movies Page 13 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Donnie Yen Is The Tom Hanks Of Kicking Ass In <em>Ip Man</em>
On a good day, Hong Kong's Donnie Yen is the greatest working movie star on the face of the earth. Even in bad movies, he has a light charm, a gracefulness that shines brighter than anything his Hollywood peers can offer. There's a warmth in his presence, a gliding dignity. The sparkle in his eye ri...
Stop Making Sense: The Lunkheaded Genius Of <em>Big Trouble In Little China</em>
In 1988's Die Hard—probably the most perfect and pure American action movie ever made—we met Bruce Willis's John McClane, a different kind of action hero. McClane wasn't an ultra-capable superman, but instead a resourceful, slippery, one-liner-slinging everyman, not to mention, sometimes, a smarmy a...
The Lebowskis Who Might Have Been: Behind The Scenes With The Coens
When I was 25 I got a job with the Coen brothers. I'd worked on three movies as an apprentice film editor and got a gig with them as a personal assistant when they made The Big Lebowski. I was with them for a year, from before pre-production through post-production (when they edited the movie, I tra...
Warm Your Heart With A Supercut Of Kids Swearing In Movies
There's something disarming about a little kid swearing. It's shocking and delightful at the same time, even though it's not supposed to be encouraged. That's real life, though. This supercut of children cursing in movies, however, can be enjoyed without guilt. Embrace the profanity, especially "bun...
Mitchum: Mr. Bad Taste And Trouble Himself
The latest Stacks reprint over at The Daily Beast gives Robert Ward's 1983 Rolling Stone profile of Robert Mitchum:...
Yakuza Throwing Frisbees: The Graceful Savagery Of <em>Sonatine</em>
In 1994, the year after he released his lyrical yakuza movie Sonatine, the Japanese movie star and director Takeshi Kitano got into a bad motor-scooter accident. He came away with half of his face paralyzed. You almost couldn't tell....
Cruise Control: The Loopy Terror Of <em>Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol</em>
Tom Cruise is not like us. This was always pretty evident, but as recently detailed in this great Amy Nicholson L.A. Weekly story, it became inescapable fact around 2005, when he jumped on Oprah Winfrey's couch. That story is full of convincing evidence that the whole couch episode didn't happen t...
Desert Island Discs
Dig this post over at Cinephilia and Beyond. It hips us to a great BBC 4 radio show, Desert Island Discs. Check out interviews with Michael Caine, Stephen Frears, Mel Brooks, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Bob Hoskins and many more....
Georgia WR Chris Conley Made A <em>Star Wars</em> Fan Film And It's Great
Georgia WR Chris Conley is an unabashed Star Wars geek. What started as a simple attempt to get some mock lightsaber battles going around campus eventually morphed into this: Retribution, a fan film with some ridiculously good production values....
One Fight In Bangkok: The Holy-Shit Elation Of <em>Ong-Bak</em>
There are stuntmen in Thailand willing to do ridiculous things without wires, motion-capture suits, or green screens helping them out. In Born to Fight, that meant fighting atop moving trucks. In Ong-Bak 2, that meant running on the backs of moving elephants. And in 2003's original Ong-Bak, that m...
Melissa McCarthy's Self-Made Waterloo: <em>Tammy</em>, Reviewed
1. So what happened here, exactly? Tammy is a passion project for Melissa McCarthy—she co-wrote the film with her husband, Ben Falcone, who also directed and has a small role as a fast-food manager—and she spent nearly a decade trying to make it. So why is it so, so terrible? This is the movie McCa...
R.I.P. Paul Mazursky
Rest in Peace, Paul Mazursky. He made some memorable movies, particularly Harry & Tonto. I've always had a soft spot for Moscow on the Hudson. This scene is nice to revisit as July 4th approaches. ...
Saying Goodbye To Roger Ebert: <em>Life Itself</em>, Reviewed
When Roger Ebert died on April 4, 2013, it felt like a death in the family, not only because I'm a film critic, but because he and Gene Siskel are a huge part of the reason why. The different incarnations of their Siskel & Ebert show were instrumental in my upbringing, driving home the idea that ...
Walter Matthau, '70s Action Hero: The Lurid Charms Of <em>Charley Varrick</em>
For much of his adult life, Walter Matthau looked like a weathered chew-toy version of Ronald Reagan, not like anyone's idea of an action hero. But for a three-movie run of early-'70s crime thrillers, he made a case for himself as one of the all-time great movie tough guys, a calm and sardonic every...
Unfairly Slimed: It's Time To Forgive <em>Ghostbusters II</em>
In the weeks leading up to June 16, 1989, I can only imagine how incessantly my seven-year-old self pestered my parents to go see Ghostbusters II. I spent years obsessed with the 1984 original, once watching it on repeat from the moment I woke up to the moment I got sent to bed, wearing my plastic p...
The Real Ultraviolence: In Praise Of <em>Riki-Oh: The Story Of Ricky</em>
If you're old, you might remember a time before Jon Stewart hosted The Daily Show, and instead Sportscenter's own Craig Kilborn sat in his chair. If you're old with bad taste like me, you might remember being deeply annoyed when Stewart took over, mostly because he immediately did away with his pred...
The Making Of The Geneal
As I've mentioned here in the past, Buster Keaton is one of my heroes. So you can imagine how stoked I was to read this in the San Francisco Examiner: ...