Quick—what won Best Foreign Film at this year’s Academy Awards? If you recalled Departures, from Japan, take a bow. Like most foreign film winners, the movie was pretty much forgotten…
Bob Cashill
Movie ballyhoo is in good shape this Halloween season. The made-for-$10,000 Paranormal Activity has become a runaway hit, thanks to clever Internet marketing. ”Chaos reigns” T-shirts are being hawked (or…
One of my favorite moviegoing experiences occurred when I lived in San Jose, CA, and decided one weeknight to see Lars von Trier’s Zentropa (1991). The Danish filmmaker and provocateur…
Michelle Pfeiffer was an Academy Award nominee for Stephen FrearsÁ¢€â„¢ Dangerous Liaisons (1988), for which screenwriter Christopher Hampton took home a statuette. But I donÁ¢€â„¢t expect literary adaptation lightning to…
At long last, Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are arrives in theaters this weekend. Did Bob Cashill have a wild rumpus at his screening, or did he send Jonze to bed without supper?
Nick Hornby’s been a busy man lately — not only does he have a new book out, but he penned the screenplay for this coming-of-age drama, which is already earning Oscar buzz for star Carey Mulligan.
Writer/director David Mamet and co-star William H. Macy have a good time reminiscing on the commentary track that accompanies the Criterion Collection edition of Homicide (1991). This Á¢€Å“cop movie that…
The 47th annual edition of the New York Film Festival kicks off tonight at Lincoln Center. Except for last yearÁ¢€â„¢s paternity leave IÁ¢€â„¢ve attended every one since 1994. Back before…
In the HBO/BBC co-production Into the Storm, a visibly moved Winston Churchill (played, in an Emmy-winning performance, by Brendan Gleeson) screens his favorite movie, That Hamilton Woman (1941), for guests….
There aren’t many bankable stars at the movies in 2009 — but Meryl Streep is one of the last ones standing, and as Bob Cashill notes, she’s earned her stature.
Bob Cashill helps bring Beatles Week to its spine-tingling conclusion with a look at the Fab Four at the movies — after they broke up, of course. Give our regards to Broad Street, would you?
Summer’s over, and it’s got Bob Cashill in a reflective mood as he looks back on what worked — and what didn’t — at the cinema this blockbuster season.
A 201-minute Belgian film described as a Á¢€Å“domestic 2001Á¢€ could inspire reams of pretentious criticism, but I found Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) pretty easy to…
I should cut Whit Stillman some slack. He got his start as a feature filmmaker at age 38 with the acclaimed Metropolitan (1990)Á¢€”the right time to look backwards with a…
Bob Cashill has just gotten back from Taking in a screening of Ang Lee’s latest. Does he wish he could give it back? Read this week’s No Concessions to find out.
Godzilla doesnÁ¢€â„¢t turn up anywhere in the three-film Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection, but the movies are so terrifically entertaining heÁ¢€â„¢s hardly missed. Godzilla and friends stomped across my childhood…
The summer that brought us Woodstock and the moon landing also lives in infamy for the Manson murders, which means a rehash of the life, times, and crimes of Sharon…
Got your ticket stub, your popcorn, and your extra large soda? Meet Bob Cashill in the No Concessions lobby, where he’s waiting to tell you about the summer’s finest in indie fare.
I donÁ¢€â„¢t smoke. I donÁ¢€â„¢t like smoking. But I donÁ¢€â„¢t like moves to ban smoking in movies, either. Smoking is a sad fact of life, as our president will attest,…
If youÁ¢€â„¢re looking to commemorate the moonwalkÁ¢€”the original moonwalk, that isÁ¢€”on July 20, look not to the stars but to your DVD vendor, and pick up a copy of Al…
For this week’s Popdose Flashback, Bob Cashill reminisces about the B-52s’ Cosmic Thing — and a certain very, very friendly young lady in Thailand.
The Hurt Locker does the impossible: It single-handedly redeems the mostly misbegotten run of Á¢€Å“sandÁ¢€ films, those war-on-terror features connected to Iraq and Afghanistan, a genre about as useless and…
Amidst the turbulence in the world of pop culture comes good news from, of all places, Afghanistan. At the start of the new documentary Afghan Star, we see a line…
My list of favorite comics-inspired movies would include the first two Superman films, the first two X-Men, Batman Returns, Spider-Man 2, Ghost World, the 1980 Flash Gordon, and Last Year…
New Yorkers arenÁ¢€â„¢t a sentimental bunch. But there are some things weÁ¢€â„¢re fiercely protective of. One of those is the 1974 crime drama The Taking of Pelham One Two Three….
Á¢€Å“The Man Behind the Magic,Á¢€ the title of the mainstage extra within this five-film set of movies the genial two-time Oscar winner made for Columbia Pictures from 1954-1964, tells you…
Some horror film directors unnerve us with little ripples of tension that unexpectedly crescendo into waves of terror. Sam Raimi is not one of those horror film directors. Pauline Kael…
Fordian or Hawksian? ThatÁ¢€â„¢s the kind of question IÁ¢€â„¢d love to see ricochet around Facebook, where IÁ¢€â„¢ve been asked what 80s movie I am, what Renaissance painter I am, and…
The Popdose Staff, led by the intrepid Jon Cummings, has banded together to present a mixtape full of songs from our own weddings. Walk down the aisle with us, won’t you?
Here it is, not even June and with a case of blockbuster fatigue already. Pro and con, the fourth (fourth!) Terminator movie has already been dissected and dismantled around here,…