Chinese artist, activist and antagonist Ai Weiwei became a worldwide cause celebre last April when he was arrested by authorities at the Beijing Airport, detained in an undisclosed location for nearly three months, and released after allegedly confessing to tax evasion. The Sundance-feted documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry concludes shortly…
At one point in Killer Joe, a hideously funny tabloid noir set on the outskirts of Dallas County, Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch) is let into the family double-wide by a relation whose face has just been pummeled into a Rorschach blot of dried gore. He doesn’t stop to ask what…
Our sister paper The Village Voice has been around, like, forever and has some deep archives, including this December 28, 1967, review of The Graduate, which is being re-released, opening this week at the Angelika in Dallas. Enjoy.
Robert Rodriguez is shooting Machete Kills, the sequel to the 2010 film Machete (which was a feature based on the fake trailer used in Rodriguez’ Grindhouse). The film will feature two important things: Charlie Sheen as the President of the United States and Lady Gaga as La Chameleon. The Austin-based…
Thought we were just being bitchy with that headline, didn’t you. Thought it was run-of-the-mill Mixmaster snark. Not so fast. Larry Hagman’s eyebrows have been charming audiences with their devilish flourishes since the late 1980s, but they — and their stylist — are finally receiving their due thanks to an…
Sometimes your brain, just like your body, needs to be flushed of all the toxins you’ve been dumping into it, especially if you’ve been streaming a lot of Netflix. No remedy for that at Whole Foods, but the Dallas Film Society, along with Morning News critic Chris Vognar and the…
Michael Winterbottom is multitasking — like that’s a surprise. He has made a dozen films in the past decade, as varied as the Steve Coogan joints 24 Hour Party People and The Trip, the controversial Jim Thompson adaptation The Killer Inside Me and two radically different assessments of the War…
The Graduate turns 45 this year (and screens at the Angelika in 35mm starting next week), and as I started to reminisce about the film I noticed that I felt kinda blue. I started thinking about that beat-to-shit bus that young Dustin Hoffman and dreamy-eyed Katharine Ross hopped on in…
Christopher Nolan’s ponderous, pontifical action movies are written less as screenplays than as operator’s manuals, guiding an audience through assembling their important themes while scrupulously making sure you don’t miss a thing. This is as true of Inception, with its reams of expositional walk-through, as of Nolan’s superhero saga, now…
It’s well known that Snoop Dogg wasn’t “born” in the traditional sense. Instead he materialized, a wee Snoopling, on the set of a rap video, blunt tucked into his diaper. Dancers bounced him from breast to breast, letting him grab their giant earrings. They argued over who was allowed to…
Let’s get our priorities straight: You want to spend your cash on important stuff, like cocktails. And you want to drink a lot of them. It’s death-ray hot out, and science tells us quite clearly that If you don’t chug margaritas like an aspiring sorority pledge, you will die of…
See also: The Lie of IMAX Digital: The Dark Knight Rises Problem In a few days, Christopher Nolan’s cheek-clawingly anticipated final installment to his Batman saga will be unleashed. If you’ve been following those moving-picture-things-they release-on-the-web, it looks to go out in cacophonous, gritty bang. So, yes, The Dark Knight…
See also: A guide to the Asian Film Festival. Last night marked the opening of the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, which has showcased films from China, Japan, Korea and the rest of Asia for 11 years. While it’s becoming harder for Asian films to find success in the states…
See also: Will Ferrell’s visit to SMU. If you’ve watched any TV of late you’ve likely caught the above trailer for Campaign, the election-season send-up starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis as rival congressional candidates in the South. The movie opens August 10, and to promote it, its stars will…
And it looks, I must say, rather awesome. Read Jamie’s preview of the fest, and get details on the festival web site…
Distribution companies for Asian cinema have been in steady decline over the last decade, often citing illegal downloads and lackluster international market response when they fold. For lovers of the genre, this means fewer funds are being put toward the creation of new films, making it tougher for innovative talent…
Take This Waltz, director Sarah Polley’s second feature, is much like her first, 2006’s superb Away From Her, in that it thoughtfully probes the pitfalls of coupledom and third-party threats. Five years into their marriage, Torontonians Margot (Michelle Williams) and Lou (Seth Rogen) have regressed fully into sexlessness, heat and…
Not to knock films as fantastic as his Rachel Getting Married, The Silence of the Lambs and Something Wild, but there’s something wilder — or at least, more directly stimulating and pure — about Jonathan Demme’s live-performance docs. The 68-year-old auteur immortalized a Talking Heads show (and David Byrne’s oversized…
Bart Weiss is a man of many camera angles. He’s the artistic steering power behind the Dallas Video Festival (which enters its 25th installment this September), serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, and sits on the Board of Directors of…
Distribution companies for Asian cinema have been in steady decline over the last decade, often citing illegal downloads and lackluster international market response as the culprit when they fold. For lovers of the genre, this means that fewer funds are being put towards the creation of new films, making it…
Walter White’s life of crime began in a busted-up 1986 Fleetwood Bounder. For Dallas fans who have followed the Breaking Bad protagonist’s story since the beginning, the last ride begins on the Rooftop Patio at Sundown at Granada July 15, where the bar will screen every episode of the show’s…
Beasts of the Southern Wild may be director Benh Zeitlin’s first feature film, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. Aside from winning four awards at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year, the film got picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight – the studio behind…
