There are things out there that go bump in the night," quips Professor Bruttenholm (John Hurt). "We are the ones who bump back." No, this isn't your average weekend-drunken-sorority-girl- hook-up; it's Guillermo del Toro's above average comic-to-movie film Hellboy. Mix two parts X-Men, two parts Men In Black technology and a sprinkle of The Hulk's big buff looks, and you have the recipe that not only looks good but doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Based on Mike Mignola's comic book series, Hellboy opens in 1944 as the Nazis, led by Grigori Rasputin, attempt to open a portal to another dimension.
We're all relatively acquainted with the slew of coming-of-age teen comedies wherein implausibly attractive high school students overcome the bounds of social status, find love and provide a fortune cookie-sized moral to the tune of "Teenage Wasteland." The recipe works, though it usually makes for movies so saccharine that diabetics crumple to the floor of America's movie theaters.
Dave Scher wishes people would dance at shows like they used to. One half of the duo that makes up California-based All Night Radio, Scher remembers his upbringing in Long Beach, California as a time when people danced at shows.
Tami Fertig:
The Magnetic Fields
Get Lost
Lest we forget, Magnetic Fields mastermind Stephin Merritt was making records long before 69 Love Songs. That one was okay, but c'mon.
Everyone already knows that Charlie Kaufman is a genius. This is an acknowledged fact. The man who brought us both Being John Malkovich and Adaptation could not possibly be anything less.
Carnage, carnage, blood, blood and then more carnage. The remake of the 1974 horror classic Dawn of the Dead retains elements of the original, while changing the story entirely.
With Hollywood constantly churning out thrillers with obligatory "surprise endings," it's great to see a satisfying conclusion that doesn't make the movie fold like a house of cards.
Tami Fertig
Q Lazzarus
"Goodbye Horses"
Y'know that scene in The Silence of the Lambs when serial killer Buffalo Bill tucks his crotch between his legs and dances naked to an obscure '80s synth-pop song before sewing a suit made of human skin?
Hamilton Leithauser, lead singer of The Walkmen, isn't buying into any of the buzz. To him, the New York rock revival is nothing more than a press creation.
"I don't buy any of that shit," he explains.
Leithauser and bassist Peter Bauer left The Recoys in order to join The Walkmen, a group founded by three former members of Jonathan Fire*Eater -- Walter Martin, Paul Maroon and Matt Barrick.
Fire*Eater was a critical success, and one of many "next big things" to never actually make it in the mainstream.
Michael Franti is 6'6" and thin -- wiry, some might say. Long dreadlocks peek out the front and back of the hat he customarily wears onstage, but they never seem to stay contained.
Movies and religion have never mixed well. Inevitably, a movie will misrepresent one religion or another and be faced with protests and threats of boycotts.
In Twisted, directed by Philip Kaufman, Ashley Judd plays Detective Jessica Shepard. After the gruesome death of her parents, Jessica is raised by John Mills (Samuel Jackson), the San Francisco Police Commissioner.
Various Artists
50 First Dates
Soundtrack
This soundtrack to Adam Sandler's latest movie recruits a number of today's pop, rap and reggae artists in an attempt to put a modern spin on 13 '80s love song classics, but succeeds only in destroying the music of a decade.