Meat Puppets: Under the Influence Of

by Hayden Childs

I started this post several weeks ago while vacationing in Panama City Beach, FL, which was surprisingly beautiful.  No angry blackened waterfowl to be seen there, although there were quite a few BP guys lurking about, waiting to take charge at the first sign of trouble.  But for me, spotty web connections and general focus on other things led to never getting past the first paragraph.

Then I moved halfway across the country and anyway, suffice it to say that it’s been hard to get back into the habit of writing.

But the Meat Puppets cannot be denied forever.

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Top Ten Emmy Moments (…give or take)

by Andrew Osborne

Red Carpet Pre-Show:

- The consensus on Hooker Avenue is that Christina Hendricks  needs a little more support.  And not from Emmy voters, if you know what I mean.  (Hint:  I was referring to her giant boobs.)

Fall Movie Preview

by Scott Von Doviak

Are you sick of superheroes, exploding fireballs and paper-thin romantic comedies yet? The summer movie season is finally winding down, which is usually good news for those of us in the mood for more adventurous or adult-themed multiplex fare. Although this year’s fall crop does include the occasional 3-D sequel ( Saw isn’t through with us yet), action spectacular (Tony Scott and Denzel Washington are at it again) and, of course, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, it also offers tantalizing new projects from awards-season stalwarts like David Fincher, Oliver Stone and Clint Eastwood. Here’s our sneak peek at a dozen of the most intriguing options on the upcoming release schedule.

Read the full preview

Top One Movie of the Week (8/26/10)

by Andrew Osborne & Scott Von Doviak

ANDREW: At first, I thought Hollywood was just flat-out lying to me with this title. Americans clearly love the devil and his minions (or scary movies about them, at least), and so I was extremely skeptical that director Daniel Stamm‘s quasi-mockumentary would truly be the last time we’d see a poor demon-afflicted girl twisting her neck around, scampering across the ceiling, and growling menacing pronouncements in her best glottal chest voice. But then I saw the trailer and realized the title actually refers to the final exorcism performed by the nicely B-movie-monikered Reverend Cotton Marcus, down in Scary Redneck, Louisiana (apparently a few towns over from Bon Temps, where demonic behavior is more common than meth labs). Given Eli “Hostel” Roth‘s name in the credits as a producer, the lack of recognizable faces in the cast (usually a good sign in horror films), and the fact that one of the screenwriters claims to be named “Huck Botko,” does this seem worth seeing in theaters before its swift journey to the DVD bargain bin?

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Nick Schager Reviews Centurion

Though seemingly content to be a B-movie director, Neil Marshall heads further into C-list territory with Centurion, a period actioner that squanders the great Michael Fassbender and Dominic West in murky, monotonous Roman Empire carnage. In 117 A.D., Roman soldier Quintus Dias (Fassbender) is captured in the misty mountains of Great Britain by an indigenous guerilla warrior tribe known as the Picts. With their long stringy hair, patchwork animal-carcass clothing, tribal face paint, and multi-bladed weapons, these savage villains closely resemble the Mad Max-redux lunatics from Marshall’s Doomsday, including the badass mute warrior babe, Etain (Olga Kurylenko), who leads the hunt for Quintus once he escapes imprisonment and joins up with the battalion of General Virilus (West).

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On The Possible Demise of the Dobie Theatre

by Scott Von Doviak

Did we abandon the Dobie Theater, or did the Dobie abandon us? It’s a fair question in light of the news that the Landmark Theaters chain (which has operated the venerable campus area moviehouse since 1999) is closing up shop as of Sunday. It may be too early to mourn the demise of yet another Austin institution—the Carlton Group, which owns the Dobie Center, has supposedly been in touch with several potential operators for the theater, although it’s unclear when, if ever, such a new regime might be in place—but it’s certainly not too soon to ask what went wrong with the Landmark era. 

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‘Citizen Architect’: a brainy doc from a Fort Worth-born producer

by Scott Von Doviak

Although Jeff Fraley has been involved with filmmaking for nearly 15 years, he was still a bit surprised when two aspiring documentarians dropped by his office seeking his counsel on a potential project.

“I guess I’m old enough to mentor now,” laughs the 41-year-old Fort Worth native. “But this is the first film that I’ve ever worked on outside of my company — the first time that I felt I needed to do what I could to get this film broadcast to as large an audience as possible.”

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Top One Movie of the Week (8/19/10)

SCOTT: It’s been four long months since the last artificial insemination comedy (The Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez) hit theaters, so I’m sure that, like me, you’ve been eagerly anticipating another opportunity to share in the warm-hearted laughter that only baby batter can bring. Well, we’re in luck, because the latest high-concept Jennifer Aniston rom-com off the assembly line finds our plucky heroine inadvertently conceiving a child with the sperm of her best friend Jason Bateman. What a crazy yet relatable mix-up! Honestly, I’m struggling to find some reason to give this ill-conceived (ha!) overgrown sitcom episode the benefit of the doubt — I guess it’s nice to see Jeff Goldblum on the big screen again — but given that the directing team is responsible for the short-lived TV series based on the Geico caveman commercials… no.  Just no.

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Troll Talk

by Leonard Pierce

By the way, in case you missed them when I posted them elsewhere, here are Big Leo’s Trolling Tips, to help you be a more and better troll. I am just trying to help you get the most out of all those hours you folks spend on the internet trying to get strangers to be mad at you.

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Nick Schager Reviews Modern Love Is Automatic

Irony drips off the title of Modern Love Is Automatic, since, despite the mechanically detached demeanor of its protagonist, Zach Clark’s film posits a world in which finding and maintaining amour is anything but routine. Nurse Lorraine (Melodie Sisk) slogs through days listening to a co-worker blather on about her engagement and honeymoon, and spends her nights shying away from the advances of her uninteresting, horny boyfriend. As with virtually everything that occurs in her monotonous existence, Lorraine can barely muster a response when she catches her beau in bed with another woman, or when she is subsequently compelled to room with Adrian (Maggie Ross), an overly cheery nitwit who, having just finished at the top of her rinky-dink modeling-school class, winds up working at a store where pseudo strippers peddle mattresses with their bodies.

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