I’ve had my fair share of eccentric teachers. In junior high, there was Mr. Plotsker, who despite being fit as a horse, walked with a cane. Sometimes he would twirl it around during long-winded lectures. Other times, he’d pretend it was a machine gun. “Close, but no cigar,” he’d proclaim, pointing its end towards a…
In 2003 Brian Douglas Wells, a high school dropout, pizza deliveryman, and “valued employee” of the Mama Mia Pizzeria, was double-crossed by Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes, his co-conspirators in a botched robbery plot. On the afternoon of August 28th, at the end of a dirt road, the crooks fastened a time bomb to Wells’…
What a little gem of a film is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Many would put it in the often-mentioned “best films you’ve never seen” category, and I would not be one to argue. Shane Black sits in the director’s chair for the first (and to date, only) time and co-wrote the screenplay to this part…
Dancing, they say, can change the world. Kevin Bacon used it to change the little town of Bomont in 1984’s “Footloose.” Kenny Wormald gets to do it in the remake, although I’m not quite sure why. MTV’s telling of Footloose, of which the trailer was released today, updates the dance moves and the kids’ ever…
Just because a film is made for children does not mean it needs to be childish; just because a film stars Heather Graham does not mean it has to be awful; just because a film attempts to salute the nostalgic summers of our past youth does not mean a person should want to put a…
What is the obsession many Hollywood writers have with bathroom humor? Have American standards of comedy sunk so far that the only way to illicit a laugh nowadays is to resort to the lowest possible denominator? Have the Three Stooges (once the lowest of lowbrow comedy) become the gold standard of guffaws? I ask these…
Origin stories aren’t just for Marvel or DC superhero movies anymore — DreamWorks Animation Studio’s Puss in Boots is taking a page from its hero brethren. With the closing of the cash cow that was the “Shrek” film series, it was only natural for the studio to spin-off one of the more memorable characters. The…
