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Up in Smoke: <i>Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay</i>

Up in Smoke: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

Best friends get shipped to Gitmo in this forced Act 2

By ROBERT WILONSKY

Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg wrote Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle with the novel idea: What if you made a John Hughes movie, but instead of writing garishly caricatured bit players with names like Long Duk Dong, you cast an Asian actor as the smart, handsome, upwardly mobile leading man? Ultimately, the… Keep Reading »

Up in Smoke: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

Best friends get shipped to Gitmo in this forced Act 2

By ROBERT WILONSKY

UCLA's Manoel de Oliveira Retrospective Enters Final Week

99-year-old Portuguese director translates the mystery

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

As the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s monthlong Manoel de Oliveira retrospective enters its final weekend (including the local premiere of Oliveira’s latest feature, Christopher Columbus: The Enigma), the 99-year-old Portuguese filmmaker agreed to participate in an e-mail interview with L.A. Weekly about his long life and career. … Keep Reading »

Etgar Keret's Jellyfish: An Israeli Movie With Neither Politics nor Religion

By J. HOBERMAN

Predicated on the spectacle of functionally depressed types stuck in mildly ridiculous situations not entirely of their own making, the Israeli ensemble comedy Jellyfish — which won the Caméra d’Or last May at Cannes — has an emotional resonance beyond its controlled slapstick and deadpan sight gags. … Keep Reading »

Jellyfish's Etgar Keret: The Wizard of Id

Writer/director shoots from the hip about his low-budget movie and his high-budget life

By ELLA TAYLOR

In “Fatso,” a short story by Israeli writer Etgar Keret, monogamy takes a bizarre vacation when the narrator’s pretty girlfriend morphs, every night, into a hairy, beer-guzzling, macho soccer fanatic who takes her lover to steak restaurants and sleazy bars — an experience as unexpectedly delightful to him as the fact that he has… Keep Reading »

Have Movie Stereotypes Returned?

Back in black (and yellow) face

By STEVEN MIKULAN

Last summer, at Phil Spector’s murder trial, the defense played a video made by Spector’s alleged victim, actress Lana Clarkson. The half-hour character pastiche was intended to showcase Clarkson’s versatility by having her portray a range of social stereotypes, including a surly security guard, an over-caffeinated talk-show host and a Vegas showgirl. It was… Keep Reading »

Film

Up in Smoke: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

By ROBERT WILONSKY

Best friends get shipped to Gitmo in this forced Act 2

UCLA's Manoel de Oliveira Retrospective Enters Final Week

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

99-year-old Portuguese director translates the mystery

Etgar Keret's Jellyfish: An Israeli Movie With Neither Politics nor Religion

By J. HOBERMAN

Predicated on the spectacle of functionally depressed types stuck in mildly ridiculous situations not…

Have Movie Stereotypes Returned?

By STEVEN MIKULAN

Back in black (and yellow) face

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Just a Lonely Boy

By ROBERT WILONSKY

Jason Segel lets it all hang out

Al Pacino Plays Beat the Clock in 88 Minutes

By ELLA TAYLOR

Jon Avnet’s cheesy new thriller, 88 Minutes, is 105 minutes long, and going in,…

Spurlock's Search: Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?

By J. HOBERMAN

The Super Size Me guy goes gunning for Public Enemy No. 1

Intrigue and more at City of Lights, City of Angels

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

Secrets and Spies

The Visitor: The New McCarthyism

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

Different faces, same condescension from Station Agent director

The Visitor's Richard Jenkins: Dead Man Walking?

By CHUCK WILSON

There's Life after Six Feet Under for familiar TV face

Bons Away! City of Lights, City of Angels

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

French-film festival delivers the goods

Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

France's biggest French-language hit comes to the U.S.

More Film »

Good Rep

Bodies in Motion: The Erotic Films of Carolee Schneemann

By Holly Willis

(Click to enlarge) Interior Scroll The penis — hard, soft, shiny, wet, thrusting, resting…

British Invasion: A LACMA Retrospective

By David Thomson

One more step toward recolonization?

