If you don’t know who Mark Duplass is now, you will by the end of June. Though he’s most recognizable from FX’s hilariously raunchy sit-com The League, more importantly, for the past seven years Mark and his brother Jay have been captivating the independent film world with their films The Puffy Chair, Baghead, Cyrus, and … More Interview: Your Sister's Sister Writer-Director Lynn Shelton
A third of the way into director Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, I wrote in my notes, “This is dang-near perfect—everything you’d want from a summer sci-fi thriller with cosmic aspirations!” Two-thirds through, I wrote, “Hey, what the hell happened to that terrific, summer sci-fi thriller I was watching?” Prometheus opens millions of years in the past, … More Prometheus Unbound
For a film obsessed with hearts both literal (eaten raw!) and figurative (plowing the same barren romantic ground as last year’s “Twilight Fairy Tale,” Red Riding Hood), Snow White and the Huntsman lacks a beating pulse of its own. The Female Empowerment Action Film is this year’s second take on the classic story after Tarsem … More Lost in the Woods: Snow White and the Huntsman
In the new documentary U.N. Me, first-time film maker Ami Horowitz sets out to expose what he sees as the institutional failings of the United Nations. To cover the scandals, corruption, and bureaucratic and philosophic absurdities of the 67-year-old world-peace organization, Horowitz and his co-writer and co-director Matthew Goff employ the sometimes whimsical humor and … More Interview: U.N. Me Film Maker Ami Horowitz
I always say I’m never going to get my name in movie-marketing blurbs by writing lines to publicists like “With apathetic lowered expectations, you won’t mind this movie as much as you may have feared.” That bit of self-deprecation is doubly apt for Men in Black 3 because not only does it describe my honest … More Men in Black 3: Slathered in Butter-Flavored Syrup and Green Alien Goop
The fact that Hysteria is a costumed rom-com provides a fresh hook, but of course it’s not the main reason the indie comedy is grabbing attention. The film, directed by Tanya Wexler (Finding North, Ball in the House) and co-written by Wexler and Stephen Dyer, takes a fanciful but historically based look at the invention … More Interview: Hysteria Director and Co-writer Tanya Wexler
In Lebanese film maker Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now?, the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of an isolated village co-exist peacefully. But when violence breaks out across the rest of the country, the village women from both religions go to extreme, often amusing lengths (including hiring a troupe of Ukranian strippers and drugging homemade … More Interview: Nadine Labaki, director, co-writer, and star of Where Do We Go Now?
To those stuck in the ’80s, Bobcat Goldthwait is probably still thought of as the wild-eyed, hair-tugging, whining buffoon of the Police Academy movies. But in fact over the past decades, Goldthwait’s been coming into his own as an independent filmmaker specializing in beyond-the-fringe satire. First there was Goldthwait’s masterpiece, 1991’s Shakes the Clown (“the … More Interview: Bobcat Goldthwait, Writer-Director of God Bless America
For decades now the Official Summer Movie Season has kicked off the first weekend of May with a big action movie, and eight out of the last ten of those have featured Marvel superheroes. Three of the last four have been parts of Marvel’s ambitious “Avengers Initiative” franchise in which 2008’s Iron Man and The … More The Avengers: The Simple Summer Joys of “Hulk, Smash”
When writer-director Whit Stillman’s smart, wry Metropolitan appeared in 1990 it heralded the arrival of a fresh, new cinematic voice. Stillman continued to mine his favorite topic–the comedic hand-wringing and navel-gazing angst of the “urban haute bourgeoisie“–in Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998). But then the film maker dropped off the indie-cinema … More Interview: Greta Gerwig, Star of Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress
Hammer & Thump 