We all do it – fashion all or part of the often unpalatable realities of our lives into forms more pleasing to the eye and less troublesome to the soul. But Jeanette Francis aka Jasmine French (Cate Blanchett), the titular Blue Jasmine of writer and director Woody Allen’s latest Continue Reading
Movies
You shall not sit! The Simpsons hilarious epic The Hobbit-inspired couch gag
The Simpsons, now entering their 25th season on Fox, may not be quite the toast of the zeitgeist as they once were, but the show has by no means surrendered its claim to wickedly funny and inspired pop culture parodies. In fact, judging by the latest epic couch gag, Continue Reading
“Everything is awesome!” The LEGO® Movie debuts brilliant new trailer
If you think that Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) from NBC’s Parks and Recreation is the height of amped-up super-duper positivity, then you haven’t met Emmet (Chris Pratt), from The LEGO® Movie, an ordinary, everyday Lego guy who does jumping jacks pretty much straight out of bed, ecstatically pays $37 Continue Reading
Poster me this #4: Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Girls, Haven, August: Osage County
I have written long and often about my love of really clever, visually striking movie and TV promotional artwork. Not everything produced in the art department salt mines of the movie studios and Tv networks is worth featuring of course but a great deal of it is, since let’s Continue Reading
Movie review: Enough Said
Enough Said is one of those rare romantic comedies that actually feels like it’s happening in a reasonably good approximation of real life. There are no gilded cages, no idealised lives, no perfect romantic moments unsullied by the odd misstep – it’s all delightfully, painfully, awkwardly real and a Continue Reading
Hooray for Halloween #1: Funny or Die’s pop culture fright night
You think werewolves, and skeletons and goblins and vampires (oh my!) are truly scary? You don’t know scary! Wait ’til you’ve seen Billy Eichner and Rachel Dratch from Funny or Die, a “comedy video website founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company, Gary Sanchez Productions” (wikipedia) go through Continue Reading
Movie review: The Butler
It is very early on in Lee Daniel’s The Butler that the world in which Cecil Gaines, a character loosely based on the life of black White House butler-turned-maitre d’hotel Eugene Allen, a man who dutifully served eight US Presidents from Eisenhower to Reagen,is brought starkly to horrifying life. In Continue Reading
Back to the Future the musical? Yes please!
Great Scott! Could they be making a Back to the Future musical? Alas no, not yet but if they did, and they totally should, this would be the perfect song to include in it! The amazingly talented folks at Cinefix have made one of their legendary Homemade Movies, starring Continue Reading
Weekend Pop Art #8: Grumpy Cat and Disney together? Believe it!
Grumpy Cat, a feline who has yet to find a person, event or circumstance he can’t regard with glum disinterest, and the inhabiter of one of the more prevalent, virulent, and yes, hilarious memes on the worldwide web, has been embraced by Disney. Well in a manner of speaking. Continue Reading
Movie review: Captain Phillips
It is an oft used axiom that there are always two sides to every coin. But mainstream movie makers have not always been quick to honour this truism, often preferring to render their protagonists as all-capable three dimensional beings for whom no task is too great and no victory Continue Reading