Projections Movie Blog

DVD review: 'Dementia 13' April 30, 2011 | Comment on this article

Nine years before “The Godfather” turned Francis Ford Coppola into a made man in the movie business, the Don of the B movies, Roger Corman, gave him a shot at directing his first mainstream feature. And why not? Frugal filmmaker Corman had just wrapped a cheapie called “The Young Racers” under budget on... Read More

Movie review: ‘Certified Copy’ a delicate pondering of love, art, truth

April 28, 2011 There’s a delicious ambiguity at the core of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s films, and especially so in the delicate, day-in-the-life meditation, “Certified Copy.” In this subtly written and sublimely acted story – focusing on a British author visiting northern Italy and spending a rambling, talky... Read More

Book review: New edition of Spielberg bio enlarges movie mogul’s myth

April 26, 2011 Since the candid and revealing “Steven Spielberg: A Biography” was published in 1997 – causing a major re-evaluation of the filmmaker as more than a facile, boy-wonder entertainer – much of import has happened in the life and career of America’s most consistently successful and influential movie mogul.... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Mongolian Death Worm'

April 26, 2011 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Mongolian Death Worm” Massive oil spills, international public-relations disasters and humongous environmental catastrophes aren’t the only hazards facing the business of petroleum exploration these days. There are also the slimy horrors visited... Read More

Movie review: ‘Bill Cunningham New York’ celebrates fashion, high and low

April 22, 2011 Spend any time on the streets of Manhattan, especially around 57th and Fifth Ave., and you’re likely to catch a glimpse of a slight, white-haired man in blue French workman’s jacket tooling around astride a vintage Schwinn bicycle with cameras hanging from his neck. That would be Bill Cunningham, a bona fide,... Read More

Movie review: ‘Water for Elephants’ delivers big style, diluted drama

April 22, 2011 There’s something eternally alluring in the idea of running away and joining the circus, and that’s the inherent appeal of Sara Gruen’s best-selling 2006 book “Water for Elephants,” which is fundamentally a formulaic romance novel tricked out in exotic big-top atmosphere and gritty Depression-era setting.... Read More

DVD review: 'Somewhere'

April 20, 2011 As a child of Hollywood privilege, Sophia Coppola has built her own writing-directing career on parting the veil of glamour that we envy in our so-called beautiful people and revealing an existential ennui beneath. Clearly, this offspring of directing master Francis Ford Coppola is uniquely positioned to comment... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'The Ernie Kovacs Collection'

April 18, 2011 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “The Ernie Kovacs Collection” Before the improvisational, skit-based antics of David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Pee-wee Herman and “Saturday Night Live,” there was Ernie Kovacs, the cigar-chomping genius who in the 1950s saw the potential of a... Read More

Forbidding setting, climate make ‘Jane Eyre’ production daunting

April 15, 2011 BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Take it from Cary Fukunaga, shooting a Victorian period piece in an imposing, unheated, 11th century stone manor house and on the dank, craggy, wintery dales around Derbyshire, England, is not for sissies. For his new film adaptation of “Jane Eyre,” director Fukunaga and crew set... Read More

Book review: 'Shot in Oklahoma' relates history of movies filmed in Sooner state

April 15, 2011 Most people would guess that an historical accounting of cinema shot in the Sooner State would just about fill a pamphlet, but John Wooley has filled a revelatory and richly readable 309-page book with facts about rolling film in red dirt country. “Shot in Oklahoma: A Century of Sooner State Cinema” reveals a... Read More

DVD review: 'Intruder in the Dust'

April 15, 2011 In 1949, director Clarence Brown (“The Yearling”) and screenwriter Ben Maddow (“The Asphalt Jungle”) brought to the screen an adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel “Intruder in the Dust” that was bolder than any big studio had ever gotten on the topic of racism up to that time. Set in a Mississippi... Read More

Movie review: ‘Rio’ an animated flight of fancy in rainbow plumage

April 15, 2011 Sporting a carnival of eye-popping colors, slapstick comic characters, dazzling 3D imagery and the requisite double-entendre humor that should speak to kids and their adult chaperones on appropriate levels, “Rio” is one smart bird of a movie that shows its feathers brilliantly. Produced by Fox’s Blue Sky... Read More

Movie review: ‘Samson and Delilah’ a harsh love story that’s oddly touching

April 15, 2011 In the desolate, dust-choked Australian outback, two indigenous teens make tentative, grudging stabs at first love. But don’t mistake “Samson and Delilah” for some sunny, down-under teen romance. In this stark, subtle and surprisingly touching feature debut from writer-director-cinematographer Warwick... Read More

‘Ten Commandments' gets epic box set treatment

April 13, 2011 BY GENE TRIPLETT Fraser Heston broke into movies with a little of help from his dad.... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Car 54 Where Are You?' (The Complete First Season)

April 11, 2011 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Car 54 Where Are You?” (The Complete First Season) “There’s a hold up in the Bronx, Brooklyn’s broken out in fights/ There’s a traffic jam in Harlem that’s backed up to Jackson Heights/ There’s a scout troop short a child, Khruschev’s... Read More

‘Arthur’ Then and Now

April 08, 2011 BY DENNIS KING Thirty years separate the two “Arthurs.” In that time, some things have changed and some have stayed the same. In 1981, British gnome Dudley Moore originated the big-screen role of New York playboy wastrel Arthur Bach in writer-director Steve Gordon’s modern fairy tale inspired by P.G.... Read More

Movie review: ‘Wrecked’ fueled by Adrien Brody’s dogged performance

April 07, 2011 A battered man regains consciousness in a wrecked car at the bottom of a remote forest ravine. His right leg is pinned beneath the crumpled dashboard; there’s a corpse in the back seat and one thrown clear of the car; there’s a gun in the glove compartment and a satchel of cash in the trunk. That’s the... Read More

‘Jane Eyre’s’ Mia Wasikowska is no plain beauty

April 06, 2011 BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Mia Wasikowska is a most unlikely movie star. First of all, she proudly holds on to the tongue-tying family name of her mother’s Polish ancestry (pronounced VAH-shee-KOF-ska). Then, she lives in Australia with her family, far from the Hollywood spotlight, and only commutes to L.A.... Read More

Movie review: Much-filmed ‘Jane Eyre’ gets brisk, unconventional retelling

April 06, 2011 Any filmgoer looking askance at yet another adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s often-filmed 1847 novel “Jane Eyre” can rest assured that the new one by up-and-coming director Cary Fukunaga is a smart, worthy addition to the book’s burgeoning, multi-media canon. Since 1910, Bronte’s sprawling,... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'The Taqwacores'

April 04, 2011 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “The Taqwacores” Muslim ideology and punk rock form an uneasy alliance in “The Taqwacores,” an edgy, stereotype-busting feature film due out on DVD Tuesday. The 2010 film from writer-director Eyad Zahra has drawn comparisons to Danny Boyle’s... Read More

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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.