The pedigree of Guillermo del Toro's DVDs continues unabated with this past summer's Hellboy 2. Like others including Jeff, I'm a more ravenous fan of Guillermo's "art" films from Cronos to Espinazo del Diablo to Pan's Labyrinth, but I enjoy his "studio" movies much more than their counterparts from other directors and studios. If his "art" films are filet mignon and fine wine, the studio stuff is high-end pizza and my favorite beer, and there's not a goddamn thing wrong with that.

The aspect unique to Hellboy 2 as compared to the first installment and Blade II is that it's still pizza, but...Read More

It's difficult for anyone outside of festival programmers and the hardest of hardcore festival-going writers to have seen all of the movies that end up on the Oscar shortlist, posted by Indiewire and everyone in creation by the time you read this. This year I've seen more of them than usual for me, a full one-third of them. I should be seeing a couple of them soon since they're still showing in town.

The one movie that's missing that I presume will be everyone's "it got robbed" this year is Kurt Kuenne's Dear Zachary, which I couldn't get into at SXSW and haven't...Read More

There are already a lot of reviews of this one out there, so I'll keep this brief. I think director Danny Boyle put it best when he introduced the film at this year's Austin Film Festival saying "I never expected to be this thrilled by a script about Who Wants to be a Millionaire." The truth is, it is and is not about that show that has long become passe in the States. What it is really designed to get at is the very real diametric difference between classes that is so invisible to people worldwide in so-called industrial nations. The movie's plot...Read More

The Anchorage daily News reports that oh, around 90,000 ballots are still not part of their final count. This means any statewide race, including indicted Senator Ted Stevens', is still up for grabs. No offense to Alaska, but does your state government not know how to count?

This movie has never looked this good. I didn't even watch the Blu-ray release as I am still stuck in the land of standard-def, but I'll be damned if this transfer isn't amazing. Had I not been interested in the special features, I considered the brilliant cross-platform release that is the Blu-ray (they packed the movie-only standard def DVD in as a third disc). I'm going to spend a good deal of time with the feature itself before getting to the spread of special features.

One of the greatest sequences in animated history

One of the more striking features...Read More

I thought I'd disappear and pop back up around election day. I worked on a piece about the transforming Texan electoral map and everything. Then I got struck down by appendicitis and am only now out of the hospital. Expect a flurry of posts this week, as I'm on a week of bed rest that will be spent entirely in catching up on backlogged pieces, writeups, and reviews. I'm also going to write a followup to a review I did earlier this year of a doc (the only one out) about President-elect Obama, so watch for that.

Change has been a big word this year just like re-form was in O Brother Where Art Thou's election bits. The greatest concern I have going forward is that the polls will bite us in the ass and no one will show up out of complacency. The next greatest concern I have for us as a country is who all of our Democratic candidates being swept in on this mandate really are.

I wonder who some of these "Democratic" candidates on down-ticket races really are, because at least in Texas, we have plenty of Republicans, Libertarians, and Ron Paul supporters who beat actual...Read More

I'm not a gigantic horror fan, but I just couldn't get behind Saw 5 even if I were. Here are five better ways to spend your hard-earned cash on something scary this weekend.

1) Let the Right One In
(NY & LA only)

I reviewed this one at Fantastic Fest. A Swedish vampire movie so good, everyone I know who has seen it has already decried the remake not only as unnecessary, but impossible to do anything at all better than the original did. Keep an eye on it as it expands out to those of us not in the Capitol...Read More

The best film I saw at this year's Austin Film Festival turns out to be one of the best movies I've seen all year. Synecdoche, New York is a cinematic experience that I expect to stick with me for some time to come. During a post-show Q&A with director Charlie Kaufman, only one question really stuck out to me, because it hit at what I think this film does well. It was a pretty closed-ended question about whether he had ever considered making a time travel movie. Kaufman answered that he had seriously intended as a child to build a time machine and...Read More

Today's been monumentally unproductive thanks to the fact that nearly back-to-back festivals and the changing of the weather have teamed up on me and knocked me out for a day or two. Tomorrow looks to be more of a long-nap-day rather than a sleep-all-day, so the bits of progress I've made on a number of pieces will finally culminate in their completion as well as the furious pounding-out of others sitting on a to-do list.

