Cinema Junkie
Satisfy your celluloid addiction and mainline film 24/7 with Cinema Junkie’s Beth Accomando. So if you need a film fix, want to hear what filmmakers have to say about their work, feel like taking a deep dive into a genre, or just want to know what's worth seeing this weekend, then you've come to the right place. You can also find Beth's coverage of other arts and culture events here.
Ways To Subscribe
WorldBeat Cultural Center celebrates Threads of Freedom
Escape to Arcade Monsters
From the World of John Wick: You want action? Yeah.
SD Fringe top pick: 'Smile'
-
-
Two new docuseries look back to the making of George Lucas' "Star Wars" and the founding of Industrial Light and Magic. -
Get ready for a bonkers ass ride through the wildest and most extreme horror and exploitation cinema as Greg Dohler and author Matt Rotman take the wheel to kick a new season of Cinema Junkie into high gear. -
Cinema Junkie is on a season break but serves up this Bonus Podcast on the bold visionaries behind "Mad God" and "Neptune Frost." Host Beth Accomando speaks with stop motion effects genius Phil Tippett about the 30-year journey to bringing his magnum opus "Mad God" to the screen. Then she talks with poet Saul Williams and Rwandan filmmaker Anisia Uzeyman who created the Afrofuturist musical "Neptune Frost." -
TCM Classic Film Festival is back in person in Hollywood. TCM host Alicia Malone and TCM programmer Scott McGee will both be at the festival to sign copies of their new books. Cinema Junkie speaks with both authors. -
Cinema Junkie speaks with actors Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden as well as director James Hawes about bringing Micke Herron's acclaimed spy novel "Slow Horses" to the small screen. The Apple Original series is currently streaming. -
Today, Paramount releases the 4K Ultra HD of the newly restored "Godfather Trilogy" overseen by Francis Ford Coppola. Actor Robert Duvall talks about being in the film. -
Joel Coen's "The Tragedy of Macbeth" is a tale told by a master.
-
In "17 Again" (opening April 17 throughout San Diego) Mike O'Donnell (Disney star Zac Efron of "High School Musical" fame) is a star on his high school basketball court with a college scout in the stands and a bright future in his grasp. -
The San Diego Italian Film Festival may be the new kid on the block but they have been actively bringing films to San Diego both at their festival and for single screening film events. These are films that have not played in San Diego before and are unlikely to receive any kind of release here. -
Seth Rogen has become an unlikely star through a series of projects with Judd Apatow beginning with the TV series "Freaks and Geeks" in 1999 and reaching a peak with the feature film "Knocked Up" in 2007. Those projects played on Rogen's slacker appeal. Now Rogen tries something a little different with "Observe and Report" (opened April 10 throughout San Diego). -
For last year's closing night, FilmOut San Diego presented the world premiere of James Vasquez' homegrown film "Ready? Okay!" This San Diego-based charmer concerns a young boy named Josh who wants to join his school's cheer squad. -
Sugar (opened April 10 at Landmark Hillcrest Cinemas) is a baseball movie in the same way that Eight Men Out was a baseball movie. You cannot conceive of either film without the baseball backdrop but neither film is a formula sports movie in the sense of putting primary importance on the winning or losing of games. -
Earlier this week I highlighted the film "Immobilité" that's being touted as the first "feature-length foreign film shot entirely on a mobile phone." The film by artist Mark Amerikia is showing in The Project Room for New Media at Chelsea Art Museum in New York through May 9, with a remix version exhibited in the Streaming Museum that presents exhibitions in cyberspace. The unique nature of the project inspired me to seek Amerika out for an interview. Here's what he had to say about his provocative new film.
-
Following on the heels of the animated "Monsters Vs. Aliens," "Alien Trespass" (opening April 3 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas) covers somewhat similar ground. Both films present us with an alien who comes to earth and then the films try to use the trappings of 50s sci-fi movies to sell the premise. But unlike "Monsters Vs. Aliens," "Alien Trespass" is live action. It also comes from R. W. Goodwin who should know what he's doing since he worked on the cult TV show "The X-Files," which frequently dealt with aliens although usually in a more serious vein.
-
Most films that deal with border issues focus on immigrants and immigration along the California or Texas state lines. But the new film "Sin Nombre" (opening April 3 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas) shows us how people living deeper in Mexico and Central America get to that border. The film played last month at the San Diego Latino Film Festival and just about everyone I spoke to at the fest was recommending it. I spoke with first time feature filmmaker Cary Fukunaga at the festival just before he presented the film to a full house.
Beth Accomando is taking a short break from film reviews and arts coverage to create a six-part video podcast called Stripper Energy. Check it out!