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.
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SD Fringe top pick: 'Smile'
Are you ready to binge on Fringe?
SD Fringe adds SDSU filmmaker showcase
'Park Opera' redefines opera in Balboa Park
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The 17th annual San Diego Asian Film Festival runs through Nov. 12 at multiple venues with its home base at the UltraStar Mission Valley. -
Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz talks about films that highlights the best and worst in American politics. -
It's time for my annual check up with the Doctor of the Dead. Last year he diagnosed the self-aware zombie, this year he talks about Zombies for Humanity or zombies whose hearts have grown bigger than their brains. -
"Shin Godzilla" is the first Japanese film in 12 years to feature Toho's famous monster icon. On this podcast, I speak with professor Ramie Tateishi about the legacy of Big G and how this new film revisits the past and defines a potential new future. -
Another podcast from Horrible Imaginings Film Festival, this time checking in with horror authors about how to translate books to film and on what the written word can do that movies can't. -
FilmOut screens Clive Barker's "Nightbreed" on Oct. 12 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas. So for this podcast I spoke with Mark Alan Miller, who produced the Director's Cut and was key in locating footage that had been thought lost. -
I'm in the mood for Italian horror thanks to composer Fabio Frizzi coming to San Diego to perform scores from his films. So let's talk about Frizzi, Fulci and the fever dream of Italian horror. -
Sometimes there’s just too much good stuff to cover so this week I am going to talk with a pair of filmmakers from wildly divergent films but what makes them fun to combine into one podcast is that one is a real documentary — "For the Love of Spock" — and one is a fake documentary — "Operation Avalanche."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Just a quick reminder that the San Diego Latino Film Festival is not the only festival in town screening films this week. The San Diego Italian Film Festival will screen Incantesimo Napoletano/A Neopolitan Spell on Thursday, March 12 at 7:00 pm at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. The tageline for the film asks: "In Naples, what could be worse than not being Neapolitan?" Written and directed by Paolo Genovese, "Incantesimo Napoletano" serves up a fanciful tale about the shock felt by a fifth-generation Neopolitan couple whose daughter's first words are in Milanese. Mama mia! This film features Chiara Papa, Gianni Aiello, Serena Improta and Clelia Bernacchi. Although it's nice to have choice it's too bad these festivals are up against each other.
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Here's a little twist on Trailer Tuesday: Instead of posting a preview of a big Hollywood movie or cool indie title you get to see an entire movie.
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The teen critics have spoken out on The Last House on the Left (opened March 13 throughout San Diego) and I was curious to hear what they had to say since they weren't even born when the original film came out (OK, that made me feel old). I was glad that at least one of them had seen the original and found it more disturbing than the remake. -
The 16th San Diego Latino Film Festival kicked off last night with films, music, and a gala party. Now we can get down to the business of seeing films. Here are a few suggestions for what you might want to seek out and mini-reviews of some of the films that I had a chance to screen in advance. All films are at the UltraStar Mission Valley Theaters at Hazard Center.
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!