I'm going to be caught up to the present on AFF, almost finish off Fantastic Fest, and get started on some Home Front reviews. It'll be like Christmas...Read More

I have to admit a soft spot for "dog movies" (good ones), especially ones featuring a dog named Lucy (the name of my wonderful Beagle). Setting that aside as much as I'm able, I thoroughly enjoyed Sunday night's screening of Wendy and Lucy, a rare indie that rewards a patient viewer with a soaked-in emotional journey without much (if any) pretense or indulgent, inefficient filmmaking.

My Beagle, Lucy

During the Q&A for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire the other night, he mentioned something Godard once said, which roughly paraphrased is that all you need for a movie is money, a...Read More

Early voting started yesterday in Texas and Florida, and according to the Austin American Statesman, the TX Secretary of State's office is vastly underprepared for Election Day. There were denials on KUT (local NPR affiliate) as early as this morning from the Sec. State's office, but if the vastly under-estimated number of ballots during the Democratic Primary in March is any indicator, 4 November will be...interesting.

Everyone vote early, especially in Florida.

I have to race back downtown to catch Slumdog Millionaire, so this will be posted in two parts. Enjoy.

--------------------------

H-E: One of the things that struck me the most last night in your introduction was about the paternal relationship and how that's something that the two of you connected with, you and Josh. How do you think it is that it comes off to people who aren't really addressing that relationship or have avoided that--

James Cromwell: The father and the son relationship? Very few people I know have not addressed it at some point. For some it's more difficult than others...it...Read More

I've disappeared for a couple days ramping up for the 15th annual Austin Film Festival, and last night kicked it off with a bang. The opening night film, Oliver Stone's W., played like gangbusters and the followup at the historic Paramount Theatre (Max Payne) left even the fanboys in the audience wanting. I'll have more on Max Payne shortly. James Cromwell introduced the film last night and in so doing announced a just-added "Conversation with" Q&A for this morning.

Shortly after the Q&A concluded,...Read More

This morning's box office returns are discouraging not because Body of Lies came in where it did, but because Jeff's Chihuahua Theory was proven true by people wanting to plow in and see "The Chihuahua Movie" they missed the week before, or, god forbid, decided they needed to see twice theatrically.

The not-screened-for-critics Quarantine came in a respectable second. The movie was directed by Eric Dowdle, who made The Poughkeepsie Tapes, which neither my wife nor I could sit through during last year's Butt-Numb-a-Thon and is still floating in release purgatory.

The real loss is the fact City of Ember's 10th place standing...Read More

What a few weeks ago would have come across as the strangest coupling in a while, Playbill Online of all places provides confirmation that Kenneth Branagh is locked-in to direct The Mighty Thor for Marvel Studios.

Branagh had been attached to direct a 2009-bowing production of Hamlet starring Jude Law with the Donmar Warehouse in England, but "has had to step aside because of his commitments to the forthcoming feature film 'Thor' - a project he has recently undertaken". It was already reported that he was circling it, but he's full-on attached and in knee-deep. I've always been a great admirer of...Read More

I've almost fully rebuilt the archives from mis-formatted and lost entries that were worse for wear after the server changeover. They're being re-posted on a somewhat regular basis. Expect them to keep popping into the archives on a rolling basis throughout the month as I have time to attend to them.

The main purpose for this post is to announce new recurring features and plans for Arthouse Cowboy that'll keep this column its own distinct animal. As life has gotten somewhat more predictable and manageable for me, I'm launching some long-planned regular items, the first of which have already started appearing. Below you'll...Read More

"Shop therapy" is something more Americans than not have become addicted to over the last few decades in particular. They engage in indulgent overspending to make themselves feel better in the face of all sorts of adversities. At the end of the day, they're more in debt and have more crap they don't need. They avoid hard work and skate by on credit. All of these values are spotlit by an upcoming film, but shown through a very troubling lens indeed.

The most galling part of the trailer for Confessions of...Read More

As I wrote a couple weeks ago about the hooks Gil Kenan's City of Ember has to the current state-of-the-game in the US election and the (now global) economic crisis, here are some select graphs that remain prescient:

"This is not an "adult" post-apocalyptic thriller or anything, but it isn't "kiddy" either. This is not a reinvention of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy film, but it is a vitally important cautionary tale for the climate we currently live in, especially in the US.

"Fundamentally, the thematic thrust of the movie involves paying attention when things don't sound or feel right, pulling your head out...Read More

Re: Jeff's Che post about something Karina Longworth wrote about Che appeal to the 20something generation...

