Essays

The 7 Must-See Monster and Alien Movies of the 1950s

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Is there anything more worth celebrating than B-movies of the 1950s? The aliens, the UFOs on strings, the rubber-suited monsters. There’s nothing else like it in cinema, and the genre is back in the spotlight with this week’s releases.

Why Variety is Wrong (and Right) About Film Blogs

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Something twisted up Variety’s panties, because not one, not two, but three articles about how shitty blogs are popped up on Sunday. Are they worth reading? Maybe. Are they worth responding to? Of course.

SXSW + OAM: Metropolis Buzzes With Golden Hornet

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SXSW gave us the double-edged sword of joy through the heart known as Metropolis with the addition of a live performance of an all-new original score for the film. Plus, we drank beer during it. Only in Austin.

This Week in Counter Programming: Sunshine Cleaning

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Amy Adams and Emily Blunt star as two loser sisters who pull it together by cleaning up other people’s suicides.

Indie Spotlight: ‘Ink’ Is a Visually Arresting Dark Fairy Tale

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With breathtaking visuals and a fantastic fairy tale story, Ink is an film that deserves to be celebrated.

Get the Verdict on ’12 Angry Men’

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To this day, 12 Angry Men somehow hasn’t saturated some movie audiences, which is why I feel it’s an important movie to feature here (in a column usually devoted to lesser-known classics).

From Development Hell: A Brief Look at Watchmen’s Long Journey to the Screen

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In 1986, “Watchmen” was published as a limited series comic book. Twenty-three years later, it’s finally being released as a film. Here’s a look at what it took to get here.

As If You Didn’t Know: We’re Launching Watchmen Week

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Strap yourselves in for a week’s worth of Watchmen features that will prove we’re geeking out just as much as you are. And we’ve got video to prove it.

Ripping Off Vegas is Easy in ‘Ocean’s Eleven’

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If you’re just in the mood for a fun movie that could teach us all a lesson about what it means to be cool (and what might happen if you hide millions of dollars of stolen money in your friend’s coffin), it’s a solid choice.