Projections Movie Blog

‘Specialty’ films promise to warm up winter’s dank months for movie lovers December 30, 2010 | Comment on this article

BY DENNIS KING They used to call them “indie” films, but that seems passé. Some have called them “art” films, but that sounds elitist. Now those movies produced on modest budgets, with strong themes, story-driven narratives and actors instead of stars (small-scaled dramas and comedies, documentaries and... Read More

2010’s Top 10 movies – best-schmest, here are our ‘favorites’

December 30, 2010 BY DENNIS KING It’s that time of year when movie critics everywhere are busy with bookkeeping, tallying up 2010’s screen offerings and issuing their Top 10 lists. But dictating the year’s “best” films is so often a rote ritual, driven by urgencies of the upcoming awards season and marked by a certain... Read More

Under the Radar DVDs: 2010’s oddest of the odd

December 27, 2010 Each week sees literally hundreds of new releases on DVD. Big-bucks advertising and studio clout propel sales of the most high-profile DVDs. But the oddball releases that fly under the radar are often the most fun. Those bottom-of-the-list releases have been spotlighted during 2010 in the “Under-the-Radar DVD... Read More

Movie review: ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ sets sail into multiplex Bermuda Triangle

December 24, 2010 The dozen or so screen adaptations of “Gulliver’s Travels,” drawn from Jonathan Swift’s dense, dark and misanthropic 18th century satire on human nature, have mainly cast the story as a lively children’s narrative. Rarely have filmmakers attempted to plumb the more complex literary, political or... Read More

Chatty Reese Witherspoon challenged by repressed, non-verbal character

December 22, 2010 BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Reese Witherspoon considers herself an open and chatty person, and so the chipper actress whose breakthrough role came as the talkative innocent in 2001’s “Legally Blonde” said her newest acting part is something of a stretch. In “How Do You Know,” Witherspoon plays a... Read More

‘Machine Gun’ Owen Wilson’s idea of a good time?

December 22, 2010 NEW YORK – Owen Wilson – with his fractured nose, crooked smile, twinkly blue eyes and tousled blond hair – is every girl’s dream date and every guy’s ideal frat brother. Just ask his co-stars in “How Do You Know,” the James L. Brooks romantic comedy in which the laidback Texas native plays a... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Meet John Doe' (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition)

December 20, 2010 This week, the most interesting DVD to appear on release lists is: “Meet John Doe” (70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition) The holidays are a perfect time to celebrate the work of Frank Capra, one of American cinema’s greatest populist filmmakers. So, it’s fitting that Tuesday brings the DVD... Read More

In ‘How Do You Know,’ Jack Nicholson keeps moving forward like a 'shark'

December 17, 2010 BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Flanked by a trio of the freshest young actors in contemporary film, Jack Nicholson seems to relish his status as Hollywood’s resident lovable rogue. Since his heyday as counterculture radical in landmark movies such as “Easy Rider,” “Five Easy Pieces” and “One Flew Over... Read More

When movies ask who, what, when, where, why or how?

December 17, 2010 If James L. Brooks, a most literate moviemaker, chooses to title his new romantic comedy “How Do You Know,” sans punctuation, there’s probably a good reason. According to director Robert Zemeckis, there’s an old Hollywood superstition that films with a question mark in the title do badly at the box... Read More

Movie review: ‘How Do You Know’ a romantic comedy with grown-up imperfections

December 17, 2010 The cosmic question at the heart of James L. Brooks’ latest, appealingly quirky romantic comedy is “How Do You Know.” Although the writer-director of such grown-up comedies as “Broadcast News,” “As Good As It Gets” and “Spanglish” fails to punctuate his latest properly (something to do with an... Read More

‘How Do You Know’ stars recount disastrous blind dates

December 16, 2010 NEW YORK – James L. Brooks’ offbeat romantic comedy “How Do You Know” gets moving with a disastrous blind date between distracted characters played by Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd. The fidgety, nearly speechless date most likely constitutes every single person’s idea of dating hell. Witherspoon and... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Ghost Bird'

December 13, 2010 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Ghost Bird” Tiny Brinkley, Ark., became the center of a Bigfoot-like frenzy in 2004 with a reported sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird long thought to be extinct. In the engaging documentary, “Ghost Bird” (due out on DVD Tuesday),... Read More

Movie review: ‘Voyage of Dawn Treader’ catches 3D wave

December 10, 2010 C.S. Lewis’ allegorical “Narnia” adventures on film switch studio kingdoms (from Disney to Fox) for “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” without missing a beat. Under the steady hand of veteran director Michael Apted (the “7-Up” documentaries, “Coal Miner’s Daughter”),... Read More

