Author Archives: Devon McReynolds

While some families gathered round the dinner table to discuss each other’s days at school or at work, Danielle Sanchez-Witzel’s family used the opportunity to compete for laughs ““ providing the young comedienne with impromptu training for her future career as a television writer.

In Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s debut film “Reprise,” the male bonding portrayed goes far beyond Judd Apatowian mushroom-scarfing in Vegas (see “Knocked Up”).

Three years ago, Academy Award-winning director and UCLA alumnus Terry Sanders spent some time working on his latest documentary “Fighting For Life” in a place called Mortaritaville. But this was no lighthearted spoof on Jimmy Buffett’s lazy paradise, Margaritaville.

Scorsese, who also directed another seminal concert documentary, “The Last Waltz,” opens the film with quick cuts of hasty preparations in a gritty black-and-white picture, finalizing a set list and positioning the cameras. When a grip tells him the position of a light might overheat if focused in a certain way on Jagger, the director humorously says, “We cannot burn Mick Jagger. We want the effect, but we can’t burn him.”

Ah, the romance of courtly love ““ pert British accents, richly adorned British bosoms and frantic love triangles resulting in beheading. So it’s really a shame that while “The Other Boleyn Girl,” based on the best-selling novel by Philippa Gregory, is a fun spectacle, it’s also unintentionally funny in all the wrong places.

Ah, life in the dorms ““ that special time filled with bizarre late night happenings, weird floor-mates, and psycho RA’s.

With the release of “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” Romania has been put on the cinematic map as a place worthy of more than just stereotypical vampire lore.