A clever director can do quite a bit with little more than a handful of serviceable actors, a vehicle and an open road. In fact, David Lynch, Alexander Payne and Terrence Malick have all made films using these key ingredients. Long car trips and rest stops in strange places can force friends and families alike…
Hollywood demands plenty from directors. In a forest of remade classics, “Chipmunks” sequels and other safe, dependable investments, studios want bankable reasons to invest in innovation. Indie filmdom has long been a launchpad for Hollywood careers, but only a select few filmmakers can claim to have gone against the grain with enough force to change…
Ridley Scott surprised the world with a new breed of sci-fi thriller when his film “Alien” hatched in 1979. Scott’s latest project “Prometheus” will drill a bit further into the “Alien”-verse, and although the movie will explore new story territory, actor Michael Fassbender praised his director’s classic approach to building suspense. “It’s a slow burn,”…
The year 2012 means terrible things for people who believe that the world will end along with the Mayan calendar on December 21. Thankfully, we have decades of movies to look back on and learn how to deal with whatever the apocalypse has to throw at us. Biblical prophecies, Mayan prophecies and Jedi prophecies have…
David Lynch, Meg Ryan and Jim Jarmusch all have one thing in common–for some reason, coffee has been a recurring set piece over the course of their careers. The ubiquitous caffeinated beverage’s power to stimulate the brain and draw people together over conversation has propelled storylines in many of their films, and they are not…
It takes good cops and bad cops alike to make a good interrogation scene work. Movie history is littered with loose-canon detectives and unorthodox strategies for getting tight-lipped suspects to talk, and whether the scenes make you laugh at Harold and Kumar or cry because you’re watching James Bond get his scrotum smashed, they do…
“The Lion King” roared back into theaters and grossed nearly $30 million at the box office last weekend, all thanks to its new 3D treatment. That was enough dough to earn the re-release a No. 1 slot over “Contagion” and “Drive,” and stun cynics who may have doubted audience interest in the 3D-ification of a…
R.E.M.’s Wednesday break-up announcement placed a bookend after 2011′s “Collapse Into Now,” officially making it the group’s final studio album (barring any unforeseen reunions). Their sound has floated and meandered since original drummer Bill Berry left the band in 1997. Left to their own devices, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills stayed productive, but…
Nike didn’t wait until 2015 to make their “Back to the Future Part II”-inspired Nike Mags available, instead opting to put their kicks on the eBay auction block last week. That’s all well and good, and with any luck the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research will rake in a pile of helpful cash…
