Black Rock: A town out in the middle of nowhere in the California desert. Yet one day, shortly after the end of World War II, an exciting event occurs here. For the first time in four years, the streamliner makes a stop here. Out of it comes one man named Macreedy (Spencer Tracy), who is also crippled in his left arm. The other townspeople become suspicious when Macreedy asks to go to Adobe Flats to see a Japanese man named Komoko. Macreedy can't understand why; he's just wants to speak to Komoko about his son, whom Macreedy served with in Italy. Komoko's son had died defending Macreedy and for this he was awarded a medal that Macreedy wants to present to Komoko. But something is fishy about this town. It's concealing a secret past, a past that Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) and his henchmen Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine) and Hector David (Lee Marvin) want to keep secret....more

Brooks has earned his praise and numerous honors, which include a few Oscars for Terms of Endearment, as well as nods for Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets. Unless you are a movie buff, a die-hard Burt Reynolds fan or both, you may have never come across Brooks' first screenwriting achievement, Starting Over, before. I had a chance to revisit the film (on DVD since 2005) for the first time since its 1979 theatrical release and it's a splendid comedy, filled with plenty of heart, humor, and warmth to lead you through a relaxing night at home....more

The Photoshop WOW Book, now in its eighth edition, has been around since Adobe Photoshop 2.5. It has enlightened and inspired graphics designers, illustrators, and photographers for many years. This latest edition, the first in 4 years, updates to the latest functionality of CS4, but these will also work with work with CS5 as well. The Photoshop WOW Book contains step-by-step tutorials for creating both commercial as well as fine-art images. This book has been used in classrooms all over the world and has been published in several languages. This book is 800 pages in length and is divided into 11 chapters....more

Season three builds upon the past two previous seasons and improves upon it. While the storyline is a bit over the top, most of what happens are only slight embellishments of what really occurs inside and outside of a game. Most characters in The Guild are anti-social and awkward, which is an accurate representation of many types of players you find in MMOs. Fans of MMOs will either see aspects of themselves or someone they know in the characters. But even non-MMO players will enjoy this series. And good news for fans of the series — the fourth season can currently be viewed online!...more

The Experiment, based on a real-life psychology experiment at Stanford University (The Stanford Prison Experiment), is a shocking film about people becoming roles. There are many deviations from the facts of the study, but its results are startlingly the same. In The Experiment, a diverse group of men who responded to an advertisement offering $1000 a day for two weeks participation in an experimental study are subjected to a battery of psychological tests before twenty-five are selected and assigned the role of prisoner or guard. The study was being conducted by a private corporation....more

While Marmaduke may be just the thing to keep a couple of kids that find it hard to focus on a single arithmetic problem in school busy for an hour-and-a-half, the truth is the filmmakers behind this dog must’ve been inspired with laziness. The film bears little to no resemblance to its comic strip origins at all, and comes off as more of a stripped-down cross with the latter day silver screen versions of Garfield and Scooby-Doo. Our story involves Marmaduke’s human family moving from Kansas to sunny Southern California for a job opportunity, and Marmaduke’s attempts to fit in with all of the local dogs at the Bark Park (yes, it’s basically just another “awkward kid moves to a new high school” film — only without the charm)....more

Robert Altman's 1992 film The Player represents another outstanding achievement in a directorial career that has had many richly deserved accolades over the course of more than a half-century's work.  The film follows Tim Robbins' Griffon Mill, a Hollywood movie executive who finds himself the object of a despondent screenwriter's obsession and is an example of satiric, dark comedy at its best. Based on the novel by Michael Tolkin (who also wrote the screenplay), The Player manages to both beautifully mock Hollywood and yet – with eyes wide open – play into many of the tropes it mocks.  Is the movie coming down pro-Hollywood?  Is it coming down anti-Hollywood?  The truth may actually be that it is simply out to spin an excellent yarn and willing to use any means at its disposal to do so....more

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, a screenplay written by American Legend (tm) Tennessee Williams, and discovered by Director Jodie Markell, proves why some screenplays deserve to remain lost. Not that it's too much different from most of Williams' work: an over-privileged rich plantation girl, Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard, finally putting to rest the debate over whether she's a good actress or not, on the side of 'not') asks a poor plantation-hand, Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans, who should probably stick to picking up Ryan Reynolds' sloppy seconds) to be her escort at high society functions, in order to save her crumbling reputation....more

Written and directed by Bradley Rust Gray, The Exploding Girl isn't an issue movie; it doesn't have much interest in epilepsy awareness. It's more like a mumblecore after-school special. Ivy and Al take walks, go to house parties, exchange meaningful glances, give each other relationship advice. The unseen boyfriend, on the other end of many abbreviated cell phone calls, does not, it must be said, bode well for Ivy. If nothing else, The Exploding Girl is scrupulous in its depiction of spring breaks as they occur in real life: no road trips, little excitement, mild comfort, and debauchery that is mild and restless at best....more

Shaun the Sheep comes from the same minds at Aardman Animation who brought us the Wallace and Gromit shorts and films as well as the movies Chicken Run and Flushed Away. Through the power of clay and stop motion animation, Nick Park and his crew tell stories with a sense of humor and creative genius that's hard to beat. For each five minute episode of Shaun the Sheep, it takes more than 7,000 individual shots where models and backgrounds are tweaked ever so slightly between each frame, so you can only imagine the number of frames necessary for a longer film. Every time we see a new production from Aardman, I'm reminded of what must be infinite patience of these talented animators....more