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Exclusive download: Corporal, featuring Michael Shannon, presents “Glory”
By Jennifer Vineyard A small-town funeral director kills the wealthiest widow around, stuffs her body in a freezer, and pretends she’s still alive so he can keep spending her money. Not only is that the plot of Richard Linklater’s latest comedy “Bernie” starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine, but it’s also a true story: Bernie…
Today, Richard Linklater’s latest film “Bernie” arrives in theaters. It’s the director’s fifteenth feature film – at least since “Slackers” made a national splash in 1991 – and he, like a number of other filmmakers who emerged in the early ‘90s, has enjoyed more of a flirtation with mainstream moviemaking than a full-fledged relationship. But…
Richard Linklater has gained a devoted following thanks to films like “Before Sunrise,” “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly.” For his new project, “Bernie,” he reteams with his “School of Rock” star Jack Black for a dark comedy about a mortician who befriends a cranky, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine). When she dies (not considered a…
The Playlist spotted an incredibly cool and suprisingly informative interview with actor Ethan Hawke over at the French magazine Allocine. Instead of asking Hawke questions, they played him various musical tracks that connected to his career and let him free associate responses. So if they played him “Paperback Writer” by The Beatles, he’d talk about…
It’s fall! Which we’re pretty sure means stuff is going to start falling from the sky, so you should probably stay inside, where it is safe, and watch television. We are just looking out for your best interests. Here’s what to watch on IFC this week: Monday His “Slacker” was the quintessential 90s movie, but…
Remember way back in Vacation Bible School or studying for your bar mitzvah or when you were watching that Hilary Swank end-of-days movie and heard about some plagues that were all the rage in the Old Testament? No? Well back in Biblical times when God got ticked off he would send down plagues of blood…
Toni Collette is returning to Australia to work with director PJ Hogan for the first time since the two collaborated on their breakthrough film “Muriel’s Wedding” 17 years ago on a comedy called “Mental,” in which Collette is expected to star as a caretaker for a politician’s family of seven that has recently seen their…
Aqua Teen Hunger Force notwithstanding, fast food is not your friend. Sure it’s quick, tasty, and cheap, but it’s not good for you. We all know that, but it’s easy to ignore when facing down a mean hunger and a plate of cheese fries. Eric Schlosser’s cautionary tale Fast Food Nation is a good reminder…
While there’s still fuss being made over the Oscars considering a date change, some of the rule changes announced last week have received less attention. Among them, the Visual Effects category will now have five nominations instead of three, which makes sense — there’s just too much groundbreak effects work getting done every year for…
Angela Ismailos probably wasn’t intending herself to be included when she gave her film the simple title, “Great Directors,” but when the film played to a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival last year, Ismailos figured they were just applauding for the ten internationally renowned auteurs she profiles. “Todd Haynes was like ‘get up!’”…
Robert Rodriguez is one of the only directors whose highest aspiration is creating instant camp trash — for him, disposability is immortality. And yet, the so-called “illegal” trailer for the upcoming “Machete” cracked me up far more than its origin, as an over-obvious fake-exploitation trailer in “Grindhouse.” What started out as another Rodriguez cheapie has…
There are hundreds of movies that the world at large isn’t aware of until they show up at the local multiplex, but there are very few of note that go completely unnoticed. You have to wonder if there’s something fundamentally wrong with a film culture where JJ Abrams’ best laid plans to surprise audiences with…
Following the same principle that dictates that any band that jumps from the underground to the mainstream loses its street cred, it’s safe to say that “mumblecore” — an initially jokey tag subsequently attached to a series of movies that really did have something in common for a while — is all but dead. The…
Quentin Tarantino — after years of enthusiastically proselytizing on behalf of his favorite films (all 3,000 of them) — seems to finally be getting a little edgy about discussing his influences. And for good reason. “Every time [critics] review my movies,” he complains to Patrick Goldstein at the LA Times, “it’s like they want to…
Over the weekend, two of ’90s indie cinema’s now-struggling emeritus directors returned to the cinematic landscape, one to far more noise than the other. Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” finally opened nationally and came out soft, its per-screen average of $3,453 hardly much better than the animated flop “Planet 51.” Whether things will pick up…
Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” is about one man from many perspectives. As a reporter travels the country in search of the meaning of Charles Foster Kane’s last words, he hears stories about the man from wives, co-workers, friends, and guardians, all of whom see Kane’s life differently. In the trailer, Welles describes the many dimensions…
Between his roles in the Broadway musical adaptation “Hairspray,” two seasons on the WB series “Summerland” and the unholy Disney Channel trilogy “High School Musical,” blue-eyed, pert-nosed actor and singer Zac Efron’s become a heartthrob to young girls en masse. Now just 22 years old, he’s begun to diversify in his career pickings, following up…
End times are with us again, it seems, peaking in the American brainpan beyond even the levels enjoyed during the Cold War, and doubtlessly fed by the river of fear-mongering napalm that pours forth from 24-hour news channels, instant cyber-crises and always-alarmed personal media. How could we stand a chance, when plugged into so many…
Families arriving at the multiplex for a little pre/post-turkey entertainment have two choices — separate off into your respective age/gender demographics and indulge yourselves, or stick together in a tragic statement of family unity and purchase seven tickets for “Old Dogs.” The choice, it is yours. Download this in audio form (MP3: 10:52 minutes, 10…
“Dazed and Confused” is effectively beloved by everyone who’s seen it — including me — so I got uber-excited about the prospect of Richard Linklater making a “spiritual sequel.” And now it’s dead on the ground. It was apparently called “That’s What I’m Talking About,” in honor — we presume — of the kind of…
Richard Linklater’s “Me And Orson Welles” — which has been kicking around for a year since its premiere at Toronto 2008 — finally has a distribution deal in place, and it’s a doozy. The company that funded it — Cinemanx, based on the Isle of Man — has partnered with no less than four others…
“This movie’s a comedy, I guess,” director Jody Hill said in his introduction to “Observe and Report,” the Seth Rogen-starring entry into the burgeoning mall cop genre. If Hill wasn’t quite certain about what he had on his hands before the film played to a packed Paramount Theater, he could rest easy after the “weird-ass”…
