Film is a fickle medium. In any other industry if you take two of the top performers in their respective spheres and put them together you’ve got a hit. Derek Jeter and A-Rod, peanut butter and jelly, vanilla and chocolate. Like Captain Planet, their combined powers create something greater than the sum of their parts. [...]
Dear Mr. Burton: What happened to you? You used to be so creative, have such imagination. You were strange, unknowable but always managed to imbue your films with such heart and feeling. From “Ed Wood” to “Edward Scissorhands” to “Beetlejuice” your films have always entertained and inspired us. But when you undertook to usurp the [...]
What happens when Martin Scorsese, the master of personal, gritty, nuanced filmmaking decides to make a schlocky, B-movie-style, psychological thriller? You get a delicately constructed, multi-layered ode to the classics of Hollywood cinema, of course. Hitchcock, Kubrick and all the greatest elements of the noirs and suspense pictures of the 1940s and 50s are [...]
What do Peter Sellers’ character in Hal Ashby’s 1979 flick, “Being There” and Jason Reitman’s Oscar-bait movie, “Up in the Air” have in common? More than you might think. Also, can a middle-aged, sexually inactive divorcee be sexy? All that and more in this week’s edition of The Moving Arts FilmCast. Click below to listen [...]
Growing up in the 80s, Scott and I are quite fond of the brilliant special effects of our youth. From “Jaws” to “E.T.” to “The Empire Strikes Back,” you just can beat some good ol’ practical Hollywood effects. Or can you? This week we’ll discuss James Cameron’s much ballyhooed attempt at making practical effects all [...]
This week we’re trying something a little different. Scott, my usual co-host, was absent from class during the recording of the show so instead of scrambling to find a temporary replacement I decided to offer the audio versions of a couple of our already written reviews. This isn’t likely to become a staple of the [...]
It’s been a couple of weeks since our last show, but this one is worth the wait (we hope). This week we tackle Oren Peli’s viral, scare-fest phenomenon “Paranormal Activity,” and then on to Ruben Fleischer’s Woody Harrelson-is-a-hillybilly-zombie-killer flick, “Zombieland.” Too much horror to handle? Find somebody to hold on to and let us guide [...]
Quentin Tarantino’s controversial revisionist’s WWII saga, “Inglourious Basterds” has had fans cheering and moralizers crying foul. Does it really deny the holocaust? Is it as boring as some have said? And how many freaking references to classic cinema can a guy fit into a single movie?! To find out you’ll have to listen to the [...]
Rookie director, Neill Blomkamp, has received untold accolades for his alien apartheid allegory, “District 9.” Can this $30 million socially conscious film please both the sci-fi fanboys and hardcore film snobs? And what exactly does this mean for fans of “Halo”? You’ll have to listen to find out!
This week Scott and I take a crack at deciphering that unruly, elusive devil called love. Marc Webb’s debut feature, the hipster-tinged “(500) Days of Summer” is an indie hit that’s been hailed as a transcended unconventional love story. So, can Tommy from “3rd Rock From the Sun” and Summer, the singing department store worker [...]
