by Steve Palopoli
IT’S STARTING TO SEEM like just about anything can be called a cult film these days. The Breakfast Club? Ghostbusters? Saw? Sound of Freaking Music? Are you kidding me? Those movies were all …

SAD, ROMANTIC, elegantly turned, a potential mainstream hit not too differently shaped from Love Story and yet not at all a commercial sellout. One Day, by the ever-rising director Lone Scherfig, is neo-classic filmmaking taking …

(Opens Aug 19 at the CineArts at Santana Row in San Jose and the Century 16 in Mountain View, the Landmark California in Berkeley, the Sundance Kabuki in San Francisco and the Century Regency 6 …

(Now playing at the Embarcadero Cinemas in San Francisco and the Shattuck Cinema in Berkeley. Opens Aug 19 at the Ken in San Diego and the Chez Artiste in Denver.)
By Richard von Busack
Actors who get …

by Richard von Busack
On Guy Fawkes’ night when London is blitzed by fireworks, aliens crash land: eyeless furry beasts whose snaggled teeth glow like ultra violet lights. Dark silhouettes, they look like Muppets made out …

by Richard von Busack
EVER SINCE Russ Meyer told me that the dead German soldiers always carried the best porn in their pockets, I’ve been skeptical of the Reichian theory that what fascists need is a …

by Richard von Busack
THE ROOTS of the story of Titus Andronicus go back to the Roman poet Ovid. The Help (a relatively benign and bloodless variation on the tale) proves once again that Shakespeare certainly …

By Richard von Busack
It’s surprising how much you want to see a gorilla in a helicopter, without every really knowing you wanted to see it until you see it. Rise of the Planet of the …

by Richard von Busack
CAN’T CALL IT anthropomorphosis, when the subject is an anthro already. Elizabeth Hess’ book Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human is the source for the new documentary by James Marsh …

by Richard von Busack
(Plays Sat, Aug 6 at noon in San Jose at Camera 12.)
THE RAMAYANA tends to be too complex a story for unsophisticated Western minds, so Nina Paley’s heartbreak—chronicled in her lovable, jewel-colored …