires

"People are dropping every day, unfortunately. We want completion, we want to have the tragedy be finished. To put it into three-ness is to complete it."
Deciphering The Ever-Popular Celebrities-Known-In-The-U.S. Die-In-Threes Canard

Fred Travalena And His Impersonations Of Clinton, Pesci, DeNiro, 150 Others, Were 66

VNU Media, Owner Of H'wd Reporter, Billboard And Nielsen, Halves Huge Debt With Creditors

Trailers du Jour
The Informant!
Daybreakers
Amelia
The Invention Of Lying

Here Comes "Noir City: Chicago"

New FCC Commish Wants $7 Billion Of Stimulus Dosh To Kickstart Broadband Internet Expansion

"Vibe was an arbiter of taste, a clubhouse where people could gawk, preen and dis, knowing that everyone they cared about would see it."
David Carr Rues Another Magazine Demise

"Mann is particular about the way he presents Dillinger and Billie. He sees him and her. Not them. They are never a couple. They are their needs. She needs to be protected, because she is so vulnerable. He needs someone to protect, in order to affirm his invincibility."
Ebert On The Epic Intimacy Of Public Enemies
And - "A really expensive mumblecore movie with ADR and guns."
Hurricane Karina Doesn't Mean That As A Compliment

Mollie Sugden, 86, Mrs. Slocombe In "Are You Being Served?"
With - A Video Tribute
Plus - Always Concerned About Her "Pussy"

What Canuck Pics They're Watching On Canada Day Up There

"TMZ is now the hottest Hollywood celebrity gossip website on the planet. So hot, in fact, that when it broke the news of Michael Jackson’s death, its world exclusive popped up online 6 minutes before he actually died."

NYC Runs Out Of Film Credit Money

Tilda Swinton's 37-Ton Screen Machine UK's First Traveling Cinema

Harv Presnell, 75, Booming Baritone Was In Paint Your Wagon, Fargo

Karl Malden, 97, Leaves Home Without It

Publisher Gannett To Fire Up To 2,000 At Papers Around The Country

In Five U.S. Cinemas, Some Harry Potter Seats Will Move In Sync To On-Screen Action

People Morphs The Many Masks Of Michael Jackson's Lifetime In 30 Seconds

Big Cieper Canvasses Moneyball Spin, Including The All-Important MLB Copyright And Trademark Approvals; Cites Che, With A Cost The Size Of Canceled Film As "Low Budget"

Anne-T Sez Soderbergh And Mann Too Smart
While - Kim Masters Guns For Mann's Career With Cites From Several Unnamed Execs

Baumbach And Shawn Talk Andre

Mann's Zen Noir, Pt. I

Michael Wood Mulls North By Northwest

On The Polemics Of Docs On Food

When Neighbors Of L.A. High Schools Tire Of Location Shoots

Paramount Opens Shanghai Outpost

Elliot Goldenthal On Scoring Public Enemies

Beijing May Be Opening Up To Taiwanese Film And Filmmakers

Annals Of Old Media
Washington Post Gives Props To TMZ For Being De Facto Source They'll Trust The Next Time They Post Any Old Thing Since Their Initial Michael Jackson Scoop Turned Out To Be True

Trailering Soderbergh-Damon's The Informant!, Looking Only Slightly! Like Schizopolis

Telluride Will Celebrate Manny Farber

"Diane Keaton has been rushed to hospital after hurting herself during a sumo wrestling match."
Beat That Lede

Glasgow Lifts 29-Year-Old Ban On Life Of Brian

AMC TV Buys 2 Movie Sites

Spin Magazine Fires Six
Earlier - Vibe Harshed

Tom Waits On Playing The Devil His Way

After Six Years And Two Berths, David Hudson's "Daily" Aggregration Takes A Break

FT Reports Paramount In "Home Entertainment" Merger Talks
Earlier - Melrose Ave Lops Some Off Mountaintop, Including Head Of Physical Production Kacandes, Senior Prod VPs Cosgrove and Levine, Casting Head Levin, Vantage Poobah Stodel
And - Par Closing Book On NYC Lit Office

Trailering Coco Before Chanel

Rick Kogan On The Death Of The Chicago Tribune Magazine

"A critic is basically an arrogant bastard who says 'this is good, this is bad' without necessarily being able to explain why."

Vaclev Havel Making Velvet Directorial Debut At 72