Sal Mineo biography tracks meteoric rise and tragic fall of teen idol

December 10, 2010 Show business has always had its male Cinderella stories – those of photogenic young talents who enjoyed meteoric early success and teen idol status. But as a cautionary tale, the red- hot young Justins of this era (Bieber, Timberlake and so on) might be wise to heed the tragic career arc of Sal Mineo. In the... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Yogi Bear's All-Star Christmas Caper'

December 06, 2010 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Yogi Bear’s All-Star Christmas Caper” With a big-budget, live action/animated “Yogi Bear” set to lumber into multiplexes for the holidays, it might be a good time to celebrate Yuletide with the original picnic-filching bear in ‘Yogi Bear’s... Read More

DVD review: Holiday documentary asks ‘What Would Jesus Buy?’

December 02, 2010 “What Would Jesus Buy?” is the kind of documentary that should give you very uncomfortable pause as you’re standing in line to purchase the DVD at the big-box electronics store. A lively showcase for the bombastic Reverend Billy (a.k.a. Bill Talen) and the Church of Stop Shopping, the film depicts a fervor in... Read More

Movie review: ‘Hornet’s Nest’ provides satisfying end to Swedish noir trilogy

December 02, 2010 Fans of the Swedish art-house pulp that has defined author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy on screen will have come to identify its ferocious, brainiac heroine Lisbeth Salander as a girl of swift, impetuous and violent action. But in “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” the final, drawn out but... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Hair High by Bill Plympton'

November 29, 2010 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Hair High by Bill Plympton” Pompadours and beehives are the order of the day in cult animator Bill Plympton’s gothic high-school comedy “Hair High,” due out on DVD Tuesday. “Hair High by Bill Plympton” is a 2004 cartoon feature that tells... Read More

Movie review: ‘Love and Other Drugs’ is a rom-com with identity crisis

November 24, 2010 “Love and Other Drugs” can’t quite settle on whether to be a frankly adult romantic comedy, a sharp satire of the go-go ’90s dot-com bubble and the rise of Big Pharma, or a tear-jerking degenerative-disease melodrama. So it waffles among the three: For a while it offers the often naked Anne Hathaway and... Read More

In Nordic odd-couple comedy ‘Elling,’ Oslo meets Broadway

November 23, 2010 Update: Despite original plans to run through March, “Elling” has closed on Broadway. According to the Associated Press, the final curtain came down on the play Sunday after just 22 previews and nine regular performances. Although elements of the play were widely praised by critics, producers said ticket sales... Read More

2 3 Next

About the writers

Dennis King

Movie Critic

King spent 31 years as an ink-stained wretch working for newspapers in Seminole, Ada, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. He holds a B.A. degree in English from the University of Central Oklahoma and for 16 years served as an adjunct instructor in journalism and English at Tulsa Community College. For 20 years, he was full-time film critic at the Tulsa World.

In 2006, he left Tulsa and along with his wife, Suzan (a retired English professor), moved to a cabin in Dingmans Ferry, PA. There, along the banks for the Delaware River, he chased after two rambunctious Labrador retrievers, fly fished the waters of the Poconos and did his best to become a full-time trout bum. Still scratching a writer’s itch, he freelanced articles for Explorer magazine and Gray’s Sporting Journal and wrote a stage play about classic movies and old movie theaters, titled “Spirits of the Coronado” (after his long-gone boyhood theater at 39th Street and MacArthur Boulevard).

In December, he and Suzan moved into an apartment in upper Manhattan, where they plan to eat bagels for breakfast and street-cart hot dogs for lunch, haunt the Angelika Theater and the Film Forum, go to plays and museums, ride the subways, complain about the subways and generally live like true New Yorkers.

Gene Triplett

Entertainment Editor

Gene Triplett is another Oklahoma newspaper dinosaur who's been cranking out copy for 34 years, first at the upstart, long defunct Oklahoma Journal, covering just about every news beat imaginable, then at The Oklahoman, where's he's bounced back and forth from features to the news side as assistant city editor, city editor and entertainment editor, managing to hold down the latter position for more than 10 years. He holds a B.A. degree in journalism -- also from the University of Central Oklahoma -- and, also like his colleague King, chases after two loony Labrador retrievers. He does not live by a trout-filled river, but he and his wife Carol do own a swimming pool, much to the delight of their dogs.

The Tripletts enjoy gourmet outdoor cooking year-round (rain, sleet or snow), entertaining friends, road trips to scenic wooded parks that rent rustic lakeside cabins, listening to music, watching classic movies and, in the summertime, swimming with their dogs.