A HORROR MOVIE MECCA IS ABOUT TO CLOSE
The day before I left Fantastic Fest in Austin some friends asked me if I knew about the SFANTHOR! House of Wax. I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t. It’s a castle-like structure with wax-museum replicas of great…
ASSESSING ‘THE BIRTH OF A NATION’
There are few subjects as painful or sensitive as American slavery. 12 Years a Slave forced us to take a hard look at our shameful past. Now actor-writer-producer-director Nate Parker has dramatized a story that’s been left out of…
‘THE RUINS OF LIFTA’ OFFERS FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The Ruins of Lifta offers a thoughtful, multi-layered depiction of contemporary Israeli-Palestinian relations, now playing in New York and Los Angeles. Once upon a time, Lifta was a small village located by the western entrance to…
REAL OR NOT: DEEPWATER HORIZON
It’s difficult to know how to respond to Deepwater Horizon. As a disaster movie, it follows all the tenets of the genre and gives us the excitement and heroism we expect. But as a real-life story that involves people who…
TIM BURTON IS RIGHT AT HOME WITH MISS PEREGRINE
If there were ever a property tailor-made for director Tim Burton, it’s Ransom Riggs’ best-selling novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. The author (a lifelong Burton fan) was inspired to write his dark fable after he began collecting…
A WORLD OF DISCOVERY AT FANTASTIC FEST
If you didn’t know better you might think that an event called Fantastic Fest simply shows horror, sci-if and fantasy films, attracting a crowd of geeky genre fans. What makes this annual gathering in Austin, Texas so special is…
MEL BROOKS!!!
There is only one Mel Brooks, and having him as a guest on the current episode of my podcast Maltin on Movies is a source of great pride. My daughter Jessie and I had met him several times before—I…
