

Columns By Douglas PrattPratt@moviecitynews.com
Across the Universe
2007 turned out to be a great year for quality movies, and Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe was one of the crown jewels of the group. It is a musical depiction of life and culture across the Sixties that uses Beatles songs to define the emotional and spiritual states of the characters and to evoke, with a comprehensive…
Read the full article »The Science of Gondry
I’ve been a fan of Michel Gondry for quite a while, vividly remembering watching some of his early videos on MTV’s “120 Minutes” when I was growing up. Of course, at the time I had no idea who this Frenchman was, not bothering to look at who actually directed these videos for Daft Punk or Bjork. Later, I…
Read the full article »Take A Vantage…
The twisty little thriller Vantage Point ascended to the top of weekend movie going with an estimated $24.4 million. In a softish frame running up to Sunday’s Oscar telecast, another trio of pictures bowed in modestly wide release with the off kilter comedy Be Kind Rewind attracting a respectable $4 million. However, neither the $2.1…
Read the full article »The Oscars are Here!
We’re just a few short days away from red carpets being strutted upon by bejeweled starlets, handsome men in tuxedoes and thousands upon thousands of dumb questions by gossip-mongers posing as media. The Oscars are the movie version of the Super Bowl – or claims to be – and has all the requisite hoopla surrounding…
Read the full article »Look Before You Leap…
Fool’s Gold, a Popeel of a rom-com, ascended to the top of the weekend movie going charts with an estimated $22.1 million debut. The frame’s other national freshman, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, ranked second with $17.1 million in a session that was largely status quo for this time of year. Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy…
Read the full article »The Academy Awards: 2008

The intoxicant most widely trafficked in the lead-up to the Academy Awards is glamour. One night each year, the world’s most fabuloso personalities gather in a single location to sell pipedreams to the rubes in Hicksville who must content themselves with watching the fatuous coverage on TV. Even as viewers are weaning themselves from the…
Read the full article »What Happened to the Romantic Comedy?
Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, sure, but it’s also the time to celebrate your love with your partner, to go out to dinner or to stay in and cook. Oftentimes, there is a movie involved and almost every year around this time, the studios put out a romantic comedy to inevitably rake in the…
Read the full article »Shoot ’em Up
Outrageous on purpose, Shoot ‘Em Up, from New Line Home Entertainment, is a serious 2007 spoof on action films that are forever trying to top what came out the month before, but it works because it uses story and character logic to push its way from one set piece to the next. The hero is sitting…
Read the full article »Pyrites of the Caribbean…
Fool’s Gold, a Popeel of a rom-com, ascended to the top of the weekend movie going charts with an estimated $22.1 million debut. The frame’s other national freshman, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, ranked second with $17.1 million in a session that was largely status quo for this time of year. Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy…
Read the full article »Camcorders Without Borders
I remember when Dogme95 was going to be the next big movement in cinema, when films like Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration and Lars von Trier’s The Idiots were supposed blow up the cinematic landscape. I remember reading about Vinterberg and von Trier reading their “Vow of Chastity” aloud in public square in Denmark. I vividly remember taking the train…
Read the full article »A classics dilemma…

DVD became so popular, so fast, that it created opportunities for the exploitation of classic titles only hinted at in the evolution of VHS. It didn’t take long for consumers to become aware of the superiority of the new technology, even over laserdiscs and Beta cassettes. As sales of DVD hardware reached a critical mass,…
Read the full article »Holey Hannah/The Miley High Club…
Hannah Montana in 3-D reigned in its weekend debut with an estimated record-breaking $29.7 million. The singing sensation eclipsed a trio of other freshmen including a tidy second place finish of $13.1 million for the chiller The Eye. However, not many got the joke of either Over Her Dead Bodyor Strange Wilderness that bowed respectively…
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