By Jack Daniel Betz We haven’t had a good super-group in a long time. And it looks like we’ll have to keep waiting because when members of SuperHeavy collaborate they end up sounding more like a bunch of lightweights. A good band should greater than the sum of its parts and this is where SuperHeavy fails. Despite the star-power of Mick Jagger and the contribution of fantastic Indian film-scorer A.R. Rahman, SuperHeavy sounds less like a band and more like a bunch of people trying to get their respective points across by interrupting each other. The self-titled opening track is ... Read More »

Besides sponsoring the Manhattan Short Film Festival (Friday night at the MFAH), SWAMP (Southwest Alternative Media Project) hosts a revival of the film Belizaire the Canjun this Sunday at the Rice Media Center. You can attend the film as a stand-alone event (4 pm.) or take part in an all day seminar that includes time with the filmmakers and an after party at the Rajun Canjun restaurant. Tickets are $10 for the screening, $30 for the workshop and screening. Here is the schedule from the SWAMP press release: 1-3 pm. WORKSHOP: HOW TO SURVIVE AS AN INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER Legendary filmmaker ... Read More »

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil has a pedigree it tries it’s best to live up to, for the most part succeeding. I’m referring to the genre that glorifies the country bumpkin in a battle of wits with city folk. Stretch that concept into the realm of horror films and you have something like the 1945 Zombies Over Broadway, a low budget effort starring the comedy team of Brown and Carney themselves a low budget version of Abbot and Costello. Another comedy team, Lum and Abner, made forays into radio and film and that’s the duo Tucker & Dale resembles most. ... Read More »

Machine Gun Preacher is the kind of film that might’ve come out in the 80s, produced by Cannon Films and starring Charles Bronson. And that’s actually is not such a bad proposition. MGP never apologizes for its stance on mowing down belligerent rebels in African countries (Sudan) with rapid fire. As helmed by Marc Forster this movie portrays a sort of low rent version of Charlie Wilson’s War. Gerard Butler immerses himself in the real life character of Sam Childers, a mean biker, drug dealer and occasional family man who finds God, uses his construction company to fund his own ... Read More »

This Week’s Featured Show Saturday, October 1 Roky Erickson @ The Continental Club I almost don’t want to mention this because you know it’s gonna sell-out and be packed and while I’m writing this I want to make sure to grab me a couple tickets. Now sure, Texas hasn’t always been good to Roky but, these days, I’d think most of us here in Texas think of him as a state if not a national treasure. We are all familiar with the 13th Floor Elevators and their contributions to the culture and many people love the stuff with The Aliens.  I myself have ... Read More »

50/50 is the odd type of film that explores death with a smile. The odds are high that you will laugh as well as cry, certainly more than the 50/50 chance that Joseph Gordon-Levitt, playing a late-20s radio station employee, will live after being diagnosed with cancer. There’s a phenomenon of sorts that occurs in movies like 50/50 or dramedys to label a sub-genre of movie. Audiences laugh because they are nervous rather than because a typical line is funny. Co-star Seth Rogen has many scenes where he’s demonstrative but in a dramatic role, and Rogen in 50/50 plays a ... Read More »

Restless marks a kind of return by Gus Van Sant to normal filmmaking. By that I refer to the fact that Restless feels forced like Van Sant’s studio assignments such as Finding Forrester although Restless is the spiritual opposite of that Van Sant/Connery film. Gone is the elliptical narrative style that Van Sant used in films like Elephant or Last Days, replaced by an unctuous romanticism that’s highlighted by the lead performances of Mia Wasikowska (as Annabel Cotton) and Henry Hooper (with the really cool character name Enoch Brae). Also on board is Ryo Kase playing a Japanese kamikaze that’s ... Read More »

The title What’s Your Number? doesn’t refer to getting someone’s cell phone digits but rather the number of sexual partners a person has had in their lifetime. Anna Farris and Chris star in a sweet natured R-rated film. By sweet natured I mean specifically that Farris avoids the more scatological type of humor that made Bridesmaids the big summer laughter. There’s a fine line Farris walks in providing laughs. She’s a gifted comedian who can match gall with the best of them – compare her raunchy turn in the mean spirited Observe and Report with the lighter fluffiness of The ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman Headline writing in the age of the internet isn’t easy, sometimes it seems like those of us in the news mill are trying to combine Zen Koans and Simpsons’ references in an attempt to get bored office drones to click on a link. Then of course there are the times when the headlines write themselves. Sometimes friend of the Free Press and all-the-time City Council Candidate Eric Dick sent out a press release to complain about a statement that Mayor Parker made at today’s press conference about trying to get political campaigns to obey the City’s sign ... Read More »

The Manhattan Short Film Festival plays at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston this Friday, (7 pm., Brown Auditorium). Expect a cinematic cornucopia from around the world. The approximately two-hour program consists of eight shorts chosen from over 500 entries. Viewers also get the chance at the end of the screening to vote on their fave, with a winner announced after all 200-plus venues around the world have screened the films. The engagement at the MFAH is the only play date in Texas. (The winner will be revealed on the MSFF website on Sunday evening October 2.) From Sweden, Incident ... Read More »