by Richard von Busack
Based on Rafal Skazycki’s comic books. “Jez Jerzy,” a rutting little cartoon hedgehog, shows signs of emulating The Simpsons’ “Poochie” with his backward baseball hat and his skateboard. But this critter (a …

“I know what I know what I know,” says Sarah Palin (Julianne Moore) in Jay Roach’s reenactment of Palin’s nine flabbergasting weeks as a vice presidential candidate. Clumsily vetted by the team of Sacramento’s Steve …

Plays at Cinequest in San Jose
Mar 7 at 5:00 PM, Mar 9 at 7:45 PM, and Mar 10 at 2:15pm
by Richard von Busack
Sarah Sparks (Anna Margaret Hollyman) is a NYC fix-it girl who relates better …

(Plays at Cinequest 22:
SJ Rep, March 5, 2012 at 4:00 PM
March 10, 2012 at 2:00 PM)
By Richard von Busack
Perplexing but immaculately composed, Play is derived from the news story of a true-life crime wave in …

by Richard von Busack
(Opens Mar 2 at the Summerfield Cinemas in Santa Rosa, California)
(unrated; 104 min.)
Fabrice Luchini is an ace farceur (Potiche, The Girl from Monaco, and beyond). He uses (and needs) everything he’s got …

By Richard von Busack
Pottersville:
a place full of bewildered people who don’t understand they’re all in the wrong movie. The razz of saxophones blare underneath the too-bright neon, and every dark alley has a lurker in …

by Richard von Busack
Elliott Gould once described his method as an actor: “I live what I do, but I was a tap dancer”. Gould, who appears at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose Mar …

By Richard von Busack
Happily, the brave and patriotic Navy SEALS who portray brave and patriotic Navy SEALS in Act of Valor aren’t the worst thing about a rotten movie. The way their roles are shaped, …

(Above: Kate Winslet and Philip Kaufman on the set of Quills.)
By Richard von Busack
San Francisco-based film director Philip Kaufman goes to the Silicon Valley film festival Cinequest this March 9 to discuss his life and …

by Richard von Busack
(Plays Feb 21-23 in Palo Alto, California at the Stanford Theatre.)
Hamlet is famous for a scene of a conversation between a man and a skull. (The skull says nothing but it has …