As a member of the Generation of Doom, I'm an anomaly in my unrepentant eagerness to see Che for a couple reasons: I was reared on movies like Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia and not only tolerate but expect 3-hour plus running times and vague moral perspective from great films, and on top of that, my father's direct immersion (I'm gonna withhold using the word 'involvement') in the Cuban revolution of '59 makes me more interested in El Che than the average 25 year-old...Read More

I wasn't trained in the finest English schools like Andrew Sullivan, but I've won my fair share of parliamentary and Lincoln-Douglas debates. I've "flowed" (ask a debate nerd to explain that one) plenty as well. I'm far from objective, but there is no way you could score last night as a win for McCain or even a "keeping afloat."

The best move Obama made was dropping the "AIG went on a spa trip on taxpayer money" reference early on and letting it stew in viewers' minds the rest of the debate. Here's the invoice.

Even though things got off in...Read More

Thanks to the intrepid Scott Weinberg at Cinematical, here's a list of play dates and cities for Let the Right One In. Notably absent is Austin, Texas. It played here for Fantastic Fest, but how is it completely missing from the first run release schedule? The entire arthouse-going population of Austin didn't see it the three times it screened here last month.

Fire up Hulu tomorrow to watch their first feature film premiere, David Modigliani's Crawford, which I raved about back in March when I saw it at SXSW. I can't find more concrete details than that and the fact the DVD is to be released immediately afterward.

"The beginning of the Bush years in Crawford begins a local economic boom: every storefront on the main street is rented, and the town's former glory many recall comes back. As the years wear on, we...Read More

As my esteemed and occasionally reviled editor has pointed out, now is not the time to get lazy. I know people here in Texas who are plowing through registering voters all weekend in advance of the cutoff on Monday. Everyone in every other state should be doing every little bit. If early voting has begun for you, encourage your registered friends to get it done. If you haven't gotten involved at the grassroots level, getting your next-door neighbor to register helps more than you may think. It's the only pyramid scheme I'm behind 100%.

Read More

Nacho Vigalondo is a name everyone is going to be much more familiar with very soon. After seeing this year's program of his short film work, I'm even more fascinated by this guy because now I'm along for the ride everyone else got on last year when Timecrimes (limited release Dec. 5th in the US) won everyone over. He was deservingly nominated for an Oscar a few years ago for 7:35 in the Morning, which closed the program.

Una leccion de cine (2005)
A Lesson in Filmmaking

I'm interspersing as...Read More

I'm earnestly doing my best to finish transcribing an interview I did with Nacho last week in addition to writing up the program of his short films that they programmed this year. I've gotta button up FF2008 today and tomorrow so I can get back to business as usual. There are a couple movies I'm trying to track down screeners for that'll get written up when I've got discs in hand. The Short Films of Nacho Vigalondo, RocknRolla, Gachi Boy, and maybe a couple others, time (and waking hours)-permitting are on their way. Stay tuned.

Region0 is a new recurring feature of Arthouse Cowboy that I was going to announce in a post about new recurring content (look for it tonight), but an article I read in the New York Dead Old Media Times angered me so much I'm firing off a post right now defending one of my favorite TV shows from the UK.

I love America. I love mom, Apple Pie, and freedom. I love the freedom of the press we have in this country. I hate the fact that some of the people writing for our oldest, most-respected outlet that reports "all the news thats...Read More

I'll be honest: I'm a comic book fan, but I was puzzled as to how they'd adapt Thor and it not fail miserably in execution and box office returns, but with Kenneth Branagh directing, this could be a completely different thing.

Either we'll see ol' Sir Ken go the route of directing a DeMille Superhero movie, since the screenwriter has described it as a Norse/Biblical Epic wherein a God awakens...or we'll see his followup to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which I didn't hate as...Read More

I hated, hated, hated, hated all the people in this movie. The movie itself I can't say I enjoyed, but instead appreciated exclusively from an anthropological perspective. If I think of the boat full of morons in the movie as under-developed primates, it's easier to not feel like I wasted a little over an hour and a half watching this early one afternoon at Fantastic Fest with my friend Peter Martin from Cinematical/Twitchfilm.

There's no really...classy way to talk about these people, so pardon...Read More

Nikki Finke puts it best as to the wherefores and hows of the evangelical-produced, directed, and scripted Fireproof coming out of nowhere doing big business on less than a thousand screens.

Why can't other interest groups can't band together and make a film explode like this? They're not nearly as organized or fanatical. As much as evangelical Christians want to call out atheists, deists, and agnostics as being organized armies of the devil, they are not as regimented as the Soldiers of Christ-types are. I bet Religulous won't do as well as this one proportional to per-screen average for that reason.