Creative Loafing Atlanta: Movies & TV

Conan names new show "Conan"

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:34:18 -0400

Late night talk show host and twittering folk hero Conan O'Brien has announced that, after hosting "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien," his new TBS show will be simply titled "Conan." The clip below reveals his creative process in naming the show and his realization that it will debut in November of this year.…

The Televangelist: Back To School Viewing

atlonline@cln.com (Allison Keene) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:54:24 -0400

If you're going to have to revisit high school, I would suggest considering someone else's. Preferably fictional.…

Running Dialogue, episode 15: Centurion, Machete, The American

atlonline@cln.com (Web Editor) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:00:00 -0400

On the latest installment of Running Dialogue: A Podcast About Movies, /Film's Russ Fischer, Collider's Matt Goldberg and Creative Loafing's Curt Holman mark the transition from the summer to fall movie seasons with the fast, schlocky violence of 'Centurion' and 'Machete' vs. the meditative, existential violence of George Clooney's 'The American.' 'Machete' not only inspires a discussion of the best and worst trends of 2010 cinema so far, but prompts the guys to name some of the favorite revenge flicks.…

George Clooney targets a hit man's isolation in The American

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:00:00 -0400

Director Anton Corbijn paints an intimate and thrilling portrait of a killer by Curt Holman Last year's acclaimed Up in the Air presented George Clooney as a taciturn career hatchet man isolated by corporate America, despite his empty sexual encounters and comely young protégé. The ruminative new thriller The American presents a literal version of Up in the Air's central metaphor.…

"Mad Men" Season 4, Episode 6

atlonline@cln.com (Marc Schultz) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:56:00 -0400

Canny counter-programming, AMC: NBC has the Emmys, but Mad Men has the Clios. And everyone’s favorite is a lock: yes, that’s Don Draper, accepting the coveted award for Best Cleansers, Waxes and Polishes!…

Fall film preview, 2: Movies that might probably be good

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:06:00 -0400

Just because summer is ending, doesn't mean the sequels and remakes are going away. Among the big movies this fall are Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Tron: Legacy and the Coen Brothers' True Grit - which they emphasize is not a retread of the John Wayne movie, but a fresh adaptation of the original novel.…

Review: Cairo Time

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:00:00 -0400

Patricia Clarkson takes a slow trip up the Nile in Cairo Time by Curt Holman The soft-spoken romance Cairo Time initially seems to offer an Egyptian vacation to get away from it all — or at least, to escape from the privileged self-absorption of Eat Pray Love. Both films depict female American journalists who rekindle their sensuality and re-evaluate their unsatisfying marriages while swanning about in an exotic hemisphere.…

Blondie speaks! (Yes, that Blondie)

atlonline@cln.com (Debbie Michaud) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:32:00 -0400

Local production company Half Pint Productions is working on doc about Atlanta's, and daresay I, the world's, favorite beer-crushing stripper Blondie. Today, filmmaker Jon Watts sent over a clip from the forthcoming AKA Blondie.…

Uneasy Does It, 2: Harry Shearer (in his own words) on Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers, Randy Newman

atlonline@cln.com (Gabe Wardell) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:01:00 -0400

The bio under Harry Shearer's by-line for his Huffington Post column reads like a Tweet: "Just a Guy." A modest understatement.…

Hollywood Product: Takers

atlonline@cln.com (Edward Adams) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:00:00 -0400

Director John Luessenhop banks too heavily on T.I. to pull this caper off. by Edward Adams GENRE: Dramatic cops and robbers action flick THE PITCH: A successful, swanky posse of bank thieves attempt to pull off an �Italian Job� styled gig worth millions proposed by Ghost (T.I.) a former member of the crew recently released from jail.…

Uneasy Does It, 1: Atlanta's Tom Roche Edits Harry Shearer's New Orleans Doc

atlonline@cln.com (Gabe Wardell) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:27:00 -0400

Tom Roche has worked as an editor for Atlanta-based Crawford Communications for over 20 years. His past projects include music videos for R.E.M., "Space Ghost Coast to Coast", and Spinäl Tap's Unwigged and Unplugged. Roche also directed the documentary feature Alley Pat, the Music is Recorded, which won the audience prize at the 2010 Atlanta Film Festival.…

Fall film preview, 1: These! Are! Serious! Trailers!

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:05:43 -0400

It's getting on that time of year again, not only when leaves fall from the trees, but the tone of movie trailers makes a precipitous drop from light to heavy. With the end of summer the Academy Award contenders start coming out in earnest, so it's like the makers of movie trailers crack open paint cans of Patina of Importance.…

'True Blood:' season 3, episode 10

atlonline@cln.com (Debbie Michaud) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:31:00 -0400

Minute episode recap: "Blah blah blah, vampire emergency blah."

