THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009, directed by Wes Anderson, 87 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC One hates to agree with such braggadocios bluster but yes, that Mr. Fox is quite fantastic. Director Wes Anderson (known for creating painstakingly mounted neurotic whimsy like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited) takes an unexpected artistic left turn into perhaps his most satisfying film to date. One thing even Anderson’s critics concede is that he has a knack for quaintly-detailed set design, so setting him loose in the hand-crafted world of old-fashioned figure animation is truly a match made in Heaven. […]
MARILYN MONROE: Some Like It High
CONTACT MUSIC: A movie showing MARILYN MONROE smoking what appears to be marijuana is set to go on sale. The never-before-seen silent film, recorded by Monroe’s pal at a party in New Jersey in the late 1950s, was tracked down by collector Keya Morgan, who paid $275,000 (£172,000) for the footage. The Some Like it Hot star is shown puffing on the joint, laughing and drinking wine. The woman who shot the four-minute clip has asked to remain anonymous, only revealing her first name as Gretchen, but has confirmed the cigarette contained marijuana, explaining, “I got (the pot). It was […]
WEEKLY UPDATE: Scrapple TV News
All the news that shits. With your host, AP Ticker. Enjoy.
CINEMA: Beyond Good And Evil
BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009, directed by Werner Herzog, 121 minutes, U.S.) OH MY GOD (2009, directed by Paul Rodger, 93 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC If you think the Batman series has turned dark, you won’t believe the latest film franchise. Bad Lieutenant, the 1992 film gave Harvey Keitel a chance to wail naked as the drug-addicted criminal cop has returned, re-imagined by its producer Edward Pressman as a showcase for the long-dismantled weirdness of Nicholas Cage. Helmed by German director Werner Herzog, this new Bad Lieutenant allows the director to show another crazed […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
[Artwork by ALEX FINE] FRESH AIR Director Wes Anderson has worked on a lot of film projects, but with his latest picture, Fantastic Mr. Fox, he ventured into new territory. It’s the first time Anderson has made an animated feature. Based on the Roald Dahl children’s book of the same name, Fantastic Mr. Fox is the story of a slick, well-bred fellow (voiced by George Clooney) who swears off stealing from three rich farmers after becoming a parent — but who can’t entirely control his sticky fingers. Anderson created the film in stop-motion, in which the objects in front of […]
CINEMA: Rock The Boat
BY JAMIE DAVIS Pirate Radio is basically a coming of age story for young Carl (Tom Sturridge), who is sent to supposedly get on the straight and narrow by living on board his aging hipster godfather’s pirate radio ship anchored off the shore of Britain some time in the mid-1960s. It’s also a story of the rockers vs the squares. You see, in the 1960’s the British government controlled all broadcasting, and refused to play more than 45 minutes of rock n’ roll music a day. But the young folks needed to get their fix somehow, so these pirate radio […]
CINEMA: 40 Years At Alice’s Restaurant
ALICE’S RESTAURANT (1969, directed by Arthur Penn, 111 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Curiously, there is a a dearth of songs to sing around the Thanksgiving dinner table, despite being based on ideas of gratitude and family — I blame those uptight Pilgrims. Well, there is Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” the eighteen-minute talking blues song by the then nineteen year old son of folk legend Woody Guthrie. The song chronicles a post-Thanksgiving dinner trip to the dump which results in a charge of littering that ultimately renders the young Guthrie unfit to serve in the war in […]
MUST SEE TV: Pigeon Impossible
Pigeon: Impossible is the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase. The film took nearly 5 years to complete and is the first attempt at animation by writer/director Lucas Martell. MORE
WEEK IN REVIEW: Scrapple TV News
All the news that shits. With your host, A.P. Ticker.
CINEMA: Apocalypto
2012 (2009, directed by Roland Emmerich, 158 minutes, U.S.) BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN (2009, directed by John Krasinski, 80 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Roland Emmerich has spent an estimated quarter of a billion dollars to wreck the world one more time in 2012, a film that has drawn audible sneers whenever it and its calamity-rich trailer rear their head. Emmerich has souped-up ideas from his past hits Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow to bring us his biggest and baddest apocalypse yet, only to drive home the fact that the end of the world somehow […]
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
WEEK IN REVIEW: Scrapple TV News
All the news that shits. With your host, A.P. Ticker.
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR As an American journalist in Japan, Jake Adelstein uncovered a world unknown to many of the Japanese public, let alone to foreigners: the world of organized crime. For 12 years, he investigated for Japan’s largest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shinbun. In his final story, Adelstein went toe-to-toe with one of the country’s most notorious crime bosses, a discovery that led to death threats for him and his family — death threats that have yet to be lifted. His new memoir about his experiences is called Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. After leaving the […]