by Richard von Busack
Shaped like the end of a trilogy (despite a proposed sequel) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader heads to its appointed port, loaded to the gunwales with a …

By Richard von Busack
THE WEIGHT of Black Swan’s neon-purple romanticism falls on Natalie Portman’s thin shoulders. Starved to a skeleton for the role of a prima ballerina, she’s aesthetically pleasing: the fine Vulcan eyebrows and …

by Richard von Busack
THE GLOWING harbor views and country-scapes of The Girl Who Played With Fire are replaced in its sequel, a televisionistic series of close-ups of baleful Swedes frowning at each other over tables …

The creepy old house mystery is Halloween-lite; horror for those who really don’t care for horror much…for those who’d like to be in the season’s mood but don’t want to be jolted. No one should …

by Richard von Busack
Remember Tim Burton’s Ed Wood arguing that the naïve folk artist director Wood had some parallels to Orson Welles, on the grounds that Wood, too, was a complete filmmaker? William Castle, …

by Richard von Busack
“Population, Migration, Globalization” are the three themes of the 13th Annual United Nations Association Film Festival, which brings a matchless selection of documentaries to the South Bay and beyond. Highlights here; below …

by Richard von Busack
THE OPENING of the morose and oatmeal-colored Hereafter is an act few films could follow. It’s a flawlessly animated tsunami crashing into a tropical island. When a disaster strikes in a movie, …

by Richard von Busack
Margaret Atwood said “baseball is what America was, football is what America is,” and it’s clear that Jackass 3D is what America is becoming. Undeniably visceral entertainment that it is, it’s a …

by Richard von Busack
The 22nd Annual Pacific Rim Film Festival plays Oct 15-20 in Santa Cruz, California. Admission is free. For more information check the Santa Cruz Weekly’s website  or the Pacific Rim Film …

by Richard von Busack
WHEN a documentary filmmaker phrases a social problem in a way sure to break your heart, beware. Waiting for Superman by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) follows five young students as they …