Now to the good stuff: Sookie's a fairy. "How fucking lame."

Her words, not mine.…

Atlanta's "The Walking Dead" gets trailer, debut date

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:15:00 -0400

AMC had debuted a stupendous trailer to "The Walking Dead," which airs its first, six-episode season beginning — when else? — on Halloween, Oct. 31.…

New "Lost" epilogue redeems final episode. A bit.

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:23:01 -0400

When she reviewed the final episode of "Lost," our Televangelist remarked, of the show's final 10 minutes, "Either you loved it or you hated it or you will be confused and somewhat annoyed for the rest of your life. I'm not even entirely sure what happened, to be honest."…

"Mad Men" Season 4, Episode 5

atlonline@cln.com (Marc Schultz) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:02:00 -0400

As a title, Mad Men has always been a bit misleading, or ironically suggestive, or however you want to put it—taking place, as it does, in a time when everyone represses their emotions and keeps a straight face no matter the audience—colleagues, clients, family, neighbors, lovers. As the seasons progress, everyone on the show becomes, if not more comfortable with their feelings, at least less guarded—a progression predicated on the characters’ changing times, of course, but also on the conventions of TV drama: Don can’t remain a handsome cipher and Betty his clueless, smiling trophy if we’re going to spend week after week after week getting to know them.…

Mesrine loves company

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:00:00 -0400

French two-part bank-robber biopic endorses gangster glamour by Curt Holman In a typically brazen act of larceny, French stick-up man Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel) impersonates a police officer and demands the right to inspect a casino's vault. When the owner asks, "Do you have a warrant?"…

The Squirmometer: 'Life During Wartime'

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:57:00 -0400

Director Todd Solondz pushed his audience’s comfort level nearly to the breaking point with Happiness, a prize-winning 1998 dramedy that remains his most successful film. Viewers watched with horrified fascination the bad luck and poor choices of his characters, most memorably Dylan Baker as a suburban family man willing to drug friends and family in order to slake his appetite for young boys.…

Film Clips: This weekend's movie openings and more

atlonline@cln.com (Anum Mohammad) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:43:20 -0400

OPENING FRIDAY

THE CONCERT 3 stars (PG-13) In this post-Soviet comedy, a disgraced Russian conductor (Aleksei Guskov) hatches a crazy scheme to replace the Bolshoi orchestra with his blackballed fellow musicians for a redemptive concert in Paris. Romanian-born director Radu Mihăileanu nimbly conveys the con-man comedy as the conductor “gets the band back together,” but the film pivots to more serious subject matter when the characters arrive in Paris.…

Hollywood Product: Nanny McPhee Returns

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:00:00 -0400

Flatulence drowns out the life lessons in unwelcome sequel to charming original by Curt Holman GENRE: "It's magically disgusting!" THE PITCH: In rural England during World War II, spunky farm kids clash with their posh city cousins until Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson), a tough-love, butt-ugly Mary Poppins, magically teaches them to get along and save the farm from a weaselly in-law (Rhys Ifans).…

Disney Shot Kennedy writer/director talks Irony, Conspiracy Theories, and Steely Dan

atlonline@cln.com (Gabe Wardell) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:43:36 -0400

David Lawrence's debut feature Disney Shot Kennedy was shot-in-Atlanta featuring a bevy a local talent—with significant contributions from artists, actors, and musicians. Though the film recently world premiered at the San Antonio Film Festival, its hometown debut will we be Friday, August 27th at 8:30 pm at Eye Drum.…

Post-Soviet satire gives The Concert an earful

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:00:00 -0400

The Concert hits discordant notes when it tries to bridge comedy and drama by Curt Holman Generational nostalgia drives most of the 1980s-era nostalgia in current movies. Something darker and more complex, however, informs a new wave of films about the bad old days of Communism.…

"The Daily Show's" Lewis Black: Eat, Pray, Love, Rant

atlonline@cln.com (Curt Holman) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:40:52 -0400

On his "The Daily Show" segment "Back in Black," apoplectic comedian Lewis Black expresses his profound disappointment that the movie adaptation of Eat Pray Love and its ancillary merchandise fails to live up to the book's spirituality. There may be some sarcasm at play here.…

Hollywood Product: Lottery Ticket

atlonline@cln.com (Edward Adams) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:00:00 -0400

Bow Wow's new comedy is a winner by Edward Adams GENRE: Rags to riches comedy. THE PITCH: Kevin Carson (Bow Wow), a hard-working shoe salesman from the projects discovers he just won the $370 million lottery jackpot.…

Extra! Extra! Learn How to be an Extra!

atlonline@cln.com (Gabe Wardell) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:22:00 -0400

Other than watching the Ricky Gervais series EXTRAS and a clever documentary called Strictly Background, I have spent very little time thinking about the role extras play in film and television. This is as it should be.…