The Ultimate DVD Geek
Paul Blart: Mall Cop and
Observe and Report
by Doug Pratt

2009 turned out to be the year of the 'shopping mall security person' comedy, and it shows you how fast trends turn over these days that there were only three months between the theatrical release dates separating the point where the genre was established, with Paul Blart: Mall Cop, a Sony Pictures Home Entertainment release, and was then undercut in cynicism, with Observe and Report, a Warner Home Video release.

 

Voynaristic
The Vampire as Moral Compass
by Kim Voynar


Back in the day, it was more, well, black-and-white. Vampires were the devourers of humans, the seducers of innocent, pale-skinned virgins ... they were Bad Guys, plain and simple. For most of their literary and cinematic history, it made sense that this was so; the world back then was a simpler place, a place with clear-cut perceptions of right and wrong.
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Frenzy on the Wall
Why Do They Keep Making Them Like They Used To?
by Noah Forrest


A lot of modern films care little about entertaining an experienced filmgoing audience; many filmmakers simply recycle past ideas without even bothering to repackage them as something different. Although this phenomena crosses all genres, it seems especially prevalent in horror films.



Confessions of a Festival Junkie: AFI
by Leonard Klady

One can only hope that what the organizers demonstrate is a flexibility to adapt as the festival proceeds. If the crowd demands, add second screenings because the one thing no one wants is a patron that feels shut out from the experience. Much better to have someone walk away from such superior offerings as The White Ribbon, Bad Lieutenant, City of Love and Death or Looking for Eric with a feeling of having seen something unique and edifying.




Film Reviews
MCN Critics Roundup
Box Office Hell
Interviews
DVD Reviews

The big noise was unquestionably This Is It, culled from hours of rehearsal footage preparing for the concert tour Michael Jackson never gave. More>




20 Weeks To Oscar
The Rules Of Ten
by David Poland

The most often considered issue of this year’s Oscar race is, “How will having ten nominees change the game?”

And the definitive answer is, “Ask me next April.”

Well, even that may be a little blurry.

And - A New Best Picture Chart

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Wilmington on Movies
Michael Jackson: This is It, The House of the Devil and Labor Day ...
by Michael Wilmington

But the shows didn’t go on, until, in a way, now. Instead, Jackson‘s demise and its wall-to-wall TV news coverage became a kind of from-the-grave farewell tour, triggering a worldwide orgy of public lamentation for the late King of Pop, that, at least temporarily, obliterated the last decade of relative artistic inactivity, plus the bad press and legal wrangles plaguing him over his alleged taste for romps with young boys.
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Wilmington on DVD
Ice Age 3: The Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Il Divo, Z, Whatever Works, Nothing Like the Holidays, The Orphan and more ...
by Michael Wilmington

Family fever drenches the entire plot. Even the series’ unfailing scene and credits stealer, acorn-craving squirrelly Scrat (voiced by original co-director Chris Wedge) has a Scratte (Karen Disher), to ring his bells. And the movie‘s big action scene is borrowed from eternal mom Lillian Gish crossing the ice floes of Way Down East (and that scene‘s innumerable imitators), a movie D. W. Griffith shot back in 1920. That wasn’t exactly in the Ice Age, but then neither were any dinosaurs.

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MCN DVD Wrap
Orphan

There is a cautionary note posted at the beginning of Orphan, reminding viewers that, despite everything that happens during the course of the movie, adopting children is a good thing and almost none of them will want to kill their adoptive families. Duh. Along with thrillers about evil twins and babies spawned by Satan, films in the bad seed sub-genre all resemble each other in certain obvious ways. Most horror fans could have walked into Orphan half-way through its two-hour length and guessed what already had transpired and in which direction things probably were headed

Also ... Ice Age 3, Pandemic, Stan Helsing, Whatever Works, The Sam Fuller Collection,Champions Forever .. and more...






