Projections Movie Blog

DVD review: 'Higher Ground' January 31, 2012 | Comment on this article

Praise be to Vera Farmiga for proving to be as miraculous behind the camera as she is in front of it with “Higher Ground,” one of 2011′s bravest dramatic creations, now available in a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack. Many a filmmaker would be daunted by this bold screenplay based on a memoir by Carolyn S. Briggs... Read More

DVD review: 'The Love We Make'

January 31, 2012 Paul McCartney was in New York the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, sitting on a plane that was taxiing out for takeoff on a flight to Britain, where the singer planned to celebrate two of his kids’ birthdays. Then the captain announced that there’d been a “terrible accident,” and McCartney looked out the window... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Spork'

January 30, 2012 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Spork” “Spork” only metaphorically refers those funny little spoon-and-fork combinations that they sell in camping supply stores. In writer-director J.B. Ghuman Jr.’s cheeky teen comedy, due out on DVD Tuesday, it’s also the name of the... Read More

Rachel Weisz celebrates heroic woman in fact-based ‘The Whistleblower’

January 27, 2012 BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Sitting side by side, actress Rachel Weisz and former United Nations peacekeeper Kathy Bolkovac couldn’t appear more physically different, and yet the two women shared a single-minded persona in the making of “The Whistleblower,” a searing fact-based story about human sex... Read More

DVD review: A tale of two 'Straw Dogs'

January 27, 2012 Many a Sam Peckinpah fan and especially admirers of the wild and woolly director’s 1971 version of “Straw Dogs” rolled their eyes at the news that film critic-turned-filmmaker Rod Lurie (“The Contender”) had had the audacity to attempt a remake of this controversial story of savage survival... Read More

DVD review: 'Taxi Driver' (35th Anniversary Blu-ray edition)

January 27, 2012 Screenwriter Paul Schrader and director Martin Scorsese brought to “Taxi Driver” not only a shared passion for European neorealist film but also the knowledge of what it is to feel lonely. The experience of isolation is what they both had in common with the film’s central character Travis Bickle, played with... Read More

Actor’s silent performance speaks volumes in ‘Extremely Loud …’

January 27, 2012 NEW YORK – With silent movies getting a boost from the success of “The Artist,” Frenchman Michel Hazanavicius’ affectionate tribute, another talking picture now in theaters features a silent performance that would do the early cinema pioneers proud. In “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” the... Read More

DVD review: ‘The Whistleblower’

January 23, 2012 In the realm of true-life stories about courageous women fighting a corrupt, oppressive system, “The Whistleblower” falls squarely in a league with “Silkwood” and “Erin Brockovich,” movies that struggled to juggle righteous moral outrage with their stories’ dramatic imperatives. Based on the true... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Beware the Gonzo'

January 23, 2012 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Beware the Gonzo” Hunter S. Thompson meets “Revenge of the Nerds” in the smart but snarky teen-angst comedy “Beware the Gonzo,” due out on DVD Tuesday. This feature directing debut by Bryan Goluboff (who penned the script for 1995’s... Read More

Young newcomer in ‘Extremely Loud …’ surrounded by Oscar bling

January 20, 2012 BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Oscars and Oscar nominations abound among the cast and crew of “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” but the dramatic impetus for the searing post-9/11 drama rests on the slight shoulders of a 13-year-old whose only previous acting experience was as a grasshopper in a... Read More

Movie review: ‘Extremely Loud …’ moving or manipulative?

January 20, 2012 You’d have to be a hard-hearted, unrepentant cynic not to be at least initially moved by the soul-wrenching tragedy at the core of “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” And yet, even through the tears you can’t help but feel the heartstrings being plucked and see the dolorous poignancy being ladled out... Read More

Movie review: ‘Red Tails’ – history freighted with much melodrama

January 20, 2012 In George Lucas’ years-in-the-making “Red Tails,” the famed Tuskegee Airmen are freighted with such a heavy load of physics-defying digital effects, a crew of such clunky, clichéd characters and a script so laden with over-the-top melodrama that their soaring story of heroism in the face of institutionalized... Read More

Southern choir leader in ‘Joyful Noise’ based on writer’s Jewish mom

January 19, 2012 NEW YORK – You might never guess that the sassy, down-home Vi Rose Hill (Queen Latifah), tough choir leader at the small-town Georgia church in “Joyful Noise,” was inspired by writer-director Todd Graff’s Jewish mother from Queens. In closing credits of the film, Graff pays tribute to his mother, the late... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Eat This New York'

January 16, 2012 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Eat This New York” New York gobbles up new restaurants and spits them out mercilessly. In fact, about 1,000 new restaurants open in the city each year, and four out of five of them fail within the first five years. That’s a sobering fact that... Read More

At Dollywood, the proprietor has a guilty little secret

January 16, 2012 NEW YORK – Dolly Parton has a sly little secret about her stewardship of Dollywood, the giant amusement park she co-owns at the Smokey Mountains tourist mecca of Pigeon Forge in her home state of Tennessee. She never rides any of the rides. During press interviews for her new musical movie, “Joyful... Read More

Dolly Parton, Queen Latifah make ‘Joyful Noise’ on screen and off

January 13, 2012 BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Call them the Dolly and Dana Mutual Admiration Society. Put the folksy, feisty Dolly Parton next to the brassy, robust Dana Owens, a.k.a. Queen Latifah, and the love just flows and the funny verbal sparks fly. The unlikely co-stars of the gospel-infused comedy-drama “Joyful... Read More

Movie review: ‘Joyful Noise” soars when it sings, plods when it talks

January 13, 2012 As long as the exuberant cast of “Joyful Noise” is raising its collective voice in song, this corny but open-hearted gospel glee-fest has the power to stir some souls. If this were simply a concert film of inspirational pop and faith music with powerhouse performers Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah leading the... Read More

Sooner anglers can hook up with F3T in neighboring states

January 12, 2012 The schedule for the 2012 edition of the Fly Fishing Film Tour (F3T) has been released, and once again Oklahoma anglers will have to journey to neighboring states to sample the newest works of the sport’s best, cutting-edge filmmakers. The F3T officially kicks off Jan 26 in Ventura, Calif., and will make stops... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Shriek of the Sasquatch'

January 09, 2012 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Shriek of the Sasquatch” Super hot babes and hairy, bloodthirsty beasts populate the decidedly retro, tongue-in-cheek drive-in movie homage “Shriek of the Sasquatch,” due out on DVD Tuesday. It’s the work of writer-director-actor-composer... Read More

Spielberg mounts stately equine production in lavish, lovely ‘War Horse’

December 26, 2011 BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Steven Spielberg never envisioned “War Horse” as a war movie. Instead, the celebrated, Oscar-winning director of such classic war pictures as “Saving Private Ryan” and “Schindler’s List” said he saw the World War I-era story based on Michael Morpurgo’s novel and the... 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.