Beyond the multiplex

Sympathy for the devil worshipers

Andrew O'Hehir — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:01:00 PST

It's taken more than a full decade for the most widely demonized and vilified music scene in rock history -- the Norwegian black metal scene of the early to mid-'90s -- to get anything close to a fair treatment in a documentary film. In truth, the job isn't finished yet. As crafty and compelling as Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell's "Until the Light Takes Us" is, it may go too far in its understandable desire to correct the bias and prejudice of mainstream journalism.

Werner Herzog among the demented iguanas

Andrew O'Hehir — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:21:00 PST

If the essence of Werner Herzog could somehow be bottled and preserved, it could make a more effective remedy for clinical depression and seasonal affective disorder than anything found in the pharmacist's cabinet. Whatever you make of the guy's movies -- a prodigious and often baffling output unlike anything else in cinema history -- he's the most irrepressibly optimistic man in show business. At one point in our recent phone conversation, he took a break from listing all his innovations and brewing projects and exclaimed in his trademark Bavaria-by-way-of-West L.A. drawl: "You name it -- it just can't get any better!"

John Woo on "Red Cliff" and the rise of Chinawood

Andrew O'Hehir — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:19:00 PST

When John Woo left Hong Kong in the early 1990s, a few years before the then-British territory was to be handed over to the People's Republic of China, it clearly marked the end of an era. Although he was hardly the only important Hong Kong filmmaker, Woo symbolized the sudden global emergence of the territory's highly choreographed action cinema. With pictures like "Bullet in the Head," "The Killer," and the "Better Tomorrow" series, he had personally elevated the violent police thriller to implausible levels of symbolism and visual poetry.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Caught between two worlds

Andrew O'Hehir — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:17:00 PST

At the ripe old age of 28, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is simultaneously a showbiz old pro and one of the hottest young acting talents to emerge in this decade. When Gordon-Levitt played his first high-impact dramatic roles in edgy, independent films like "Mysterious Skin" (2004) and "Brick" (2005), there were a handful of snickers at first: Wait, isn't that Tommy, the teenage kid from "3rd Rock From the Sun"? It was indeed, but Gordon-Levitt has been acting since early childhood. He had an extensive TV résumé long before the first of his 133 "3rd Rock" episodes -- with recurring roles on "Roseanne," "The Powers That Be" and the early-'90s "Dark Shadows" reboot -- and he damn sure hasn't let that role define his subsequent career.

Pedro Almodóvar: An "irrational passion" for movies

Andrew O'Hehir — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:14:00 PST

Whether by accident or design, Pedro Almodóvar never utters the name of Francisco Franco. He refers to the self-appointed generalissimo who cast such a long shadow across 20th-century Spain only as "the dictator." Yet there will always be a strange historical linkage between the two men. It was Franco's death 34 years ago that began to open Spain to the world, and it was Almodóvar's emergence as a major film director that symbolized his country's post-fascist cultural renaissance.

"The End of Poverty?": How the rich steal from the poor

Andrew O'Hehir — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:13:00 PST

So here's the real question about capitalism, the one nobody really wants to face: Does it create gross inequality as an unfortunate byproduct of its energy and dynamism -- or is gross inequality itself, between rich and poor, between the industrialized North and the underdeveloped South, the principal product of capitalism over the last five centuries?

Woody Harrelson on war, death, LBJ and Obama

Andrew O'Hehir — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:11:00 PST

Woody Harrelson began our interview by climbing barefoot onto the interior windowsill of his hotel room overlooking New York's Union Square to point out an apartment across the square where he lived briefly, 15 or 20 years ago. (It's in the building that houses the Heartland Brewery, if you know the neighborhood. On the second or third floor, he couldn't remember.) Then he got into bed.

The undignified near-death of Miramax

Andrew O'Hehir — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:05:00 PST

It seems to me that if I were the owner of the only independent-film distributor the general public has ever noticed or cared about, the company that brought the world "Pulp Fiction," "The Crying Game," "sex, lies, and videotape," "The English Patient," "Shakespeare in Love," "Chicago," "The Queen" and "No Country for Old Men," I might try to cash in on that brand name in perpetuity by making or selling some really good movies. Fortunately for all concerned, I am not the owner of Miramax Films, and in recent days the once-mighty indie empire founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 1979 has reached the end of the road, or pretty nearly so.

Lightning survivors tell (almost) all!

Andrew O'Hehir — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:03:00 PST

You probably don't need a movie to tell you that lightning can evoke something approaching religious terror in the most atheistic people, and can be seen as the direct work of God by the faithful. Maybe your own body told you that, the last time the hair on your neck and arms stood rigid while a bolt took down a neighbor's tree. (At our family's getaway house in central New York state, summer lightning strikes have more than once caused the phone to ring. As my wife once observed, if it's actually God on the line, what do you say?) Or maybe the fact that virtually every religious and spiritual tradition views lightning as a death-dealing instrument of divine power clued you in.

Have an alt-horror Halloween!

Andrew O'Hehir — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:28:00 PDT

Alison Lohman in "Drag Me to Hell"

"Star Trek": Coming to a theme park near you!

Andrew O'Hehir — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:35:00 PDT

A still from "Star Trek: The Animated Series"

"Antichrist": Lars von Trier's voyage into madness

Andrew O'Hehir — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:35:00 PDT

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe in "Antichrist."

DVDs you should have seen -- but didn't

Andrew O'Hehir — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:21:00 PDT

Kids' movies that aren't for kids: The top 10

Andrew O'Hehir — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:16:00 PDT

A still from "Spirited Away"

Rape, power and Polanski's "Chinatown"

Andrew O'Hehir — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:07:00 PDT

The British indie explosion

Andrew O'Hehir — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:08:00 PDT

From left, Tom Hardy in "Bronson," Michael Sheen in "The Damned United" and Carey Mulligan in "An Education"

"Afterschool": Death comes to YouTube

Andrew O'Hehir — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:07:00 PDT

Goys, God, dentistry and "A Serious Man"

Andrew O'Hehir — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:08:00 PDT

AP photo

Directors Ethan Coen, left, and Joel Coen at the 34th Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009.

Early odds on the Oscar derby

Andrew O'Hehir — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:23:00 PDT

A still from "Up"

John Malkovich faces "Disgrace"

Andrew O'Hehir — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:17:00 PDT

Jessica Haines and John Malkovich in "Disgrace."