If you took away the vampires in Twilight and replaced them with Mexican gangbangers, you might have something like the central plot of Sin Nombre [Without Name]. You’d also have a way scarier movie.... Read more

Some movies are critic-proof, of course, and director J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot is a classic case in point. Reviewers might as well save their breath if they don’t happen to believe it lives up to its hype. Abrams is a god to the current generation of sci-fi fans, and nothing critics say is going to have the slightest impact on his faithful.... Read more

Monday, April 27. Production Manager Bill Simmon has just given a thumbs-up from his control room at the Burlington studios of Vermont Community Access Media (VCAM). The show’s theme song has played, and now it’s time for the hosts to introduce themselves.

“Hello, I’m Howie Mandel,” begins a bearded comedian. He adds hastily: “I’m just kidding! I’m just trying to make a clever joke.”... Read more

If last summer taught us anything, it was that comic-book movies can encompass the ridiculous, the sublime and everything in between. Sure, some naysayers still refuse to take seriously any film where the protagonist has superpowers and an epithet for a name. But they may eventually go the way of those who insisted that a great Western or a great horror film was an oxymoron.... Read more

Matthew McConaughey has been in the public eye for 16 years now. A look back suggests his has been one of the oddest show-biz careers in recent memory. And I’m not even counting that whole naked bongo-playing business.?... Read more

The Soloist is the second film released in two weeks to present daily-newspaper reporters with premature nostalgia, as rumpled, endearing critters on the verge of extinction. Like last week’s State of Play, director Joe Wright’s film has loving montages of papers rolling off the press and tense conversations about layoffs and defecting readers.... Read more

Remember the voiceover Ray Liotta delivers at the beginning of Goodfellas as his character’s ushered through the kitchen of a crowded nightclub and seated at a table just inches from the stage? “For us to live any other way was nuts. If we wanted something, we just took it. To me being a gangster was better than being president of the United States.”... Read more

Hop Loss
Arts organizations tend to struggle in the best of times. And these are not the best of times. So it was a bummer, though not a shocker, to learn this week that Burlington’s South End Arts and Business Association (SEABA) finds itself without funding for an Art Hop 2009 coordinator. That means current coordinator Bob Bolyard is out of a job. Or at least one of his jobs.... Read more

Here’s the scoop: Russell Crowe is going to save American democracy with print journalism. (Note the print part; it’s important.) In State of Play, he plays the daily-newspaper reporter as a fierce, noble underdog. Crowe’s character, Cal McAffrey of the fictional Washington Globe, drives a 19-year-old Saab and types his stories on a 16-year-old PC.... Read more

Long, long before he got around to penning his controversial and largely misunderstood masterpiece American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis made his literary debut with the novel Less Than Zero.... Read more