Action Heroes
Four filmmakers to watch in 2011.
You’d think a movie critic might relish passing thumbs-up, thumbs-down judgments on all the latest flicks, but for Fort Worth–based writer-at-large Christopher Kelly, that’s the least interesting part of his job. “Movies and TV and celebrities are more than entertainment,” says the Staten Island native. “I like to figure out how they relate to life and the place they take within culture.” The former film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Kelly’s work has also appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Chicago Tribune, Slate, Film Comment, and many other publications. His debut novel, A Push and a Shove, was published by Alyson Books and won the 2008 Lambda Literary Foundation award for Best Debut Novel. His favorite movies, in no particular order, are A Hard Day’s Night, All That Jazz, The Silence of the Lambs, and Nashville.
Four filmmakers to watch in 2011.
Jim Carrey’s brilliant gay movie finally comes out.
Robert Rodriguez is our most prolific filmmaker. But is he selling himself short?
Three cheers for Woody Harrelson’s return to form.
Horton Foote’s bountiful last act.
Four filmmakers to watch in 2010.
The blind side of The Blind Side.
How did a small cadre of film geeks from Austin take an outsized role in determining what you see at the multiplex on Friday night? One dismembered body at a time.
Hey, movie people, leave Cormac McCarthy alone!
Drew Barrymore keeps Austin weird.
How Mike Judge got his groove back.
Before her death, Farrah Fawcett achieved what had long eluded her: three-dimensionality.
Are the Jonas Brothers for real?
The best new Texas filmmakers.
Urban Cowboy’s indelible imprint on menswear.
The brave new world of Web serials and how they make money.
Enough with all the high-minded sports movies!
Owen Wilson’s new movie is no dog.
The gay cliché.
Alan Ball’s near-great teen sex flick.
A porn classic turns thirty.
Julian Schnabel’s metrosexual Texanness.
Action Heroes 2008.
Geeks from Austin will destroy American cinema.
Paul Thomas Anderson drills a dry hole.
The Coen brothers do Cormac.
Hip-checking Wes Anderson.
An open letter to Ethan Hawke.
The news about Making News.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas at 25.
A slasher flick to die for.
With friends like these …
The best of the new auteurs.
News you’d Rather not use.
Catherine Hardwicke’s bad faith.
Bush bashing on the big screen.
Richard Linklater supersizes Fast Food Nation.
Revved up for Chainsaw.
In praise of Mike Judge.
Ten years later, Lone Star is still overrated.
Ignore the critics. See The King.
Terrence Malick’s self-defeating art.
How the Wilsons became legally bland.