“Strange visitor with assimilation challenge shakes up status quo.” We could be talking about Footloose. But instead it’s The Thing, another recently refreshed early ’80s movie memory. It’s a timelessly simple story: Researchers in Antarctica discover a hostile shapeshifting extraterrestrial in their midst—and hoo boy, can this thing dance! No? O.K. For now, being able […]
“Strange visitor with assimilation challenge shakes up status quo.” We could be talking about Footloose. But instead it’s The Thing, another recently refreshed early ’80s movie memory. It’s a timelessly simple story: Researchers in Antarctica discover a hostile shapeshifting extraterrestrial in their midst—and hoo boy, can this thing dance! No? O.K. For now, being able […]
“Beavis and Butt-head” Thursday 10pm, MTV First “Pop-Up Video,” now “Beavis and Butt-head”—the ’90s are alive and well on basic cable. The original “Beavis and Butt-head” ran on MTV from 1993 to 1997, a crudely animated show following two tasteless Texas high-schoolers who pepper their sociopathic outings with critiques of music videos. The cackling-idiot duo […]
Drive is a movie about sexy people and cars. Or maybe not cars, per se, but the experience of being in them, with sexy people. As such, it is ridiculous, but not in the way you’d expect: It’s neither all that fast nor especially furious. Oh sure, there is some grisly gun violence, and a […]
American violinist Hilary Hahn has been a mainstay of the celebrity-soloist circuit since 1991, when she made her major orchestral debut at the age of 15. Over the last decade, Hahn has twice been awarded the Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra, and in 2010, a piece she commissioned from composer Jennifer Hidgon […]
Life is not a fairy tale “Scream Awards” Tuesday 9pm, Spike Spike’s “Scream Awards” are somewhat misleading. While the ceremony does honor the horror genre (mainstream horror, at least), it also doles out trophies to sci-fi, fantasy, and comic-book movies. Categories include everything from the mundane (Best Supporting Actor, Best TV Show) to the more […]
Andrew Stern’s “Appalachian Portfolio,” on view through October at The Bridge/PAI, is a rare glimpse of mid-century rural life in America, without the exoticizing skew of an exposé.
For a striving young screenwriter, which is the worse break: being Paul Reiser’s cousin, or randomly getting cancer? Will Reiser is two for two, and some people will be wondering whether he really deserves to have a movie made about his life. 50/50 is a funny movie, and an honest one.
“A magic trick is like a little story,” said Steven Klein.
In Make Believe, a 2010 documentary film produced by Klein and directed by Charlottesville native J. Clay Tweel
Sarah’s Key would like to reassure you that there is still a place in this world—or at least in its movie theaters—for a grave Holocaust drama of child endangerment.
“The Onion News Network” Tuesday 10pm, IFC “The Daily Show” has been winning Emmys for years for its cynical news parodies, but The Onion has been doing that shtick for decades now, and must’ve wanted a piece of that sweet Old Spice advertising budget. “The Onion News Network” debuted in January of this year and […]