Pet Project

by Ben Coffman

Rango

Citing the need to do a smaller film after his work on the bigger-than-life Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, director Gore Verbinski managed to once again rip Johnny Depp loose from Tim Burton’s greedy grasp in the hopes of creating a slightly goofy animated Western. With its painstakingly precise animation and a giant cast of vibrant characters, the film Rango turned into anything but a...

Hats Entertainment

by Ryan Syrek

The Adjustment Bureau

Although he doesn’t get name-checked, the Almighty plays an invisible supporting role in The Adjustment Bureau, the first Philip K. Dick short story adaptation to morph from science-fiction to theology-fiction. Despite the illusion of crushing doom promoted by the dour, oppressive orchestral music in the trailers, writer/director George Nolfi’s fable is actually a sweetly simple,...

Passion Unmasked

by Leo Adam Biga

In the space of a few years Charles Fairbanks has gone from conventional prep and collegiate wrestler to one of the few gringo performers of Lucha Libre, Mexico’s equivalent of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). Amid a world of masked figures with exotic alter egos, Fairbanks performs as the One-Eyed Cat. It's not what you'd expect from this cerebral, soft-spoken, fair-skinned rural...

Taking OFF

by Leo Adam Biga

Film festivals are the brothels of cinema. High-end ones offer uniform quality. Low-rent ones are enter-at-your-own-risk propositions. In its sixth year, the Omaha Film Festival, showing now through March 6 at the Great Escape Theatre, is a mid-level cine-fest with a-heart-of-gold that keeps putting out. Top-tier is the Saturday-Sunday film/screenwriting conference, whose panels feature major...

Cutting Room for March 2

by Ryan Syrek

• Of all the ways to stuff a piggy bank, a discussion with director Steven Soderbergh is the most enjoyable way to plug the pork. Film Streams’ Ruth Sokolof Theater (filmstreams.org) turned Feature III, their annual can’t-miss fundraising gala, into a wickedly profitable venture. The event raised more than $217,000 and some interesting questions regarding Soderbergh’s retirement. Soderbergh...

Middle Aged Kids

by Justin Senkbile

Hall Pass

It’s a time-tested formula: take some stars, sex, a bit of compassion and an absurd plot device, filter it through the mind of a 12-year-old boy, and you’ve got a Farrelly brothers picture. Bobby and Peter, creators of There's Something About Mary, are back with Hall Pass. Depending on how you like your jokes, that’s mildly good or very bad news.

Rick (Owen Wilson) is a mostly content,...

Glass Case of Emotion

by Ryan Syrek

DVD Discovery: Fish Tank

If Miley Cyrus were around 12 times as edgy as her calculatedly smutty videos suggest, Mia Williams (Katie Jarvis) would still eat that priss for breakfast and put a cigarette out on her eye. With a tongue that links staggering expletives into a nonstop chain of filth, Mia is 15-year-old trailer-trash living in an Essex estate in not-so-great Britain. Dispelling the concept that the...