Iron Man: Heavy metal Hard on the outside, soft on the inside Kent Williams on Friday 05/09/2008 From the Marvel Comics library comes Iron Man, a superhero epic starring Robert Downey Jr. as a weapons designer who, after nearly being killed by a bomb that literally has his name on it, retools himself as a knight in shining armor. Iron not being all that shiny, Downey's suit is sheathed in gold-plated titanium. >MoreWhere are you, Christian Bale? Public Enemies brings gawkers and gangsters to the Capitol Erica Pelzek on Friday 05/09/2008 Christian Bale strolled out of the East Washington entrance of the Capitol on Monday, sporting a sharply lined dark suit and slicked hair. He was here with Billy Crudup and a big Hollywood crew to shoot scenes for the gangster film Public Enemies, set in the 1930s. Vintage cars lined Pinckney Street, and extras milled around in long coats and fedoras. >More
Baby Mama: Fertile ground Baby Mama looks for jokes in the womb Kent Williams on Friday 05/02/2008 Tina Fey's so hot right now that celebraticians -- those who calibrate star heat -- are already talking backlash. It would serve her right, too, since she's a woman who dares to be both funny and pretty, and we all know where that can lead. Actually, we don't know, because it doesn't happen very often, which may be why some of us have invested so much in Fey. She doesn't just act funny, she writes funny, she produces funny. >MoreHarold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: Taking the high road Kent Williams on Friday 05/02/2008 Like a bag of pot left on your doorstep by a stranger, 2004's Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle seemed to come out of nowhere. It had been a while since we'd had a decent stoner comedy, and this one had the added attraction of smashing our ethnic stereotypes about Asian Americans. >More
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Abortion, totalitarian- style Romanian women take a nightmare journey in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Kent Williams on Friday 04/25/2008, (4) Recommendations I once talked someone who was very close to me into an abortion. She was between husbands, not for the first time, and she already had three kids, the oldest of whom was 8. I just didn't see how she could manage another child, so I did a sales job on her. I told her it was a simple procedure, that she'd be back to normal in a day or so, that she wouldn't burn in hell. I even set up her first appointment. >More
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?: Fact-finding mission Spurlock's documentary comes up with a funny answer Kent Williams on Friday 04/18/2008, (1) Recommendation I remember, right after 9/11, when we were told that Osama Bin Laden, "the evil one," had holed up in a cave somewhere in Tora Bora. It seemed like only a matter of time before the most powerful country in the world tracked him down and brought him to justice. But here we are, nearly seven years later, and except when he decides to make one himself, there's no sign of the guy. >MoreGirls Rock!:I scream, you scream Kent Williams on Friday 04/18/2008 "Hit it hard, like you're killing something," a counselor tells one of the drummers in Girls Rock!, Shane King and Arne Johnson's thrashing documentary about the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Ore. >More
The Counterfeiters: Faking it A forger tries to survive the Holocaust Marjorie Baumgarten on Friday 04/11/2008 What we call the moral compass often fails to operate in the fog of war. This is the subject of the Austrian film The Counterfeiters, winner of this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Film. >MoreChapter 27 Kent Williams on Friday 04/11/2008 It's déjà vu all over again. The ink still isn't dry on my review of The Killing of John Lennon, which purported to take us deep inside the disturbed mind of Mark David Chapman, and now here's Chapter 27, which purports to do the same. I regret to say it doesn't find very much on its exploratory mission, having neglected to take along a flashlight. Of course, neither did The Killing of John Lennon. We all want to know why Chapman, a huge Lennon fan, felt compelled to kill the thing he loved, but we may never get a satisfactory answer, least of all from Chapman, who kept going on about Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger's novel about the world's most sensitive bullshit detector. >More
Wilmington on DVD: One of the greatest silent symphonies La Roue, I'm Not There, and the films of Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin Mike Wilmington on Friday 05/09/2008 11:12 am Abel Gance, maker of the spectacular 1927 French epic Napoleon, was one of the great symphonic masters of the silent movie, and La Roue is one of his greatest symphonies. The story of La Roue (The Wheel) is, in many ways, pure silent-movie melodama, but done with such grace, style and deep feeling that it sweeps you up and thrills you, just as the silent melodramas of Gance's friend and admirer D.W. Griffith still do. >MoreEnthusiastic crowd watches Public Enemies production in Madison Fans go crazy for Christian Bale, not to mention friends and family in shoot Erica Pelzek on Tuesday 05/06/2008 12:19 pm, (5) Recommendations As the Public Enemies production took over the Capitol Square on Monday, crowds gathered along the sidewalks and peripheries of the set to watch the spectacle. As the morning progressed, my fellow onlookers' morning coffee