Peter Schilling

Inside a booth at the recent Back to the ’50s classic car show at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, Sven Lynch labored in the sweltering heat over a slim stripe on the side of a black ’36 Ford coupe. Various gawkers had gathered, including a pair of corpulent, bearded twins clad in matching Twins shirts, a … Read more

Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin are rugged men investigating the murder of a veteran who had just returned home from Iraq. The new Coen brothers’ film? No, that’s the eagerly-anticipated No Country for Old Men, which also stars this pair. Elah, on the other hand, is the first vehicle from director/screenwriter Paul Haggis since … Read more

Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht may never have had it so good. G. W. Pabst, who brought Louise Brooks to fame in his silent (and seductive) 1929 masterpiece Pandora’s Box, this time took to sound production and dirtied up the silver screen like never before. The Threepenny Opera tells the story of Mackie Messer (a.k.a. … Read more

Let’s call this a hybrid of the fictional Brazilian exposé City of God and Errol Morris’s police procedure doc The Thin Blue Line—both tremendous entertainment. Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)is a bizarre documentary detailing the rise of corruption in Brazilian culture as well as the country’s kidnapping epidemic. “Men will steal with a gun or … Read more

This French comedy opens with two brothers in bed with a girl. One looks at the camera, apologizes for speaking directly to the audience, and then asks, “How would someone throw themselves off a bridge for love?” Rest assured, we’ll find out. Dans Paris (Inside Paris, not to be confused with One Night in Paris) … Read more

Director Nicholas Ray’s first film (from 1948) has been called the most auspicious debut in American movies since Citizen Kane. Based on the dynamite Depression-era gangster novel Thieves Like Us, They Live by Night begins with the daring prison break of three men: a 23-year-old killer named Bowie and the aged, hardened criminals Chicamaw and … Read more

This could be the best episode ever and still not live up to the hype. After all, the movie is, what, nearly twenty years in the gestation? Give Matt Groening and company credit for assembling the best writers from seasons’ past and pulling in David Silverman, co-director from Pixar’s superior Monsters, Inc., to help them … Read more

Disney’s long-hidden classic Song of the South hasn’t been seen in theaters (or on DVD) since its theatrical rerelease in 1986. If you’ll recall, this is the simple tale of a white boy who goes to visit his grandma’s plantation in the post-Civil War South while his folks consider splitting up. There, he is watched … Read more

What is it about Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Granted, this was one of the iconic B-movie masterpieces, a spine-tingling and all-too-real allegory of both ’50s conformity and the rise of Communism. But unlike other sci-fi films of the period, the remakes have boasted talent up the wazoo. The ’70s version brought acclaimed director Philip … Read more