Spoiler alerts have become to movies what the Surgeon General’s warning became to smoking: a perfunctory caution before ill-advised behavior. Remember plot twists in movies? The stunning revelations in films such as Psycho, The Crying Game and The Sixth Sense? Good times. And getting rarer. When was the last time you were surprised by a movie’s plot? Studios are trying to …
Damn Ken Burns. He ruins everything for me. First it was TV. His visual opuses — Hemingway, Vietnam, The Civil War — put other television shows to shame, including my favorites: Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wire, The Simpsons. NOW he’s ruined storytelling for me. His latest non-fiction tale, Ali, ranks among my favorites. I was already a sports nut, so there was no …
I’m sorry. I have to say something. I had a problem with Val, and I have a problem with Val, the Amazon film that’s dazzling critics and has set social media a’swoon. Complete with yearbook videos of Val Kilmer, Tom Cruise, Kevin Bacon and others from the dimpled heyday of a Dirty Dancing generation, Val charts the Shakespearean fall of …
Hollywood’s Epic Custody Battle Hollywood has always had a lucrative but loveless marriage to the nation’s movie theaters. For decades, studios and exhibitors have maintained a tense but workable relationship. Sure there have been some knockdown-dragouts, and lamps have been thrown in arguments over things like the cost of a ticket and how long someone …
When Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theaters announced this week that they were shuttering 16 locations and more than 300 screens — including the venerable Cinerama Dome in Hollywood — you could nearly hear the city deflate like a punctured balloon. The news was met with a collective gasp and sob that Los Angeles hasn’t felt …
The pandemic put the movie industry on ice. But it has set TV on fire. From Tiger King to The Queen’s Gambit, COVID has treated the small screen like royalty. Television viewing nationwide increased for the first time in nine years in 2020. Warner Bros. announced it was turning its 2021 film slate into TV moves of the …
Maybe it’s the sun, but California is a magnet for serial killers. The Zodiac Killer, The Hillside Strangler, The Manson Family; all called the Golden State home. But non were as chilling as The Night Stalker. The Night Stalker is one of the most terrifying serial killers in American history. Typically, psychopathic killers follow a …
In one history of the movies, Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz might look like a footnote. The former playwright had a hand in many famous pictures, including The Wizard of Oz, but most went uncredited. He was the smartest guy in the room, a drunk and a gambler who was dead at 55. And his kid brother, …
There is no reason a Borat sequel should work. It comes 14 years after the surprise original — a lifetime and a half in movie metrics. Borat’s fish-out-of-water schtick should be a one-trick pony, just as SNL films are glorified sketch jokes. And everybody should know Sacha Baron Cohen’s chameleon mug by now; he’s already …
Like David Mamet, Aaron Sorkin is less a screenwriter than a songwriter. Sure, Goo goo j’goob doesn’t make a lick of sense, but its got a great beat. So, too, does The Trial of the Chicago 7, Netflix’s latest pandemic entrée. Granted, our time in isolation has made us more welcoming than ever to visitors. And Sorkin, the …
The Hollywood Bowles 