TOY STORY 3 (2010): two movies in one
Dir. Lee Unkrich
Alamo South Lamar, 6/19/10, 1:45pm
Increasingly, the discourse surrounding Pixar films suggests that they truly are “family” movies, in that they contain something for the kids and something for the adults in the audience. To a certain extent, this has been true of films like Finding Nemo and Up, which featured heroes for [...]
Side effects of the BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY (1985, 1989, 1990) may include frequent deja vu
Dir. Robert Zemeckis
Alamo Ritz, 6/13/10, 11:30am
On Sunday at the Ritz, Christopher Lloyd arrived at the Alamo Ritz in a DeLorean to kick off a day-long marathon of the Back to the Future trilogy. Like most aging, disinterested guests, Lloyd did not have much to contribute to the experience beyond an interesting anecdote or two, [...]
Why would anyone want to leave CASABLANCA (1942)?
Dir. Michael Curtiz
The Paramount, 5/20/10, 7:00pm
When talking about classic film like Casablanca, the word “timeless” is often applied. But what do we mean when we say that Casablanca is timeless? After all, this is a film set in a very specific place and time (Vichy-controlled Morocco in the early 1940s), with characters dealing [...]
IRON MAN 2 (2010) launches the summer movie season
Dir. Jon Favreau
Alamo Ritz, 5/12/10, 8:45pm
In 2008, Iron Man shocked moviegoers and box office prognosticators alike when a superhero without much established buzz wowed the crowds and delivered big bucks back to the studios. Similar to Johnny Depp’s mega-star turn as Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Robert Downey Jr. [...]
If you aren’t invited to PROM NIGHT (1980), consider yourself lucky
Dir. Paul Lynch
Alamo Ritz, 5/11/10, 10:10pm
Sometimes, I regret adding a film to our calendar when it turns out to be really bad. I’d hate to think you wasted an evening based on our advice, so if you attended the Terror Tuesday screening of Prom Night on our account, I apologize. Is it a bad [...]
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974) is crazy, really good crazy, and you’d be bad crazy not to see it
Dir. Brian De Palma
Alamo Ritz, 4/12/10, 10:00pm
It has always been a mystery to me why Brian De Palma is so often discussed as an inventive and unique filmmaker, mostly because I know him as the guy who made Mission: Impossible, Carlito’s Way, and The Untouchables. These were all solid entertainments that showed an appreciation [...]
THE THING (1982) is another fine notch on John Carpenter’s genre belt
Dir. John Carpenter
Alamo Village, 4/08/10, 10:15pm
Four years after making one of my favorite movies of all time, Halloween, John Carpenter remade The Thing from Another World, the Howard Hawks film from 1951 that is playing on the television in certain scenes from Halloween. Clearly, The Thing was a labor of love for Carpenter, remaking [...]
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2010) roasts Alice and Avatar
Dir. Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders
Regal Gateway, 3/30/10, 7:20pm
Like a broken record, critics continue to argue that this new wave of 3D film will succeed only if the stories and character behind the fancy technology remain strong. In that regard, Dreamworks’ latest, How to Train Your Dragon, has trumped other recent 3D hits like [...]
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), goood
Dir. James Whale
Alamo Ritz, 3/28/10, 6:30pm
In this month’s edition of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Club, Lars, Daniel and Dr. Tom Schatz brought us the Universal horror classic, Bride of Frankenstein. Having grown up loving the Universal monster movies of the 1930s, it is surprising that this was only my second viewing of the film, [...]
THE GHOST WRITER (2010) will haunt you for days
Dir. Roman Polanski
Alamo South Lamar, 3/07/10, 12:30pm
In my review for Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, I mentioned Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and its strong influence on the Von Trier film. Now it’s time to refer to another Polanski masterpiece, Chinatown, with regard to another new classic, this time Polanski’s own latest effort The Ghost Writer. [...]