Updated throughout the day
Updated: 12:51 pm

Disney Sets $7 Million For Forest Protection Project, Noting Concern For Gorillas, Songbirds, Andean Spectacled Bear And Yellow-Tailed Woolly Monkey

"Then along came a cyclist. And I thought, 'Good, he's a big bloke,' and shouted, 'Can you help me please?'" He stopped and turned around and I thought, 'Oh, my God, it's Boris Johnson.'"
London Mayor "Knight On Shining Bicycle," Saving Age Of Stupid Filmmaker Franny Armstrong From Three "Feral" Girls

Roland Emmerich, Fearing Fatwa, Axes 2012 Scene Depicting Destruction Of Islam's Holiest Site

Desperately Seeking Recoupment
Susan Seidelman Remembers DIY And "Indie" Of Yore

2,000 French Cinemas To Shutter Wednesday To Protest Collapsing Release Windows

"Just hours after Michael Jackson died, Tim Patterson sped down Interstate 5 in his green Lexus convertible to downtown Los Angeles with $60-million worth of film footage in his trunk."
The Cameraman-Editor Who Just Happened To Have Collected The Snips And Bobs That Became This Is It

Knegt On "Box Office 2.0: Snap Judgments And Great Expectations"

Ari Emanuel Would Like To Teach That H'wd Has Always Been In A Tizzy, Panic And Fright

Best Buy Launches One More Digital Movie Initiative

Young Mideast Filmmakers Talk Internet Influence At Doha Tribeca

Canuck John Hughes Doc Now On DVD

Headlines Thought Funny In Writer's Head Until Spoken Aloud Find Easeful Death In Onion Headline-Writing Room

Frequently Asked Questions About Going To The Movies In Thailand

Mr. Means Reports Sundance 2010 A Fresh Market

Localfesting: "Is The Virginia Film Festival Right For Me?"

Once I Was Raw But Now I Am Cooked
Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss Was Almost 101

Forbes Goes Out On The American Film Market Sales Floor

Keen Fantasy Illustrator Don Ivan Punchatz Was 73

Philly's Indie 941 Movie Theater May Close

Wim Wenders' "Attempted Description Of An Indescribable Film"

Behind Neil Simon's Brighton Getting Beached On B'way

Discover A Swell Norwegian Film Poster Designer

NJ Gov Candidate Who Stole From Monty Python Now Purloins Stock Footage With Onscreen Watermark Intact

Profiling Here/Regent Entertainment Combine While Rumors Of Staff Slash At Culture-Politics Mainstay, The Advocate

"They have good Slim Jims and Fritos. I also don’t have a cell phone, and I can use my Rite Aid calling card there if I have to make a phone call."
A Guide To James Ellroy's L.A.

The Acceptance Letter From Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School (That Will Be $1450 By PayPal, Please, Pal)

The Demolition Of Gourmet Magazine In 50+ Images

MNBC.Com Lays Off Film Cricket Duralde

"If The Future's Worth Having, It Won't Be Free"

Joss Whedon Bids $10,000 For Terminator Rights

Snow White Portrayed In Apples

What Do "Fraggle Rock," Blue Man Group," Return Of The Jedi, "Cats" And Yes Album Covers Have To Do With Avatar?

LOTR And Matrix Co-Producer Barrie Osborne Sets $150 Million Muhammed Film

Why Jared And Jerusha Hess Of Gentlemen Broncos Aren't A H'wd Power Couple

Film Agency For Wales Expands Board To 14; No Mention Whether There Are That Many Welsh Filmmakers

Charting The Going Rate Of Film Distribution Abroad

What Does Smug Self-Satisfaction Do To The Humor Of A Ricky Gervais?

Vice Picks 10 Most Dubious Criterions

"That the work I do is now the object an emerging field of study with complicated concepts, acronyms, and words I thought I knew, but don't, not to mention very long bibliographies, is somehow heartening."
Hot Docs' Sean Farnel On The Film Festival Bubble: Five Fests In Five Weeks

Will Swine Flu Break The Internets?