kicked in and their hunger for celebrity sightings intensified. Though many in the crowd hoped for a peek at Christian Bale or Billy Crudup, others sat patiently looking for their loved ones in the swarm of cast and crew members. >MorePublic Enemies shoot at Capitol wraps up at State Street Michael Mann directs Christian Bale and Billy Crudup in second Monday scene Kristian Knutsen on Monday 05/05/2008 8:14 pm, (6) Recommendations Following the morning and early afternoon shoots on the East Washington Avenue steps of the Wisconsin Capitol, the cast and crew of Public Enemies packed up and made their way to the State Street side of the building for the second major sequence on Monday. As was the case with the previous shoot, this scene featured Billy Crudup as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Christian Bale as agent Melvin Purvis in Washington, D.C., the latter tasked with leading the fight against the crime wave rolling over the Midwest in heart of the Great Depression. >MoreChristian Bale stars in Public Enemies shoot in downtown Madison Director Michael Mann sets FBI scene on steps of Wisconsin Capitol Kristian Knutsen on Monday 05/05/2008 4:07 pm, (13) Recommendations As the grounds of the Wisconsin Capitol were transformed into a movie set for the production of Public Enemies, crowds gathered around the Square to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood magic on Monday. The best seat in the house, though, at least for a scene that was shot in the morning and early afternoon, might have been from the windows of Capitol offices facing East Washington Avenue, from which observers could look down on the action. >More
Public Enemies with Johnny Depp has broad array of shooting location options in Madison Scouted sites include Capitol, hospitals, taverns and houses around Madison and nearby towns Kristian Knutsen on Monday 04/14/2008 5:30 pm, (14) Recommendations Public Enemies and all of the hoopla surrounding it returned to Wisconsin with full force over the weekend. After production kicked off in March with shoots in Columbus and Darlington, the Michael Mann film about John Dillinger starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale moved on to locations in Crown Point, Indiana, as well as Chicago and Aurora, Illinois, for several weeks. It's back in the Badger State now, though, with at least a week of shooting in Oshkosh, to be followed with more in Madison. >MoreMore extras calls issued for Madison Public Enemies shoots in May Kristian Knutsen on Monday 04/14/2008 5:30 pm, (4) Recommendations When an extras casting call for the new film Public Enemies was held at Monona Terrace back in February, the response from silver screen hopefuls was tremendous, thousands of people turned out to get their photos snapped in hopes of getting a chance to appear on the screen with Johnny Depp. Even larger turnouts followed at casting calls in Milwaukee, Oshkosh, and Chicago, as the new film directed by Michael Mann has captured the imaginations of movie fans throughout the upper Midwest. >More
Music videos make for a party at the Wis-Kino screening in March Kristian Knutsen on Thursday 04/17/2008 3:14 pm, (4) Recommendations One of the most popular and best attended screenings for Wis-Kino each year is that featuring music videos. Local filmmakers respond with gusto to the optional theme, sharing everything from spoofs to short works set to tunes by Madison bands to more experimental twists on the concept. Due to ongoing winter weather headaches, this year's screening was rescheduled and the audience was thinner than usual. There were still fun music videos to be found there, though. >MoreFinding love and sex at the February screening for Wis-Kino Kristian Knutsen on Thursday 04/17/2008 12:10 pm, (2) Recommendations The record-breaking weather over this past winter played havoc on Wis-Kino, the short filmmaking group based in Madison. Heavy snows struck multiple screenings in the early part of the year, including its annual Valentine's Day-themed screening, originally scheduled for February 17. A storm derailed this original date, but that didn't stop the love or cinema as the screening was simply rescheduled to a later date. >More
Wilmington on DVD: One goddamn helluva show There Will Be Blood, Sweeney Todd, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Mike Wilmington on Friday 04/11/2008 11:43 am, (1) Recommendation There Will Be Blood is a great American film about the oil industry, set from the late 1890s to the 1920s -- at the dawn of the fossil-fuel era that now seems to be spinning us hell-bent toward world conflict and catastrophe. The anti-hero/villain: driller/speculator Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), the false father who creates a world and destroys it. >MoreWilmington on DVD: A way to be good again The Kite Runner, The Mist, Bonnie and Clyde, and classic gangster flicks Mike Wilmington on Friday 03/28/2008 12:34 pm, (6) Recommendations Art films have often reached audiences most deeply when they center on childhood, as in the first part of The Kite Runner. Based on Khaled Hosseini's very popular (and partly autobiographical) novel about two young friends in Afghanistan, separated by class divisions and then war, it's turned by director Marc Forster into a lovingly crafted movie that, for most of the way, remains admirably intelligent, a truly humane and compassionate drama. >More
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