Daily Dump for Wednesday (February 23)

by Ryan Syrek

In a mere 4 days, I'm live-tweeting the Oscars. I like saying that because it sounds like I'm going to be there. I won't be. I'll probably be pantsless on my couch, sipping inexpensive whiskey. This also means that 2 days from now I give you all the winners, along with my rants about who should win (cough, Inception, cough) but won't. Again, to all my friends on Facebook (which has my twitter...

German Engineering

by Ben Coffman

Unknown

Forget Harley-Davidsons and 20-something girlfriends — the newest trend for male leads having their second mid-life crisis is action films. Two years ago, 50-something Liam Neeson starred in the surprisingly OK Taken, a high-body-count revenge flick that had him practicing his “combat roll and reload” sequences. His latest foray is Unknown, a good-enough-for-February film that doesn’t...

Cutting Room for February 23

by Ryan Syrek

• It’s official, Baz Luhrmann’s impending favor to high school English students (aka, a new remake of The Great Gatsby) will be shot in 3D. You know, because social allegories are more wicked awesome when things fly at your head. Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan are rumored to star, so at least the faces flying at your face will be pretty faces.

• GQ has more than just...

Death and Debt

by Justin Senkbile

Biutiful

Set in a dismal-looking Barcelona and following a character with amazingly bad luck, Biutiful slathers on the misery like few other movies do. But misery is nothing new for its director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, the man behind several other bleak pictures, including Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Biutiful is a big movie that's slightly overloaded with ideas and impressions but held together...

Daily Dump for Tuesday (February 22)

by Ryan Syrek

Last week's unexpected absence was...unexpected... Riiiight. Look, I'm not going to pretend I'm not slightly off my game. I could go into the blah-blah-blah and rigmarole that has resulted in more disruptions in my publishing schedule in the last 3 months than in the last 3 years, but you come here to be entertained and not explained at. My question is this: Do you read this blog on the daily? Do...

Monsters Vs. Illegal Aliens

by Ben Coffman

DVD Discovery: Monsters

Don’t let the generic title of Monsters fool you — it’s really a pretty unique film. With an estimated budget of $800,000, which is the latte and donuts budget for most Hollywood movies, Monsters offers some surprisingly big-time special effects. But the real story behind the film’s creation is its super-cheap on-location guerilla shooting style, in which the film’s crew (one...

Just Get it Over With

by Justin Senkbile

Just Go With It

Just Go With It is the latest Dennis Dugan–directed Adam Sandler vehicle. Standing at the ticket counter, the title reads more like a desperate plea for audience members. That probably isn't the case, since it was basically designed to make lots of money. But it’s such a benign and unnecessary movie that it's nice to imagine.

It takes a while to get to the meat of things, but the idea is...