SPC Adopts Mother And Child

"Comcast Should Buy Netflix Instead Of Universal"

Art Of The Title Sequence Tracks Single-Take Opening Credits

If Childrens' Books Aren't Scary, Are They Failures?

Oscar Entries Due For Cartoons

As Murdoch's NewsCorp Preps Paywall, WSJ Editor Calls Out "Parasites"

Bruce Weber Outtakes Robert Pattinson

Shrinking Marketplace Hits French VFX Studios

LouLu Pulls Back Iron Curtain With TCM Curating

Redbox, Summit, Make Deal

"'Oh, Henry,' he supposedly said, 'Don't be such a c---------.'"
Pulitzer-Winning Washington Post Editor And Style Writer Brawl In Newsroom; Punches Thrown

"Hess' vision sacralizes what other filmmakers don't. The director Hess is closest to in this regard is Pier Paolo Pasolini (and Pasolini, too, had an extraordinary sense of the naïve, the repellent, and the ridiculous)."
New Yorker's Brody Pounces On NY Times' Dargis For "Missing" "Religious" Quality Of Gentlemen Broncos

Terminator Rights Set For Auction

Former Polygrammer Till Completes Deal For U.K.-Based Int'l Ops Of Mel Gibson And Bruce Davey's Icon; Again Hoping To Build Euro Super-Distrib

"Wild Guesses Won't Solve Journalism Crisis"

Considering Paul Newman's Effortless Style In Cool Hand Luke

Dressing To The Nine

Japanese To Get Version Of Redbox

Going On The Records With Wild Things' Max Family

Helen Mirren Revisits Russian Roots

South African Cinema Angling For Bailout
And - Mexican Film Industry Appeals To Congress
While - Film NZ CEO Ankles

A Q&A WIth Murdoch's Main Man

Sunday NY Times Fall Preview
Matt Damon: A-List Character Actor
And - RiffRafferty Privileged With "A Few Minutes" Of Lovely Bones
And - Breakout Perfs For Fall, Starting With Anna Kendrick
And - Digitizing Dickens
With - "I was just curious. What is the exact diameter of your testicle?"
A Night Out With Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum
And - Klawans On White Ribbon
And - Jan Chapman, Terry Gilliam, David Benioff And Rebecca Miller's Holiday Film Faves
And - Pitching Obama Marriage As Photogenic Fairytale
And - Trying To Explain Popularity Of New Dummy Guy
And - Pedro Y Penelope (video)
And - A Slideshow Of Wes' Critters
Plus - The London Standard: Last Freesheet Standing

Girish On The Transformation Of Popular Cinema To Art Cinema

Ebertfest Passes On Sale

Polanski Offering Cash Bail? Lawyer Sez, Um, He Would Never "Behave Like A Fugitive"

"Kelly may have learned as much from the hacks (Zemeckis) as from the masters (Kubrick), but there's a sense of claustrophobia and impending doom created by precisely skewed camera angles and floating camera moves, lenses that compress or stretch space, loving attention to everyday places and objects under threat, a few shock edits, and a Hitchcock-worthy score by three members of Arcade Fire."
Taubin First-Reviews The Box (spoiler-ish)

10 Best Pic Noms Will Knock Bacall, Corman, Calley And Gordon Willis From Oscarcast

Boston Gets Arthouse For First Time In Years

"Both the old guy who made his coffin and Woody Allen will be invited."
Bergman's Fårö Estate To Become Artists' Colony In 2010
And - Stephen Shore Photographs Bergman's Private Realm Before Its Sale

Composers Consider Unionization

"Trash Humpers is the cinematic equivalent of listening to black metal: most people hate it, some can stomach 10 minutes, only the devoted will go the full 78 minutes."

The Sunday L. A. Times
"I don't think even Richard knows. And that's okay."
Cameron Diaz On The Mysteries Of The Box
And - Michael Sheen, From The Queen To New Moon

 



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