On this week’s Excess Hollywood, Alex Lamb and Landon McDonald discuss the gorgeous sci-fi blockbuster “Oblivion“, the head trip “Trance” and artless horror flick “Lords of Salem.” Related content: Excess Hollywood: ‘Trance’ is less than spellbounding
The newest trailer for Zack Snyder’s forthcoming Superman reboot “Man of Steel” has elicited a strong response from fans eager to witness the return of the original superhero, a deathless icon dedicated to fighting for truth, justice and the American way. The ad also confirms what many within the Phog have suspected for years: the [...]
Could a work of art ever be worth more than a human life? That’s the diabolically intriguing question posed by “Trance,” a style-conscious psychodrama in which a shimmering puzzle box artifice masks the densely plotted machinations of a fairly standard bait-and-switch crime thriller. Danny Boyle’s newest film desperately wants to scale the cerebral heights of [...]
As President Obama is visiting KU on Friday, Landon and Alex discuss films about U.S. Presidents this week. Landon also tells about his trip to the USC school of cinematic arts and Los Angeles, and they discuss “The Place Beyond the Pines.”
Just when you thought it was safe to plan a weekend excursion to a benevolent billionaire’s newly completed theme park, life found a way to bring “Jurassic Park” back to the big screen. Nearly 20 years after dominating 1993’s box office and demonstrating the shared miracle of CGI and Stan Winston’s groundbreaking animatronics, I’m happy [...]
On this week’s Excess Hollywood, Alex Lamb and Landon McDonald give a wrap-up of Planet Comicon and discuss the “Evil Dead” remake, “Jurassic Park“, “G.I. Joe: Retaliation“, “The Gatekeepers” and ”On the Road.” Related content: Excess Hollywood: A Tribute to Roger Ebert Excess Hollywood: ‘The Gatekeepers’ pierces through the fog of war
The film world lost its most prominent critic today, so on this week’s Excess Hollywood, Alex Lamb and Landon McDonald mourn the loss of Roger Ebert and discuss his legacy.
They shuffle onscreen one after the other, a grim procession of conservatively dressed older men, their faces lined and weathered from years of thankless toil, each of them wearing the same earnest, haunted expression. You wouldn’t think it to look at them now, but at some point, each of these unassuming retirees were responsible for [...]
What does North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un have in common with Stanley Kubrick? In spite of their rather drastic ideological differences, both men have found ways to make us laugh in the face of nuclear war. Kubrick, the director of “The Shining” and “Full Metal Jacket,” furiously lampooned Cold War paranoia in his 1964 black [...]
Every generation gets the debauched beach party movie it deserves, and ours just found its rotten little soul mate. Imagine watching a “Girls Gone Wild” infomercial from the balcony of a glitzy art-house theater with three hits of acid boiling in your belly and you’ll have a rough idea of what to expect from “Spring [...]
In real life, the White House is one of the most secure, well-fortified locations on earth. In the movies, though, it’s a sitting duck. Director Roland Emmerich, whose fetish for demolishing national landmarks has been well documented in so-called disaster porn like “2012” and “The Day After Tomorrow,” famously vaporized the Presidential mansion via interstellar [...]
On this week’s Excess Hollywood, Alex Lamb and Landon McDonald discuss the films released over spring break, including Olympus Has Fallen“, “Stoker” and “Spring Breakers“. And in honor of March Madness, they talk about the greatness of “Space Jam” and several other basketball movies.
Superhero or not, one thing is for sure: Batman is running the world’s deadliest internship program. In last month’s issue of “Batman Incorporated,” renowned scribe Grant Morrison hurled a controversy-charged batarang through the heart of the DC Nation when he decided to kill off Damian Wayne, the fourth Boy Wonder and genetically perfect offspring of [...]
As much as I enjoy the sleek, freeze-dried theatrics of David Fincher’s 2011 version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” I’ll always prefer Niels Arden Oplev’s leaner, meaner Swedish-language version, which was released to comparatively little fanfare in the spring of 2009. Noomi Rapace, now most famous for giving birth to an intergalactic Squidward [...]
This week on Excess Hollywood, Alex Lamb and Landon McDonald talk road movies in honor of spring break and also discuss the excellent documentary “West of Memphis.” Road trip/vacation/spring break film playlist: Piranha 3D It Happened One Night Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Y Tu Mama Tambien Fear and Loathing The Shining [...]
