Film

I rarely go to movies these days, being content to wait for the releases to go to DVD or cable TV. But disaster movies need to be seen on the big screen (and with a crowd) for the special effects to have maximum impact. So my friend K and I, feeling the need for a good "The world's a blowin' up, and we're all a goin' to die!" experience, went to see "2012" on Saturday.  I highly recommend it.

Most people writing about the film career of Patrick Swayze discuss his two most famous roles in "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost." Many delight in his role as the Zen bouncer ("I will

Ouch. The Food Network people won't like to read this:

QT says his latest film "Inglourious Basterds" might take its title from the 1970s B-movie "Dirty Dozen" ripoff  "Inglorious Bastards" but it is not a remake. It is, instead, Tarantino's version of a Spaghetti Western set in Nazi-era Europe. Goody, can't wait. A lot of the discussion about the film centers on the misspellings in the title, which most observers conclude is "just one of those Tarantino things" he does to stand out.

My current favorite neologism comes from a commentary about a motion in a Florida case made against the Posted in: Current Affairs, Film, The law and the jungle, Words and all that

Most of the stuff I've read about "Public Enemies" makes it sound either like another Hollywood romanticization of criminal thugs or a boring biopic without much character or depth. But Roger Ebert liked it a lot more than most of the other critics seemed to:

There are good reasons to save some old buildings. They might have architectural significance or some strong historical connection. They might still have some use left in them. Being the place where a minor Hollywood star from more than 50 years ago nodded off in study hall isn't one of those good reasons:

When's the last time you saw anybody smoking on TV, unless it was in an old movie on one of the cable networks? Are smokers going to start feeling like blacks must have in the 1950s, when television producers pretended they didn't exist? Just a passing thought, triggered by:

Smoking in a film? Rate it R, so that no children under 17 are exposed to it.

That idea, at least, is what anti-smoking advocates were promoting at a rally Wednesday evening in Downtown Indianapolis.

One of those pop-culture sites recently did a post on "Twenty Celebrities that have Aged Miserably." It's kind of a mean-spirited post -- if celebrities seem to age worse than most people, it's only because they started out

If a certain actor named Patrick kept changing where he sat in his living room until he found the perfect place to sit that brought the greatest harmony to the room and the greatest feeling of peace within himself, could that be called Feng Swayze?