Owning Mahowny

Owning Mahowny
Film review by: Witney Seibold

            When a film about addiction is made, it usually involves substances. Drugs, alcohol and the like.

John Carpenter and The Western Influence

A Fistful of Carpenter
Film feature by: Witney Seibold

            In January of 1995, when I was 16, I trekked down to The Broadway Theater in Santa Monica to see John Carpenter’s film “In the Mouth of Madness.”

“In Cold Blood” and The Death Penalty

Only a Lad
Film essay by: Witney Seibold

            Four members of the Clutter family were murdered in their Kansas home in the early 1960s.

City of Ghosts

City of Ghosts
Film review by: Witney Seibold

            Actor Matt Dillon wrote and directed the film, but it was co-written by Barry Gifford, the man behind Wild at Heart, the Perdita Durango books, and co-author of Lost Highway. His writing style is glib, smirking, violent. Like a dirty, violent lovechild of Elmore Leonard and Tom Robbins. And it is in Gifford’s world, a world of hyper-noir if you will, that the film “City of Ghosts” takes place. A world of suave flat con-men, incomprehensible scams, and the occasional karaoke in Thai.

Identity

I.D., Please
Film review by: Witney Seibold

            “Identity,” the new thriller from director James Mangold (“Girl, Interrupted”), and writer Michael Cooney (the “Jack Frost” movies), is a difficult film for me to discuss.

Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons

Film review by: Witney Seibold

 

 

            I’m not going to address the controversy in Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons.”

Step Up 2: The Streets

Step Up 2: The Streets

Film review by: Witney Seibold

 

            The first “Step Up” (2006) was about a street-wise, out-of-control thug named Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum) who was tutored and tamed by a prim female ballet student. Likewise, the thug also taught the prim ballet student how to loosen up, and win a big dance-off at the end of the film. It’s a cliché-riddled flick which is disappointing only in that there is not enough dancing in it.

House of 1000 Corpses

The 1000 Blows
Film review by: Witney Seibold

            Hoo boy. Where to start?

Fellini: I’m a Born Liar

The Maestro
Film review by: Witney Seibold

            I have to say this right off: despite being a lover of film, I am not a huge Federico Fellini fan.

The Core

Chewy Chocolate Center
Film review by: Witney Seibold

            Jon Amiel’s “The Core” is not a 2003 film, I’m sorry. Oh sure, it has a cast of contemporary actors (and good ones at that: Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Stanley Tucci, Alfre Woodard, Tchéky Karyo, Delroy Lindo), and the animation of the large cylindrical craft probing deep into the Mariana trench (hellooo, Freud) is state-of-the-art, but the feeling of the entire affair is akin to one of those lighthearted disaster flicks from the 1950s. Everything is so melodramatic, so over-the-top, so, to be blunt, cheesy, that it becomes… well, I gotta be honest, it becomes fun.