CINEMA: Fire, Walk With Me

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE (2010, directed by, 129 minutes, Sweden) DOGTOOTH (2008, directed by Giorgos Lanthimos, 94 minutes, Greece) ROBOGEISHA (2009, directed by Noboru Iguchi, 102 minutes, Japan) DELIVER US FROM EVIL (2009, directed by Ole Bornedal, 100 minutes, Denmark) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC She’s back!  And this time it’s personal!  The girl with the dragon tattoo, the violent bisexual rape revenger Lisbeth Salander returns with the second adaptation from the phenomenally successful  best-selling Millennium trilogy.  Thankfully shorter than the opening chapter, The Girl Who Played With Fire carries with it most of the same strengths and […]

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CINEMA: The Beast In Me

THE KILLER INSIDE ME (2010, directed by Michael Winterbottom, 109 minutes, U.S.) CYRUS (2010, directed by Jay & Mark Duplass, 92 minutes, U.S.) LET IT RAIN (2008, directed by Agnès Jaoui, 98 minutes, France) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Filming a novel like Jim Thompson’s pulp classic The Killer Inside Me is probably a fool’s errand, its lurid portrayal of a crazy Texas sheriff ain’t the shocker it once was, but that hasn’t stopped British director Michael Winterbottom from diving in and creating a surprisingly inert adaptation. Published in 1952, The Killer Inside Me is an inelible portrait of a […]

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CINEMA: The End Is Near

COLLAPSE (2009, directed by Chris Smith, 82 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Have you ever heard the 1970 LP Criswell Predicts? The narrator of Plan Nine From Outer Space and one-time Johnny Carson regular, Criswell predicts that the future will bring marijuana that can change your sex, nude funerals and a woman at the head of every nation. It’s a real hoot! Collapse, director Chris Smith’s latest film,  just out on DVD, features one-time LAPD investigator and independent reporter Michael Ruppert making lots of predictions as well.  It is not a hoot.  Ruppert makes his case that darn […]

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SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Puppy Of The Month

New feature on Scrapple TV News: once a month we will bring our pal Jamie from the SPCA on to talk about some swell new doggie with a hard-luck story and in need of a home. We start off with Mila, who came into the shelter as a stray on April 4, 2010. She was a sad sight, covered in tar and mud, and was immediately a staff favorite because of her amazing spirit and willingness to give us love, even though she clearly hadn’t had anyone to care for her for quite some time. This 2-3 year old pit […]

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CINEMA: Meth Acting

WINTER’S BONE (2010, directed by Debra Granik, 100 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC As direct as a great John Ford western, Sundance Grand Jury winner Winter’s Bone flies in the face of everything that has been hollowed out and trite in American indie films over the last decade.  Contrast it with Nicole Holofcener’s recent indie hit, the critically-lauded Please Give. That film chronicles a little bump in the lives of vaguely disaffected privileged New Yorkers. The character’s mildly dramatic detour, flirting with guilt and infidelity hardly seems like the most interesting thing that happened to them this month, […]

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ADAPTATION: Twilight Star Gearing Up For Coppola-Produced Movie Version Of Beat Generation Classic

MTV: Kristen Stewart is moving from one literary adaptation to another — albeit to something a bit more scholarly than “Twilight.” After the actress finishes promoting “Eclipse” next month, she’s set to begin filming the long-anticipated movie version of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel “On the Road,” which helped define the Beatnik generation and is still talked about in many an English class.The book’s pedigree aside, the film also has some well-respected people attached — producer Francis Ford Coppola and director Walter Salles (“The Motorcycle Diaries”), just to name a few.  Though “On the Road” is considered one of the great […]

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