

Columns By Gary DretzkaDretzka@moviecitynews.com
Smile ’til it Hurts

The odd thing about conspiracy theories is that no matter how hard government officials, business executives and editorial writers work to discredit them, a surprisingly large number of them eventually turn out to be true. The CIA actually did ask the Mafia to help assassinate Fidel Castro; the FBI really had infiltrated the Black Panther…
Read the full article »Watchmen: Director’s Cut
The theatrical release was a disappointment, but that has nothing to do with the much longer and immensely satisfying Warner Home Video release,Watchmen Director’s Cut. Directed by Zack Snyder, the 186-minute feature is a two-generation epic comic book movie that works on almost every level. It does not have the giddy momentum of the deserved mega…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Fast and Furious, Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, Repulsion, and more…
Fast and Furious (One-and-a-Half Stars) U.S.; Justin Lin, 2009 (Universal) Fast and Furious — fourth in the mega-muscle-car-chase, car-crash series that began with The Fast and the Furious back in 2001
Read the full article »10 Reasons You Must See In the Loop
Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop is one of the smartest, funniest and most vulgar films sinceThe Big Lebowski and is almost as quotable. It is the story of how one British bureaucrat’s slip of the tongue can be the catalyst for a campaign for war in the Middle East. There are scenes in secret Congressional meetings…
Read the full article »Gee Whiz!
The rodents of G-Force proved to be mighty mites as they usurped King Potter for the box office crown with an estimated $32.2 million. Two other film debuts figured near the top of the charts. The template rom-com The Ugly Truth ranked third with $27.3 million and the generic chiller The Orphan followed in the…
Read the full article »Coming of Age at the Movies: Where’s the Brat Pack for Today’s Teens?
My own coming-of-age years were defined by Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (seasoned with a generous sprinkle of Purple Rain and a dash of Desperately Seeking Susan). If you were a couple years behind me in high school, it was probably Say Anything and Some Kind of Wonderful. The 1980s teen flicks were great…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Coraline, Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, Watchmen, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and more…
PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Coraline (Three-and-a-Half Stars) U. S.; Henry Selick, 2009 (Universal) Other big budget studio movie genres may often seem overblown and underthought, but
Read the full article »Frenzy Like It’s 1999
It’s basically an accepted fact at this point that 1999 was one of the absolute best years in (recent) movie history. It was a coming-out party for a number of visionary filmmakers as well as a reminder of the talent of some veteran guys. It was truly a year of auteurs, with new filmmakers like Paul…
Read the full article »HP and the Full-Blooded Dish
It was all Harry 24/7 as the sixth installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, stormed the box office with an estimated $79.7 million box office ($159.9 million for 5½ days). It was the most fierce debut in the series history (inflation unadjusted) and all the more incredible in light of a paucity of Imax…
Read the full article »Until the Credits Do Us Part: Marriage and the Movies
If you judged marriage based on the recent history of Hollywood’s depiction of adult relationships, you might think most people spend the majority of their lives either starting new relationships or ending old ones, and very little time in the period in between. Perhaps it’s partly the influence of Hollywood, where celebrity marriages might last…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: 12, For All Mankind, This is Spinal Tap, The Haunting in Connecticut, and more…
PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW 12 (Three-and-a-Half Stars) Russia; Nikita Mikhalkov, 2008 12 is a modern Russian version of one of the great virtuoso American melodramas
Read the full article »Changes That Would Actually Make The Oscars Better
With the news that the Academy is now cutting the honorary Oscars from the telecast – on top of the news that it is expanding its Best Picture field from five nominees to ten – it seems like the Academy Awards is going through a major period of adjustment. I think both of these moves…
Read the full article »Bru-Maybe
Fabulous! Brüno, everyone’s favorite Austrian fashionista, led weekend ticket sales with an estimated $30.2 million. The frame’s other national bow, I Love You, Beth Cooper received considerably less affection with a $5 million opener and in Quebec local hero De Pere en flic had a huge debut of $1.8 million that cracked the domestic top…
Read the full article »Jeffrey Levy-Hinte Finds Some Soul Power

Nostalgia dictates that everything that came before not only is grander than what is currently in vogue, but, in all likelihood, what is yet to come. Nowhere is this belief more firmly entrenched than among sports fans and music lovers. No matter how much money HBO and Showtime pour into the promotion of title fights…
Read the full article »The Slippery Slope of Truth in Non-Fiction Films
Rich, successful Latino-American lawyer takes on a big corporation on behalf of downtrodden, third-world workers and wins. It makes for a great “David versus Goliath” story of melodramatic Erin Brockovich proportions — but what if the David of the story ends up being accused of fraud, causing not only that case but others to be thrown…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Knowing, Quo Vadis?, Lonely are the Brave and more…
Knowing (Also Blu-Ray) Two Stars U.S.; Alex Proyas, 2009 Apocalypse anyone? Something awful is happening in the world and Nic Cage’s John Koestler is
Read the full article »Nice Age 3
It was a box office photo-finish for Independence weekend with sequels to Transformers and Ice Age going toe-to-toe and estimates giving the former a slight edge of $42.4 million to the latter’s $42.1 million. The session’s other major release was vintage gangster opus Public Enemies, which was next in the lineup with $26.1 million. Other…
Read the full article »Looking Beyond the Veil: Arab Women in Film

In hindsight, it would be fair for a novice historian to assume that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — when considered alongside Germany and Italy’s military actions in Europe and North Africa – would have provided sufficient motivation for Americans to support our entrance into a global war against the Axis powers. If so,…
Read the full article »The Fame and Misfortune of Michael Jackson
People who live and make their living in Hollywood are quick to tell you that Hollywood is an awful, soul-sucking, backstabbing hell of a town, and they’re largely right. Fame is, in its way, as evil a societal monster as alcoholism and drug addiction, and it’s not particularly surprising that many people who achieve fame…
Read the full article »Waltz with Bashir
The greatest so far untapped potential in all of cinema is the animated documentary. The genre got off to a rousing start with Winsor McCay’s contemporary 1918 depiction of the sinking of the Lusitania, but virtually nothing has followed up that effort beyond a few educational programs such as Frank Capra’s Hemo the Magnificent. In 2008, however, there…
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