Project Nim, James Marsh’s documentary biopic of the ’70s chimp picked to endure an “experiment” in simian sign language and general neglect, pulls human heartstrings as wrenchingly as any creature feature in nearly half a century. Following brown-eyed beauty Nim, by turns cuddly and ferocious, from an Oklahoma cage to…
Terri, directed by Azazel Jacobs, concerns an obese 15-year-old, a de facto orphan, living in a ramshackle home with a dispirited, perhaps mentally ill uncle for whom he has to care. Although a near-pariah at school, Terri — played by Jacob Wysocki in an impressive debut — is comfortable with…
In Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Nina (Li Bingbing) is a Shanghai career girl who drops plans to move to New York when she learns her estranged bestie, Sophie (Gianna Jun), is in a coma. Soon Nina discovers the manuscript of a novel that Sophie had been writing, which…
Most people know Crispin Glover as Marty McFly’s father, the Thin Man in Charlie’s Angels or Willard, the rat loving psychopath. What he isn’t known for is performance art. Until now. Glover has been touring the world with his wildly weird two-night, one-man show, Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show,…
As Warner Bros. and JK Rowling finally put away the wands and golden snitches for the last time (while peeling our death grip off the books as we bawl in denial), we’re taking a look at the final installment of the Harry Potter franchise. I was fortunate enough to see…
The Emmy nominations came out yesterday. Since I don’t have HBO, and since the Emmys are pretty much an HBO cast party, I didn’t spend too much time with the nominations, but I did take a moment to control-find the names of my two favorite shows: Community, NBC’s ode to…
Only the biggest and coolest Potterphiles will be the ones queuing up for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 2 tonight as we anxiously wait for the clock to strike 12:01 a.m. As somewhat mature adults, it’s generally frowned upon to go all out with a head-to-toe Harry Potter costume…
Here’s what reality TV does: It takes the worst stereotypes about places and people and rolls them up into one big awful stereotype and then it makes a show about how “real” it is. Meet Texas Women, a new reality series premiering tonight at 9 p.m. on cable’s CMT channel…
Lately, my evenings have been filled with DVR sessions of the Oprah Winfrey Network, and more specifically, with Season 25: Behind the Scenes, the reality program chronicling the backstage business of the mogul’s final season of her syndicated talk show. I’m far from being an Oprah drone, but that is…
There’s a dark uprising on the Internet currently happening. Yesterday a bootleg trailer for The Dark Knight Rises showed up online. Many websites that garner almost a million unique hits per day posted it, some with misleading headlines, and Warner Bros. was quick to put out a cease and desist…
After 10 years and seven movies, we’ve finally arrived: Bespectacled Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) squares off against amphibian-faced Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. It’s a climax of truly epic proportions, not only for its narrative import but for the fact that it…
Does Jill Zarin have anything in common with June Cleaver? If you watch any of the Real Housewives shows on Bravo, you have to wonder if kids are growing up now not knowing what a “housewife” is. June Cleaver, if you don’t remember black and white TV, was Beaver and…
We’ve been following the work of actor Brian J. Smith since he was a student at Plano’s Collin College, so it’s a kick to see that he’s been cast as Blake Lively’s new love interest on the TV series Gossip Girl. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Smith grew up…
“This is Frank Drebin, Police Squad. Throw down your guns, and come on out with your hands up. Or come on out, then throw down your guns, whichever way you wanna do it. Just remember the two key elements here: one, guns to be thrown down; two, come on out!”…
There’s a scene in Horrible Bosses in which Jennifer Aniston, playing a dentist who habitually sexually harasses her weakling male hygienist (Charlie Day), repeatedly says the word “pussy.” Her character is trying to intimidate his, while the filmmakers attempt to shock the audience with the spectacle of this lady rom-com…
Now that the Casey Anthony case is over — not guilty on all murder counts, guilty only of four misdemeanors — will cable news be able to give it up? More specifically, will Dr. Drew? This case has become cable news’ hillbilly heroin and it’ll be hard for them to…
For a movie called Larry Crowne, it sure is tough to get a solid read on the character of Larry Crowne. Directed, co-written by and starring Tom Hanks in that title role, the film seems to want to be some kind of post-recessional pick-me-up, an “It Gets Better” video for…
The two hours and 34 minutes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon are loaded with unimaginable violence, but only one spasm left the audience speechless at the theater where I watched it. They cheered the robot-on-robot slugfests, rendered in terabyte-straining slow motion and splashing Decepticon blood (oil?). The destruction of…
We suppose you could call it a drive-up movie theater. This Friday, the Filmmobile, a straight-outta-LA school bus catering to all things cinematic, sets up shop outside the Kessler Theatre for a night of solar-powered film screenings, live music, and bingo under the stars. Currently in the midst of a…
From Tad Friend’s New Yorker profile of Anna Faris (which Jezebel.com reblogged under the headline “Hollywood Insiders Admit Hollywood Hates Women”) to the glass-ceiling-shattering pressure assigned to last month’s Bridesmaids (which has thus far outgrossed every previous Judd Apatow project since Knocked Up), a case could be made that 2011…
The documentary Audience Award winner at this year’s Sundance festival, Buck follows itinerant horse trainer Buck Brannaman as he applies his uniquely humane and frankly astounding methods in four-day clinics around the country. If that sounds as exciting as watching hay turn yellow, director Cindy Meehl finds the real story…
“I am angry,” Conan O’Brien admits in Rodman Flender’s tour doc Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop. “I’m trying not to be…but sometimes I’m so mad I can’t even breathe.” Prohibited from appearing on television for six months after his early 2010 break with NBC, Conan hit the road, capitalizing on his…
