The cast of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, the previous Jane Austen modernization from producers Bernie Su and Hank GreenBernie Su and Hank Green captured the hearts, iPhones, Pinterest pages, Instagram accounts and GetGlue music playlists of teens across America with their 2012 series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which updated Pride…
Dexter’s final season has come to an end, and with a still mourning heart, it’s time to say goodbye. Before the final episode aired, a touching reel of the cast saying thank you to fans played, in which Jennifer Carpenter (Debra) let us know that, “We’re going out the way…
The Birthday Boys with executive producer Bob Odenkirk, centerAn actor’s unique look can accentuate any comedy performance. On an August Sunday afternoon at a private home in Sherman Oaks, Tim Kalpakis, a member of sketch group the Birthday Boys, with a Dick Tracy–square jaw, is prepping a bit as a…
It’s been 19 years since Arsenio Hall last barked at the camera, and the world has changed. Shoulder pads are passé (“Unless you play football, you can’t have them anymore,” Hall jokes), hip-hop is mainstream and, after our so-called first black president, the country elected a real one — and…
Rainstorms threatened Miami all day yesterday, but somebody up there must really love vintage movies in a retro, open-air setting. Blue Starlite Miami Urban Drive-In launched its soft opening week last night with Pretty in Pink and damn near perfect weather. The lot was already nearing capacity at around 8…
We have just four days until Dexter leaves our TV screens for good. With only one episode remaining, we can’t help but speculate what will happen to our protagonist – and some of the rest of the characters, for that matter. The possibilities are endless, but there is one thing…
Single ladies of Miami, count yourselves lucky. Maybe you’ve made your way through every stereotype in the book, and maybe the slim pickings in this town have made you lower your standards. But look at it this way: At least you’re not single in Alaska. Unless you like your men…
When a relatively young actor dies suddenly, as James Gandolfini did in June, it’s tempting to wonder about the roles he’ll never get to play. When we didn’t know we’d be losing him so soon, it was always fun to see Gandolfini show up, a casual surprise: In 2012 alone,…
If five Oscar nominees lose two young girls in the woods, will their wailing make a sound? That’s the key question of Prisoners, Denis Villeneuve’s prestigious puffery about a father (Hugh Jackman) and a cop (Jake Gyllenhaal) trying to catch a kidnapper. Prisoners is a dog whistle for Academy voters…
Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s C.O.G. is the first film to be based on the work of David Sedaris. It’s clearly a passion project for Alvarez, and the picture is faithful to the events of the autobiographical story “C.O.G.,” about Sedaris working in rural Oregon to see how “real” people live (and…
Forbidden fruit has never seemed so poisonous than in Thanks for Sharing, a remarkably sensitive and surprisingly romantic ensemble drama about sex addiction. A winsome mix of funny, harrowing, and smart, it’s most commendable for making characters who are addicted to bad behavior — and who refuse to blame themselves…
It might take the viewer a moment to realize that the voiceover guiding us through director Mark Kendall’s documentary La Camioneta is meant to be the thoughts of one of the refurbished buses that are part of the film’s focus. In dulcet tones, the audience is served a healthy portion…
There’s something unsettling about Anne Fontaine’s Adore, and, surprisingly, it has nothing to do with the film’s two middle-aged women who fall in love with each other’s teenage sons. The cougars in question are Lil and Roz, best friends since childhood played with notable earnestness by Naomi Watts and Robin…
Just as tedious as waiting in a dentist’s office for an hour and a half, Lynn Shelton’s latest fumblingly cutesy outing ought to be her last. (Sadly, it is not — she’s already wrapped production on a dark comedy starring Keira Knightley and Sam Rockwell.) Using a script instead of…
You have every reason to be skeptical. We’ve suffered years of 3D cash-grabs. This spring visited upon us a cheap-jack James Franco grimacing through the stubbornly un-magical Oz the Great and Powerful. And the movies have only gotten L. Frank Baum right precisely once, in 1939. Return to Oz,Walter Murch’s…
Early in the documentary Generation Iron, bodybuilding icon Arnold Schwarzenegger observes that “Bodybuilding falls into this unique category of being a sport, entertainment, being a way of life, and art.” It’s an uneasy quartet of ideas forced to harmonize within bodies intentionally made freakish and/or beautiful. Director Vlad Yudin spends…
Lizzy Caplan as Virginia Johnson and Michael Sheen as William MastersIn 1957, the same year that The Ed Sullivan Show refused to shoot Elvis below the waist, a gynecologist and a former nightclub singer began hooking strangers up to electrodes and asking them to fuck in the name of science…
Long before Arnold was the Governator, the Terminator, or cheating hubby of Maria Shriver, he was the original meathead. A legend in the bodybuilding world, Schwarzenegger was immortalized onscreen in the classic bodybuilding flick Pumping Iron. Arnold’s achievements launched a generation of bodybuilders who’ve since taken the sport to new…
Dexter the show is gearing up to finish its successful eight year run, and Dexter the character is gearing up to start a new life with a new wife. Both events were blatantly paralleled in last night’s eleventh episode. It began with the ceremonial cleansing of the hands – as…
Survivor is back for its 27th season on CBS, and this time around the twist is that previous contestants return to the island and will be competing with relatives or significant others, hence the title: Blood vs. Water. Kat Edorsson, 24, Orlando native and Survivor: One World alum, returns this…
In Andrew Bujalski’s admirable, vaunted 2002 debut, Funny Ha Ha, the microbudget auteur and occasional actor’s nervous temp, Mitchell, ineffectually attempts to seduce an aloof young lady over a bedroom chess match. As if pawns themselves, dependably obeying the established rules of conduct, the characters in Bujalski’s films are consistently…
Like The Wire or Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s oeuvre, Short Term 12 is the kind of film that sounds agonizingly depressing on paper but mesmerizes onscreen. It’s a delicate yet passionate creation, modest in scope but almost overwhelming in its emotional intricacy, ambition, and resonance. Easily one of the best…
