AltWeeklies Wire
'Choke': How to Turn a Cult Novel into a Movienew
Making your first film is challenging enough. But writing and directing a movie about a sex addict who intentionally chokes on food in restaurants to engender sympathy and make money? Well, that's something else entirely.
San Diego CityBeat |
Anders Wright |
09-24-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Choke, Clark Gregg
Five Shows to Watch Before the New Season Beginsnew
With the new fall TV schedule getting underway, now's the perfect time to play catch-up, renting "Complete First Season" DVDs for shows you might have missed on the first go-around. Here are our top choices to get you prepped for premiere week.
Weekly Alibi |
Devin D. O’Leary |
09-23-2008 |
TV
'Lakeview Terrace': Suburban Nightmarenew
Oh, to live to see such a rarity: a horror movie for grown-ups!
Colorado Springs Independent |
Maryann Johanson |
09-23-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Neil LaBute, Lakeview Terrace
Finding Joy in the Little Things at the Toronto Film Festnew
Speaking strictly in percentage terms, film festivals are defined more by the movies you don't see than the movies you do. That went double for the just-ended Toronto International Film Festival, where the initial buzz was mainly concerned with the lack of putative Oscar contenders.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
09-23-2008 |
Movies
'Lakeview Terrace' Takes Liberties with One Couple's True Storynew
It seems Neil LaBute's Lakeview Terrace is an artistic rendition of the real-life story of John and Mellaine Hamilton, an interracial Altadena couple that has been locked in a number of bitter disputes with next-door neighbor Irsie Henry, an African-American former LAPD officer who has ended up in court over his disagreements with the Hamiltons.
Pasadena Weekly |
Carl Kozlowski |
09-23-2008 |
Movies
Tags: Neil LaBute, Lakeview Terrace
'Operation Filmmaker' is an Engrossing and, At Times, Infuriating Documentarynew
Not only are the connections driven home a little more forcefully than necessary, like the War In Iraq, Operation Filmmaker has no ending. Instead, it falls into a cycle of repetition until Davenport and her subject finally melt down beyond repair and the story, like much of life, goes unfinished. No conclusion is offered.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
09-23-2008 |
Reviews
Movie Buzz: Spike Lee Sounds Off
Spike Lee schools Clint Eastwood in World War II history in Miracle at St. Anna, Richard Gere teams up with Diane Lane for mature romance in Nights in Rodanthe, and Shia LaBeouf is framed as a terrorist in Eagle Eye.
Metro Spirit |
Mariah Gardner |
09-22-2008 |
Movies
'Igor': A Good Hunchnew
The latest it's-for-kids-but-it's-really-for-their-parents-too animated fantasy flick is Igor, starring the voice of John Cusack in the title role.
NOW Magazine |
Deirdre Swain |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Igor, Anthony Leondis
'Sukiyaki Western Django': Takashi Miike's Misfirenew
Set up in a brief, bizarre introduction by Quentin Tarantino in cowpoke garb, the film is the story of an introverted gunslinger who arrives in a remote village where two colour-coded gangs, the Genji Whites and the Heike Reds, are locked in an endless feud.
NOW Magazine |
Norman Wilner |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
Why It was Hard to Keep a Straight Face on the 'Ghost Town' Setnew
Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear sit down next to each other in a hotel room at the Four Seasons, surrounded by journalists, and within 10 seconds it's like Kinnear has vanished.
NOW Magazine |
Norman Wilner |
09-22-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Ghost Town, David Koepp
'Choke' Finds an Unexpected Vein of Sweetness in Chuck Palahniuk
Clark Gregg took Palahniuk's Choke as screenwriter and director and found another vein. Buried beneath the blasphemy and the bodily fluids and the self-loathing was a story about redemption. About recovery. About love.
Salt Lake City Weekly |
Scott Renshaw |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Towelhead': As Classy as Its Titlenew
Based on the acclaimed novel by Alicia Erian, the movie desperately wants to be pushy and transgressive. But it's so airless and devoid of empathy for its subjects the whole film seems to take place inside a hermetically sealed bubble of smugness.
Philadelphia Weekly |
Sean Burns |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Miracle at St. Anna' Shows War Isn't the Genre for Spike Lee
Spike Lee boxes outside of his directorial weight-class with a war story bogged down by ham-handed smacks of magical realism and over-pronounced examples of racial prejudice.
'Battle in Seattle': At Last, Our WTO Protests Hit the Silver Screennew
I'd love to tell you that Battle is a feat of guerrilla filmmaking or a Godardian critique of international capitalism, but it's conventional to its core.
Seattle Weekly |
Brian Miller |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Lakeview Terrace' is One of the Toughest Racial Dramas Hollywood's Seen Since Rodney Kingnew
By scrambling the typical power relationship Lakeview Terrace focuses our attention on power itself, and by plunging into the subject of black bigotry, still relatively taboo in mainstream movies, it gets us closer to the truth of bigotry in all its forms than we're liable to get watching another pious exercise in white atonement.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
