The Pom Pom Girls
Bold, brash, and full of other peoples sticky goo, the characters that inhabit the lackadaisical world of The Pom Pom Girls (a.k.a. Lâche-moi les baskets and Las chicas del Pom Pom) are social misfits of the highest order. Whether stealing…
Earl
In 1973, Earl Owensby saw “Walking Tall” at the movies and was inspired. The film was shot in McMinnville, Tenn., and Owensby started thinking that movies could be shot in the Carolinas. Owensby was in his 30s and designed tools…
Celebrating The B’s
The Hollywood Film Festival, presented by STARZ, will mark its return on October 22, 2008, to the state-of-the-art ArcLight Theatres in Hollywood for a twelfth annual, weeklong series of screenings, seminars, competitions, awards and a special presentation of “Genre Cinema.”…
Bond Fibbed
The myth here wasn’t so much that the Goldfinger actress (Shirley Eaton) had died but that it was possible to die as her character Jill Masterson had: skin asphyxiation. After Masterson defected from her boss, Auric Goldfinger, to be with…
Jaws Heading To Blu-Ray
Though it’s credited as giving birth to the modern summer movie blockbuster, for the last 15 years Jaws has been as much a staple of basic cable programming as Law & Order re-runs. Many have only seen the shark-infested thriller…
Macon County Line
One of the great independent movies of the 1970s, Macon County Line transcends the “redneck nightmare” genre simply by making its characters fully-rounded human beings. Two brothers, Chris and Wayne Dixon (played by real-life brothers Alan and Jesse Vint), are…
The Greatest B Movie Writer:Charles Girffith
Charles B. Griffith (September 23, 1930 – September 28, 2007) was a Chicago-born screenwriter, son of Donna Dameral, radio star of Myrt and Marge. along with Charles’ grandmother, Myrtle Vail, and was best known for writing Roger Corman productions such…
Paul Bartel
Paul Bartel was born in Brooklyn in 1938. He decided he wanted to direct animated movies when he was 11 and by 13 had spent a summer working at New York’s UPA animation studio. He majored in theater arts at…
James Bond Prefers Heineken
Daniel Craig will not be ordering his classic shaken, not stirred, White Russian, in the new movie Skyfall. Instead, he’ll be reaching for a cold Heineken beer, at least in one scene. (STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Follow Kapitall on…
Ridley Scott Baffled
Sir Ridley Scott was ”baffled” when he was first asked to direct a sci-fi movie. The 74-year-old helmer was surprised when he was offered the chance to take charge of 1979 movie ‘Alien’ as his only previous work of note…
Queen of Outer Space
Queen of Outer Space is a 1958 American CinemaScope science fiction feature film starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, and Laurie Mitchell in a tale about a revolt against a cruel Venusian queen. The screenplay by Charles Beaumont was based…
Dark Shadows The Complete Series
With a high-profile Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movie version of the classic gothic daytime soap opera Dark Shadows scheduled to be released in a couple of months, MPI has decided to release the entire series in one impressive boxed set. They…
A Cabin In The Woods
At first glimpse, this meta-horror project straight from the belly of Joss Whedon and his protégée Drew Goddard reads like any contemporary babes-in-the-woods scenario. Five college kids are picked off, one-by-one, by creatures that go slash in the night. But…
More 3D
A novelty from 1950s movie screens has grown up — and might be here to stay. Consider that: • Three of the top five films of 2011 — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Transformers: Dark of the…
First Wizard of the Movies
A Trip to the Moon was made by Georges Méliès in 1902 (just seven years after the Lumiere Brothers introduced the movies in Paris in 1895), and it was really the first real masterpiece of the young art of the…
Titanic 3D
One of the best things about director James Cameron’s sensationally sappy epic “Titanic” (1997) is that it is sequel-proof. The ship sinks. Passengers die. Some survive. The bony French-Canadian lady sings “My Heart Will Go On.” Roll end credits. Done….
The Dark Side Of The Money Men
If anyone has any doubt that movie producers are ruthless, eccentric and power-crazed, all they need to do is watch films in which producers are portrayed. When Hollywood holds up a mirror to itself, what is revealed is often very…
Asian Overkill
Die Hard goes condo in The Raid: Redemption a frenzied Indonesian action movie whose action credentials are through the roof. Here’s the brutally simple premise: A team of heavily armored cops enters the ground floor of an apartment high-rise owned…
ULTIMATE ACTION MOVIE
The Setup: Friday, June 12, 1987. Some friends and I were in Westwood, CA at the old AVCO Theater on Wilshire Boulevard about to catch the 7:00 pm show on opening night of the new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, “Predator.” The…
How the American Action Movie Went Kablooey
The action film — like automobiles, televisions and team-oriented basketball — is an American invention that is now produced much better elsewhere in the world. The latest example of this (and there are many examples from points all over the…