When times are tough, what stories do you turn to? Our new series, Comfort Films, is designed to look at the films that are important to us and why they help bring us up with everything feels down. In our first episode of this series, Ben Dower stops by to chat about one of his… [Read More]
Self-Isolation Film Festival: Groundhog Day
“What would you do if you were stuck in a place and every day was exactly the same?” Here in California we’ve been instructed to stay at home except for essential reasons. Kids are out of school. Some have online classes, some don’t. Churches are happening by online video. It doesn’t take long for Tuesday… [Read More]
Isle of Dogs – It’s Cute, but It Has a Bite
This is one of the great examples of having a film that entertains well and at the same time goads our minds into active thought. It is very much like a cross-cultural extended parable.
Space Jam 20th Anniversary- MJ & Bugs For the Fate of the World #TBT
Remember that time that Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny lead the most ridiculous rag-tag team of basketball players in a game for the fate of the world? In 1996, Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick (Damon, the Santa Clause franchise) wrote a script that riffed on Jordan’s ill-fated retirement to baseball’s minor leagues with a collision that seemed like Mars Attacks! and Who… [Read More]
Vice Principals: Educators with No Filters
When the principal (Bill Murray) of North Jackson High retires to take care of his ailing wife, his two vice principals attempt to fill the power vacuum. But for the students of NJHS, this could be an absolute disaster because these two men are train wrecks. On one side, the rule-oriented Neil Gamby (Danny McBride)… [Read More]
The Jungle Book – Updating a Classic of a Classic
The Jungle Book is Disney’s new high-tech live-action (sort of) remake of their 1967 animated film based on Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 book. The new version tries to find a middle path between the more light-hearted earlier film, and the darker, more mythic Kipling story.
On The Small Screen: From Snow White to Sandra Bullock (2/2/16)
This week’s offerings include: Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Our Brand is Crisis, Rocking the Kasbah, The Last Witch Hunter, Batman: Bad Blood, Freeheld, The Assassin, Man Up, and Meadowland. Our Brand is Crisis (Warner Bros.) Sandra Bullock has never looked so bad – even in 28 Days! As Calamity Jane Bodine, she is drawn out of retirement… [Read More]
Murray’s Christmas is Kinda Merry
Bill Murray has done what few have been able to do in the last several years. He has put together a likable Christmas special that is not a parody and is not a variety show. Murray, along with his director Sophia Coppola and co-writer Mitch Glazer, write the bad-weather plotted story of Murray’s Christmas special… [Read More]
A Very Murray Christmas
Sometimes Christmas just doesn’t work out. In A Very Murray Christmas (directed by Sofia Coppola and currently streaming on Netflix) Bill Murray’s live Christmas Eve TV special is completely undone by a massive storm and power outage. When he and Paul Shaffer head to a hotel bar to drown their holiday sorrows, they encounter others… [Read More]
Aloha: Are We Doomed To Repeat Our Mistakes?
If Aloha is the missile sending the film into space, the actual payload is this political agenda, not a rom-com aimed to entertain us.
