Featured Film+TV Stories
Behind the Scenes at the Sundance Labs
Building a better screenwriter
By ELLA TAYLOR
Two days before the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, all is calm and hushed here in Utah. No, really. While Park City prepares to morph from sleepy ski town into hyper Hollywood annex for the world’s most overcrowded film festival, I’m headed up to the peaceful resort that houses Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and plays… Keep Reading »
Behind the Scenes at the Sundance Labs
Building a better screenwriter
By ELLA TAYLOR
Two days before the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, all is calm and hushed here in Utah. No, really. While Park City prepares to morph from sleepy ski town into hyper Hollywood annex for the world’s most overcrowded film festival, I’m headed up to the peaceful resort that houses Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and plays… Keep Reading »
Speed Racer On the Fast Track to Nowhere
Anime on overdrive from the Wachowski brothers
By J. HOBERMAN
Converting a fondly remembered cartoon series — one of the first Japanese animes syndicated on American TV — into a prospective franchise, the Matrix masters, Larry and Andy Wachowski, have taken another step toward the total cyborganization of the cinema. … Keep Reading »
Mister Lonely, Harmony Korine's Way
The director on flying nuns and his Mexican Michael Jackson
By JOSHUAH BEARMAN
It’s been more than a decade since Harmony Korine was the 19-year-old NYU dropout who, so the story goes, turned around the screenplay for Kids in just three weeks. Korine quickly advanced his reputation as a curiously challenging young filmmaker, earning mainstream scorn and selective critical praise for his meandering, difficult profiles in human… Keep Reading »
Ashes of Time: Fugitive Pieces
Novel adaptation gives Holocaust survival the Harlequin treatment
By ELLA TAYLOR
Canadian poet Anne Michaels’ beautiful 1996 novel, Fugitive Pieces — about a Jewish writer immobilized by the memory of his Polish family’s murder at the hands of the Nazis — distills tragedy into grief, terror and a wary romance built on the redemptive power of love and art, and set on a wildly picturesque… Keep Reading »
PBS's Cranford: It Takes an Eccentric Village
Gossip and gross-out humor blend with Masterpiece's high acting
By ROBERT ABELE
Elizabeth Gaskell may not have the marquee power of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, but if the three-part BBC- and WGBH-partnered Cranford is any indication, there may well be an olde-but-new game in town. … Keep Reading »
Film
Speed Racer On the Fast Track to Nowhere
By J. HOBERMAN
Anime on overdrive from the Wachowski brothers
Mister Lonely, Harmony Korine's Way
By JOSHUAH BEARMAN
The director on flying nuns and his Mexican Michael Jackson
Jon Favreau's Iron Man Has a Heart
By SCOTT FOUNDAS
Director and Robert Downey Jr. bring soul to the superhero movie
Ashes of Time: Fugitive Pieces
By ELLA TAYLOR
Novel adaptation gives Holocaust survival the Harlequin treatment
Son of Rambow: Young Blood
By JIM RIDLEY
Garth Jennings' comedy illuminates the joys of DIY filmmaking
Standard Operating Procedure: Get Out of Jail Free
By J. HOBERMAN
Errol Morris cuts the Abu Ghraib MPs some slack
Up in Smoke: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
By ROBERT WILONSKY
Best friends get shipped to Gitmo in this forced Act 2
UCLA's Manoel de Oliveira Retrospective Enters Final Week
By SCOTT FOUNDAS
99-year-old Portuguese director translates the mystery
Etgar Keret's Jellyfish: An Israeli Movie With Neither Politics nor Religion
By J. HOBERMAN
Predicated on the spectacle of functionally depressed types stuck in mildly ridiculous situations not…
Good Rep
Visualizing the Sacred: Islam on Film
By Ernest Hardy
Monthlong UCLA series looks at the lives of Muslims worldwide
Sacred Monster: LACMA Celebrates 100 Years of Bette Davis
By HAZEL-DAWN DUMPERT
(Click to enlarge) “I don’t mind scaring people,” Bette Davis once told the writer…
Bodies in Motion: The Erotic Films of Carolee Schneemann
By Holly Willis
(Click to enlarge) Interior Scroll The penis — hard, soft, shiny, wet, thrusting, resting…
Signal to Noise
New Digital Art From Belgium
Building, a 12-minute graphics-based video by Belgian artist Anouk de Clercq, studies the play…
Frankenstein (Mortal Toys): Small Wonder
Janie Geiser and Susan Simpson’s Frankenstein (Mortal Toys) unites flat puppet characters pushed and…
Surf Report
New on DVD: Hiya, Kids!! A '50s Saturday Morning
By ROBERT ABELE
Attention-span hell or mother's little helper?
Sex and the Globe: Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman
By ROBERT ABELE
New York—based filmmaker Jennifer Fox has many issues as a modern woman in her…
PBS's Carrier, Life and War Aboard the USS Nimitz
By ROBERT ABELE
I’m three episodes into the 10-part PBS documentary series Carrier, which runs in double…
Deadline Hollywood
What's Hot: Talks Between Actors and Producers Look DOA
By Nikki Finke
Meanwhile, pilots are vibrantly alive
Hollywood's Always-Delicate "Friendships" Feel Even More Strain
By NIKKI FINKE
Depp's loyal heart and Moonves' disloyal buds
Television
PBS's Cranford: It Takes an Eccentric Village
By ROBERT ABELE
Gossip and gross-out humor blend with Masterpiece's high acting
Sweet Nothing in My Ear: Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin play out the sound and fury
By ROBERT ABELE
With reality fluff proliferating on every channel, sometimes you need to take a break…
Tracey Ullman's State of the Union
By Robert Abele
Brit sends up the American character in one-actress-fits-all fashion
Movie Reviews
Movie Reviews: The Fall, I for India, Mister Lonely
By LA Weekly Film Critics
And other May 9 releases
Short Run
Eastern Promises: Asian Pacific Film Festival
By Ernest Hardy
Documentaries dominate, including Against the Grain and Up the Yangtze
Borrowed Time and High Hopes at Annual Polish Film Survey
By Adam Nayman
The history of great dog-reaction shots spans from The Thin Man to I Am…
Now Showing
Showtimes and Theater Info
By L.A. Weekly Movie Critics
Fall Film
The Ice Queen Melteth
By Ella Taylor
From art-house icon to Hollywood headliner, Tilda Swinton isn’t afraid to let them see her sweat
Primetime Pilot Panic: 'How To Teach Filthy Rich Girls' OKed
Sun, May 11, 10:20 pm
I'm told CW picked up How To Teach Filthy Rich Girls (WBTV/Alloy), which was expected. And I, too, think the title should be changed to "Surviving The Filthy Rich" as rumored. (Or, even better, "This Is Our Money-Grubbing Attempt to Clone Gossip Girls But Not Call It A Spin-Off".)
Primetime Pilot Panic: SAY IT AIN'T SO! Tori Spelling In '90210'?
Sun, May 11, 10:09 pm
I know there have been lots of rumors to this effect in celebrity mags and infotainment shows. But one of my reliable TV business sources is hearing that Tori Spelling is going to be in the Beverly Hills, 90210 spinoff just picked up by the CW. Well, it's official: 90210 is ruined. Please, Les and [...]
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