Pointy ears and a pretty face

by Ryan Syrek

Happy Wednesday to you. I would wish you a happy hump day, but nobody needs to be reminded about that creeper dude in your office who says that stuff in order to tight-rope walk the line of sexual harassment, as if one day, one attractive coworker is just going to declare "It's hump day?" and proceed to start disrobing. Oh what the hell, happy hump day.

Honestly, there hasn't been that much...

Cutting Room for December 8

by Ryan Syrek

• If you’re a loyal Reader reader — and why wouldn’t you be, you bright and sexy person — you have undoubtedly heard all about writer/director Nik Fackler and his darling, locally shot indie film Lovely, Still. Well, our little boy is “all grown up,” as Fackler was just nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. The awards ceremony will be shown on the IFC...

DVD Discovery: Magic Act

by Justin Senkbile

DVD Discovery: The Disappearance of Alice Creed

You know the feeling you get at the peak of a suspenseful scene? At the breathless moment where you’re waiting for the inevitable gunshot, the doom-laden footsteps or the damning, climactic line of dialogue? That simultaneously delightful and miserable squirminess? Well if you’re into that — and who isn’t, at least a little? — writer/director J Blakeson’s The Disappearance of Alice...

Give Him a Hand

by Ben Coffman

127 Hours

Those multi-tools sure do come in handy, don’t they? Okay, I swear that’s my last hand-related pun in reviewing Danny Boyle’s newest film 127 Hours. Boyle, the genius director who has brought us films as diverse as Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and 2008’s hugely popular Slumdog Millionaire, has again changed genres like some people change their shirts. This time, he’s appealing to the...

What a Crowe wants

by Ryan Syrek

I don't know if it's simply a matter of his size and notorious anger or just because I'm soft-brained, but I imagine that when the cameras stop rolling, Russell Crowe turns into someone who talks like the Incredible Hulk. "Crowe want be left alone! Crowe hungry! Crowe smash! Crowe make poor decisions on films of lesser quality because Crowe not stop to consider the ramifications of what he doing....

After you’re dead, George Lucas will take your soul

by Ryan Syrek

Good Tuesday morning to all of you! George Lucas is now collecting dead human souls.

Sorry, was that too abrupt for you first thing in the morning? Well, too bad. It's true. According to The Toronto Sun, McMidget the Throat Beard is buying the rights to dead actors like Orson Wells in an attempt to use computer voodoo and cyber jackassery to resurrect them, likely to make them sing and dance or...

Box Office Results - Weekend of 12/3/2010

by Ryan Syrek

So, if this is your first time seeing my accuracy for predicting the box office, you're going to want to look away. Normally, I'm pretty decent. You know, I pull down a solid B grade, sometimes get an A. This week, I was like George W. Bush taking a geography quiz, like a Wall Street banker answering morality-based questions, like a blood-stain-covered ax wielder taking a polygraph about the...