Kids Today: A Harmony Korine Retrospective

By Tim Grierson

Cinefamily charts the evolution of writer/director "enfant terrible"

More Good Rep »

Signal to Noise

Altered States: Stan VanDerBeek

By Holly Willis

Consciousness-expanding cinema

New Digital Art From Belgium

Building, a 12-minute graphics-based video by Belgian artist Anouk de Clercq, studies the play…

Frankenstein (Mortal Toys): Small Wonder

Janie Geiser and Susan Simpson’s Frankenstein (Mortal Toys) unites flat puppet characters pushed and…

More Signal to Noise »

Surf Report

PBS's Carrier, Life and War Aboard the USS Nimitz

By ROBERT ABELE

I’m three episodes into the 10-part PBS documentary series Carrier, which runs in double…

BBC's Gavin & Stacey Heading to NBC?

By ROBERT ABELE

A fine romance

Rock the Cradle: Inherit the Wind

By ROBERT ABELE

MTV's new celeb-kid talent search

More Surf Report »

Deadline Hollywood

Hollywood's Always-Delicate "Friendships" Feel Even More Strain

By NIKKI FINKE

Depp's loyal heart and Moonves' disloyal buds

When Hollywood Goes After White Whales

By Nikki Finke

Thar she blows

Project Jump Ship: Moguls Fight Fiercely Over Runway

By Nikki Finke

... agents Endeavor to change

More Deadline Hollywood »

Television

<i>Sweet Nothing in My Ear</i>: Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin play out the sound and fury

Sweet Nothing in My Ear: Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin play out the sound and fury

By ROBERT ABELE

With reality fluff proliferating on every channel, sometimes you need to take a break…

Tracey Ullman's State of the Union

By Robert Abele

Brit sends up the American character in one-actress-fits-all fashion

John Adams: America's Middleman

By ROBERT ABELE

HBO's patriot gamesmanship

More Television »

Movie Reviews

Movie Reviews: Body of War, Four Minutes, Shotgun

By L.A. Weekly Film Critics

Plus, Baby Mama, Deception and other April 25 releases

More Movie Reviews »

Short Run

Borrowed Time and High Hopes at Annual Polish Film Survey

By Adam Nayman

The history of great dog-reaction shots spans from The Thin Man to I Am…

Bollywood Comes to Hollywood for Sixth Annual IFFLA

By David Chute

Putting the "festive" back into film festival

Annual Method Fest turns 10 ...

By Adam Nayman

... looks to the Great White North

More Short Run »

Now Showing

Showtimes and Theater Info

By L.A. Weekly Movie Critics

Fall Film

An American Realist

By SCOTT FOUNDAS

Robert Redford and the façade of a nation

The Ice Queen Melteth

By Ella Taylor

From art-house icon to Hollywood headliner, Tilda Swinton isn’t afraid to let them see her sweat

Too Cute for Their Own Good

By ELLA TAYLOR

Little children in the movies

Short People, Short Lives

By JOHN ANDERSON

At today’s multiplex, kiddie kills are all the rage

Nikki Finke...Now

Jackie Chan Leaves CAA For Morris, And Paul Thomas Anderson Lands There, Too

Thu, Apr 24, 8:53 pm

I'm told Jackie Chan fired CAA on the day his new movie The Forbidden Kingdom opened #1 last Friday. Today he landed with the William Morris Agency's Phillip Button. As for the There Will Be Blood director, Paul Thomas Anderson left Endeavor yesterday and landed tonight at WMA with Mike Simpson and John Fogelman.

FIRST NEWS ABOUT SAG-AMPTP TALKS: CEOS TO WAIT OUT SAG UNTIL MID-JULY (...& See SAG's 2008 New Media Report)

Thu, Apr 24, 5:02 pm

EXCLUSIVE (Keep refreshing for latest updates): I can now report that the negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild and the AMPTP are not making any progress with both sides very far apart and very frustrated. Negotiators for the Hollywood CEOs are privately making it clear they plan to make a deal first with AFTRA in order to use [...]

More Nikki Finke...Now »