The Daily Aztec

With nary a mention of Roberta Flack or the miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the ironically titled “Killing Them Softly” boasts enough violent outbursts to make the beatdown in Martin Scorcese’s “Casino” look like a grade school fight at the bike racks. And the comparison to Scorcese, with his ostentious Steadicam shots and punched-up mobster dialogue, [...]

When Cold War fetishist John Milius wrote and directed the original “Red Dawn” in 1984, his fantasy of high school students using misplaced machismo to repel a Soviet invasion possessed enough testicular fortitude to make Russkies the enemy.

Once a decade, the British Film Institute gathers the world’s foremost critics and directors for its prestigious Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time.

Courtesy Claire Folger and Warner Bros
Director Ben Affleck’s Oscar-baiting new film “Argo” combines period piece prestige with displays of self-congratulatory Hollywood mythologizing.

Existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously declared “hell is other people” in his one-act play “No Exit,” but Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet would probably amend the statement to “Hell is other people’s money.”

“You always want to quit while you’re ahead,” Eastwood listed as his reason for bowing out gracefully from the silver screen. “You don’t want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you’re not performing at your best.” Eastwood would have done well to take his own advice.

Yet, a film ironically devoting most of its run time to exploring the greatness of writers manages to vomit up some of the worst storytelling to ever reach theaters.

It’s been about eight years since national news reported the false imprisonment and sexual assault of a McDonald’s employee under the supervision of her female store manager, at the behest of a prank phone caller.

Sifting through the detritus of the celebrity obituary pages, where lives are reduced to a spoonful of lurid bullet points cooked and ready to be mainlined to a jonesing public, author Harold Jaffe’s latest collection “OD” synthesizes the duality of a culture both ravaged and repulsed by addiction to a potent condemnation of hypocrisy.

Recent television, film and new media graduate Matthew Rocca is ramping up production on his festival-bound, feature-length vampire crime epic, “Bullets, Fangs and Dinner at 8.”

Five films and four years into arguably the most complex movie marketing scheme in history, Marvel Studios is set to unleash supra-franchise “The Avengers” on May 4.

Actress Anna Faris received her first big break in the gross-out horror spoof “Scary Movie” franchise, while subsequent roles in “Lost in Translation” and “Brokeback Mountain” received widespread critical acclaim.