Los Angeles is an elastic city, the kind that people who have never been to feel comfortable projecting attributes on, usually based on nothing more than rumor, supposition, or a willingness to buy into popular cliches. Especially in the movies, it has the capacity to be all things for all…
Heterosexual Anglo moviegoers often find it difficult to understand why America’s various minority groups kick up a ruckus every now and then about the way they’re portrayed on movie screens. From Jesse Jackson’s protest outside this year’s Academy Awards ceremony to the recent condemnation of the action comedy Bulletproof from…
I was asking my buddy Rhett Beavers which was better–to kick your girlfriend out of the trailer house, or to get kicked out of the trailer house. I say, “Get kicked.” Much cleaner. You’re on the road five minutes later. If she ever sues you, you’re the victim. And, most…
Whenever food acts as a central component in a movie, it occupies a peculiar role–probably because, since eating is something everyone can relate to, it’s a reliable way to establish common ground with the audience even though everyone’s experience with it differs. Movie food delivers gratification without calories, even when…
I almost never react to situations the same way that people in movies do. Maybe I’m just too short-tempered and confrontational, but I always sense that if the hero isn’t as adept at defending himself against unwelcome verbal attacks as I imagine myself to be, then he’s not much of…
Last week I decided it was time to update my personal ad. I think it had something to do with Wanda Bodine telling me that I was “the kind of scumball that no sane woman would ever date.” First I tried my usual flat-out lies: “Michael Bolton-lover likes trips to…
No two films should be more dissimilar than Girls Town and The First Wives Club, which open this weekend in Dallas movie theaters. Girls Town spent most of 1996 as a hot indie flick on the festival circuit, its story of a trio of New Jersey high-school seniors who strike…
American Buffalo, with Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz parrying with playwright David Mamet’s razor-sharp dialogue, promised to be the sleeper tour de force of the season. The opportunity to see Mamet’s sharply honed lines bandied about by actors with an innate understanding of the rhythm of words should have been…
Going immediately to No. 1 on my Best of ’86 List was David Cronenberg’s drive-in masterpiece remake of The Fly, which was even better than the one Dave had already clocked in the Drive-In Hall of Fame, The Brood. What we got here is the same story as the 1958…
When filmmakers who already possess morbid, vibrant mentalities discover the topic of food obsession, duck. Audiences are likely to be splattered with all manner of deeply personal opinions about the human condition. Trouble is, our most neurotic talents in contemporary cinema know that a ritual so intimate as eating is…
Bill Watterston, the cartoonist who created Calvin & Hobbes, was so devoted to the concept of his strip–that a little boy’s toy tiger might actually come to life, but only he could see it–that he refused to merchandise the characters. It was as if making Hobbes a real stuffed animal…
Lately quite a few people have been calling me a “greasy yahoo redneck” or a “greasy redneck yahoo” or, for those who didn’t graduate eighth grade, a “jerk.” It feels good. I thought I’d lost the touch. It’s been years since I’ve gotten good, solid American hate mail, which always…
There were several reasons I had not anticipated reviewing The Island of Dr. Moreau. Not the least of these was that early word on the film wasn’t exactly brimming with enthusiasm. Val Kilmer reportedly was so difficult to work with that he had the first director fired, and Marlon Brando,…
The Brady Bunch Movie was a sleeper success last year, but the film itself wasn’t quite as good as the screenplay’s primary idea: setting the film in the ’90s, yet keeping the Bradys forever in the ’70s. (The Bradys aren’t too out of it; they have their own home page.)…
Has this ever happened to you? You’re watching one of the 347 cable boxing matches of the week. Let’s say it’s a match between Louie “Hammerhead” Santini and Frankie “Frank” Franklin. The announcer says: “Santini is wearing the diamond-checked trunks with gold trim and black piping. Franklin is wearing the…
Jean-Michel Basquiat was a middle-class kid from the suburbs when he first started living in a cardboard box in a New York City park in 1979. Jean wasn’t homeless as a result of financial necessity, nor was he mentally unstable. He was, instead, an artist. Using the signature “Samo,” he…
It’s hard to decide which we hear more often: that there are no good roles for women in commercial American cinema, or that this–fill in current calendar year–is The Year of the Woman in film. Whatever the case, there’s usually a self-serving public-relations motive lurking behind these proclamations. The women…
Today’s topic is The Phantom Boyfriend. I didn’t wanna talk about this. I really didn’t. But modern feminist propaganda has driven me to defend the male species. What’s the No. 1 complaint of women in the ’90s? “All men are liars.” How many times have we heard this in, like,…
As you watch The Spitfire Grill flicker by on the screen, it’s difficult not to ask yourself whether the writer-director, Lee David Zlotoff, honestly thought the movie he was making was a grand tragedy rather than a mere melodrama. Sure enough, as Zlotoff cautiously unfolds his sentimental tale–about a dreamy…
During a summer movie season dominated by a 300-pound celluloid gorilla named Independence Day, The USA Film Festival has offered a smashing August menu of sci-fi classics to remind moviegoers that once, not so long ago, the genre provided greater opportunities for audience involvement than thrills and chills. This is…
This is the time of year when Heifer Women insist on wearing white shorts that look like they were designed for Sumo wrestlers. What’s going on with this? Entire Wal-Marts are filled with human beanbag chairs stuffed into the kind of sportswear that only looks good on Gabriela Sabatini. In…
John Carpenter had big-studio backing after the sleeper success of his independent thriller, Halloween, yet his follow-up film, Escape from New York, had the same cheap, low-budget look of some cheesy B-movie made by a film-school geek–which, essentially, it was. The movie was pure silliness: Could any audience in 1981…
