From the moment she heard that computer ask, "How about a nice game of chess?" Stacia has been devoted to movies. A film critic and writer for the better part of a decade, Stacia also plays classical guitar, reads murder mysteries and shamelessly abuses both caffeine and her Netflix queue.
A cult favorite and often described as being ahead of its time, Sam Raimi’s Darkman was a surprise hit at the box office in the late summer of 1990. As a follow up to Evil Dead II (1987), Raimi wanted to helm a film based on the radio classic “The Shadow,” but when the rights proved elusive, he created his own dark anti-hero, an amalgam of old-time …
A small West Virginia town reels in the aftermath of a mining accident that left 10 workers dead in Sara Colangelo’s bleak working class drama Little Accidents. Amos (Boyd Holbrook), the sole survivor of the tragedy, is asked to testify at an inquiry, though injuries and a reticence to get involved means he has very little to say. On the …
Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) are two twenty-something, gorgeous loners, their isolation not so much cultivated as thrust upon them. They have fun when they’re together during the day and a blast all night at the clubs, but they always seem to be dancing alone. They’re beautiful women who possess the faces, the …
There’s a lot to love about an ensemble comedy where the ostensible lead is a straight man so serious that he seems he were plucked right out of a nearby drama and dropped into the wrong film — think Graham Chapman in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or Tony Hendra as the beleaguered band manager in This is Spın̈al Tap.
When photographer Ari Seth Cohen started his blog in 2008, his mission was a simple one: to document stylish older folks, both the “sophisticated and well dressed to the accidentally stylish and colorful,” as he encountered them on the city streets. Advanced Style, the new documentary based on Cohen’s photography, features a bevy …
Maloin (Miroslav Krobot) is a switchman at the local train depot, but on this night, he’s more interested in a ship in the adjacent harbor than the train that has come in to his station. What at first looks like an attempt to sneak a briefcase into the country turns into a scuffle and then a murder, and Maloin fishes the case, filled with …
“This was a very unusual boy,” says Joanne Styles about childhood acquaintance Orson Welles, her comment a charming understatement about a man who has fascinated us since he first appeared in the public eye. With no shortage of interviews, talk show appearances, biographies, studies and reviews of his work available, it’s safe to …
In Antarctica, August is the coldest time of the year. McMurdo Station, the largest of several bases on the continent, houses up to 1200 employees during the warmer months, while only a handful remain behind in the mid-year winter. Filmmaker Anthony Powell has worked as a radio engineer in Antarctica …
It was 1985 when Oskar (Didier Flamand) fled communist Czechoslovakia for France. One-third of the noted Czech political comedy trio known as Busters, his departure was the fatal blow to the group. The two remaining members, Max (Oldrich Kaiser) and Viktor (Jirí Lábus), struggled to find their own way after the breakup, while Oskar’s family endured hostility from a Communist Party angry at his defection. Nearly thirty years later …
Pitched as “The Scariest Comedy of All Time!” Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974) spoofed the glorious Universal Horror flicks of the 1930s, while at the same time celebrating them. Not just a parody of the original Frankenstein (1931), Young Frankenstein is also based on the sequel The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), as well …