Wednesday, April 25, 2007

the condemned

The Condemned is recommended to fans of bad reality television and professional wrestling. Hey, you've been warned.

Monday, April 23, 2007

anniversary

When I got married a year ago, several of our great writers at The Simon offered me wedding advice. It was a real surprise and a treat at the time ... and it still is today.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

vacancy

Usually, describing a movie as a "creepy cockroach of a thriller" isn't high praise, but in the case of Vacancy, it's a glowing blurb.

Monday, April 16, 2007

what does jackie robinson day have to do with barry bonds?

A lot, says author Zev Chafets, and I have to agree with him.
Jackie Robinson Day is an exercise in racial public relations. Baseball desperately wants to repair its connection to the black community, whose younger generation seems to regard the national pastime as only slightly more relevant than curling.

Chafets argues that Barry Bonds could help repair that connection, but because sportswriters (and MLB commissioner Bud Selig) dislike him so much, they continue to turn away black fans, who get sick of seeing Bonds attacked for the same things white players like Babe Ruth were adored for doing back in the day.

I hate Bonds as much as the next guy, but the racial double standard in baseball is certainly noticeable.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

disturbia

Rear Window for the teen set? Probably, but it's an effective thriller with a surprising amount of brains and heart.

Monday, April 09, 2007

grindhouse: bloody, long

Grindhouse tops the list of items in my latest installment of Consumables. Also, I show much love to Killer Sheep and The Host and !!!.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

j. hoberman on killer of sheep

Charles Burnett's rarely-seen 1977 movie Killer of Sheep is finally getting a proper theatrical release. (It's playing at the Nuart through Thursday.) The Village Voice's J. Hoberman writes about the film's greatness -- there's no pointing pulling a quote because the whole piece is great and dead on the money.

Friday, April 06, 2007

fighting words

The world of spoken-word slam poetry is too interesting for filmmakers to resist, but thus far they've yet to do it justice. Fighting Words is but the latest example of this problem.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

kurt cobain: still dead, still missed

This piece was written for The Black Table three years ago to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide. I still agree with every word of it.

cinnamon

"My artwork and films are about responding to daily materials, conditions, tasks and/or gestures of people of African descent," experimental artist Kevin Jerome Everson says on his website. A collection of his films -- including the documentary-fiction hybrid Cinnamon, which will be having its Los Angeles premiere -- will be playing Monday, April 9 at REDCAT. My LA Weekly review appears here.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

the tv set

Another satire on the banality of the entertainment industry? Yes, but writer-director Jake Kasdan's The TV Set has more depth than you might think.