Projections Movie Blog

‘Hollywood Sketchbook’ conjures artful world of costume design March 03, 2013 | Comment on this article

From Indiana Jones’ rakish fedora and battered leather jacket to Ben-Hur’s form-fitting togas to the Godfather’s sharp, double-breasted suits, Hollywood costumes usually came to life well before needle-and-thread in the early pen-and-ink concept sketches of designers. A wealth of those lavish sketches,... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Monsieur Gangster'

February 25, 2013 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Monsieur Gangster” A slapstick mobster spoof that has achieved cult status among certain French cinephiles but will likely be viewed as a dense, untranslatable mess by English speakers, “Monsieur Gangster” is due out on DVD Tuesday. This 1963... Read More

Guessing who gets the gold for some of 2012's best

February 22, 2013 BY GENE TRIPLETT There are moviegoers who still remember Steve McQueen’s shocked and anguished cry at the tragic end of “The Sand Pebbles” — “What the hell happened?” That’s probably the question that shot through the befuddled minds of Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper and Quentin... Read More

Oscar guesses: Let’s see how the Las Vegas odds makers do

February 22, 2013 BY DENNIS KING The Oscars are being given out Sunday night, so all across the land the game’s afoot. In office pools, barrooms, classrooms, living rooms and at water coolers everywhere popcorn pundits are analyzing and strategizing and prognosticating over who will take home the little golden statue for... Read More

Oscars ‘In Memoriam’ montage recognizes select few

February 21, 2013 There comes a moment (or three) in every Oscar telecast when the party becomes muted and solemn, when the lights dim and a sentimental song plays over a gauzy and brief montage of Academy members who made their final curtain calls in the past year. The “In Memoriam” sequence, a regular feature of Oscar... Read More

Tamara Tunie takes her lumps in simulated 'Flight' disaster

February 18, 2013 BY GENE TRIPLETT The opening minutes of “Flight” feature one of the most realistic and terrifying plane crash sequences ever staged on film, and although no one was really killed or seriously injured, Tamara Tunie came away with some very real bruises. “It was the first time that I had shot anything like... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Naked City: 20 Star-Filled Episodes'

February 18, 2013 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Naked City: 20 Star-Filled Episodes (1963)” “There are eight million stories in the Naked City,” the famed New York City detective series’ prelude intoned. And two score of the best are offered up in “Naked City: 20 Star Filled Episodes”... Read More

Oklahoma stands in for Russia in 3-D sci-fi film

February 18, 2013 BY GENE TRIPLETT Politicians turning into rats? Maybe not so hard to believe. But Oklahoma City standing in as Moscow? Guthrie acting as the Russian capital? Now that sounds like science fiction. Leave it all to the special effects guys. In today’s high-tech movie world, everything’s possible in... Read More

‘Hollywood Unknowns’ gives due to cinema’s nameless extras

February 16, 2013 In every movie – bustling in the background, occupying the margins of each scene, surrounding the stars – there is a nameless ghost population of actors. They’re the un-credited populace, the human wallpaper that make movie scenes seem to pulse with real life. They are the anonymous players profiled in... Read More

Movie review: ‘Movie 43’ adds up to twelve star-powered dirty jokes

February 12, 2013 Twelve gross, sketchy sketches in search of the bottom of the barrel, “Movie 43” expends an incredible amount of poop and big-name talent in the service of an all-star embarrassment. Aiming for the raunchy, anarchic spirit of such ’70s relics as “Kentucky Fried Movie” and “The Groove Tube,” this... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Croczilla'

February 11, 2013 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Croczilla” Move over Godzilla. The Japanese have nothing on the Chinese when it comes to big cheesy monster movies featuring humongous, rampaging reptiles as low-budget B-movie fans will see with “Croczilla” (due out on DVD Tuesday). This 2011... Read More

Movie review: ‘Identity Thief’ steals plot from old road-trip formula

February 08, 2013 Set a straight-laced family man off on a cross-country journey with a mercurial mischief maker and you have the thoroughly predictable template for “Identity Thief,” an R-rated, knockabout road picture that neatly pairs nice-guy Jason Bateman with wacky raunch queen Melissa McCarthy. It’s a formula that’s... Read More

Lavish biography offers telling glimpse of early Hollywood royalty

February 08, 2013 Not only was she Hollywood’s first female matinee idol and the darling of audiences everywhere (dubbed “America’s Sweetheart”), Mary Pickford was also a savvy and ambitious movie mogul who helped establish motion pictures as a respectable art form and paved the way for future actors, especially women, to... Read More

Movie review: ‘Top Gun’ in IMAX 3-D still shoots narrative blanks

February 08, 2013 It seems somehow fitting that one of the last tasks credited to director Tony Scott before his tragic suicide last year was the re-mastering and IMAX 3-D conversion of “Top Gun,” the slick, bombastic 1986 blockbuster that virtually defined action movies of the MTV era. With its thrusting, rock-infused musical... Read More

Statuesque Kelly McGillis made herself small around Tom Cruise

February 08, 2013 BY GENE TRIPLETT His hot shot jet pilot character may have soared thousands of feet in the air onscreen, but in reality Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” leading lady towered over him on the ground. Kelly McGillis — who played “Charlie,” the beautiful civilian flight instructor opposite Cruise’s cocky but... Read More

DVD/Blu-ray review: 'Best of Warner Bros.' 90th Anniversary Collections

February 04, 2013 Last year, Universal and Paramount celebrated their centennial years with a deluge of deluxe packagings, repackagings and restorations of their greatest screen hits on DVD and Blu-ray, but Warner Bros. couldn’t wait for their century mark to cash in on the 100th birthday thing, so they’re celebrating... Read More

Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'She-Wolves: England's Early Queens'

February 04, 2013 This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “She-Wolves: England’s Early Queens” With Tudor England and medieval Europe’s bloody history of battles and political intrigue, cunning and ruthless kings generally dominated the thrones. Women were supposedly relegated to the frilly fringes as... Read More

DVD reviews: Warner Bros. adds to film noir collection - ‘Scene of the Crime,' ‘Code Two,' ‘Death in Small Doses'

January 28, 2013 Warner Bros. Archive Collection adds three new titles to its film noir series, the best of which is “Scene of the Crime” (1949), with Van Johnson cast in the role of a hard-boiled cop out to avenge the murder of his partner. Now, Johnson’s red-haired, wholesome, boy-next-door image landed him in lots of... Read More

Blu-ray review: 'End of Watch' a heart-pounding cops-eye-view of life on streets of Los Angeles

January 28, 2013 Writer-director David Ayer’s “End of Watch” is even tougher and more realistically brutal than “Training Day,” his 2001 Antoine Fuqua-helmed screenplay about a thoroughly dirty narcotics cop working the meanest streets in Los Angeles (a role that won Denzel a Best Actor Oscar). This time Ayer is calling... Read More

DVD review: ‘Enlightened' — The Complete First Season

January 28, 2013 The first episode of the first season of “Enlightened” doesn’t begin promisingly for ambitious corporate executive Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern) when work pressures and her own self-destructive nature trigger her very public and humiliating nervous breakdown. But that’s where the allure of the HBO comedy-drama... 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.