So you want to make a movie -- a hit movie, no less -- in the 2010s, one that truly captures the zeitgeist of pop culture in the Tens? Here are ten Tens trends that all should consider when making a new movie:
Todd McCarthy had just flown in from Sundance, where he had seen Room 237. He found the film pretty wild and weird with accounts of The Shining's hidden meanings.
Bobcat Goldthwait is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore. At least, the two main characters of his dark comedy God Bless America won't.
At a carnival, inside a fun house or around a campfire, the recitation of disturbing information serves to create a certain mood. Basically, New Orleans is an amusement park where you can get killed.
You don't have to be a filmmaker to stand up to bullies. We can all do something, as parents, educators, volunteers, students, and schools to help stop them in their tracks, or at the very least, decrease the day to day incidents that put our kids and families at risk.
How often does that happen to a non-famous person? What did I possibly do for such a thing to happen to me? I've asked those questions of myself a lot lately, and I may have an answer.
Despite the tendency of many Americans to think that the whole world revolves around them, the phenomenon of bullying takes place in any society where power games lead to one person attempting to dominate another.
The problem with Dark Shadows is that it is not a comedy. It isn't a drama either. It is part camp and part horror flick and none of it works.
Based on the 1960s-era cult-classic TV soap opera, Dark Shadows has a whole basket of nutty plot details, punctuated at every turn by 200 years of wacky time-warp humor.
"Capitalism is not natural, it's just brainwashed into us," Antonino D'Ambrosio, director and producer of Let Fury Have The Hour, tells me. Political art impacts our consciousness, it can change our votes. It redirects anger.
My fascination with Peeta feels wrong. Besides being fictional, he's 30 years younger than me and already in love with a girl/goddess his own age.
Two hundred years is a long time to revive a vampire, but then again, 40 years is long time to revive the first horror soap opera (not counting an earlier, feature adaptation and a TV reboot in the '90s).
When I showed my daughters the trailer for the film Otter 501, I knew exactly what I was going to hear. I call it the puppy voice.
"The Great Cafeteria Takeover" portrays a group of young adults who are leaders in the school food reform movement.
Morton Downey, Jr. was easily the most popular and controversial TV talk show host of his day -- although that's sort of like saying Genghis Khan was the most popular and controversial equestrian of his day. It doesn't really capture the scale or the savagery of the phenomenon.
From Glenn Beck to TMZ to American Idol, no one is safe from Goldthwait's razor-edged wit, which is informed by his unhappiness at the kind of things that pass for news in the world of the 24-hour news cycle.
Mike Kaplan, 2012.15.05
Leslie Sisman, 2012.15.05