http://www.nypress.com/blogs-1-1-1-2.html Next week, Theater 80 will fire up its film projectors for the first time in 15 years, when comic caper film The Brooklyn Heist begins its two-week run at the famed revival house. We asked The Brooklyn Heist director Julian Mark Kheel about how this unique booking came about, and why Theater 80 is the perfect venue for his satiric tale of three very different sets of New Yorkers all plotting to rob the same pawnshop owner…on the same night]]> The rumors are true: other things will be screening this weekend besides The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Broken Embraces showcases a few of director Pedro Almodóvar’s favorite things: bold colors; cinephilia; twisty, melodramatic plots; and, of course, Penélope Cruz. Broken Embraces defies a simple one-line description—something about a big-shot director turned blind screenwriter, a prostitute turned actre]]> The Film Talk guys, Jett Loe and Gareth Higgins, discuss A Christmas Carol and other recent reviews with Armond White. They call him the "most controversial of modern film critics." But the blog chatter is still raging with Preciousmania, and over at The Cooler blog, they've latched on to White's explanation (with a post titled "The Demonizing (of) Armond White") of his reputation as a contrarian: --- "Of greates]]> There’s no getting around the opportunism of IFC’s decision to release How to Be, starring a pre-Twilight Robert Pattinson, on DVD three days before New Moon’s Friday opening. (As if to underscore this sense of quick-buck desperation, the DVD’s back cover includes a misspelling of its star’s last name.) Still, this minor and frequently tiresome British comedy provides a chance to consider Pattinson beyond t]]> Fantastic Mr. Fox continues one of 2009’s best cinematic trends: ridiculously-talented hipster auteurs channeling their energies into adapting beloved children’s books. Anderson’s prickly eccentricity and exacting eye for compositional bric-a-brac seem like a great match for Roald Dahl’s classic novel. Anybody besides me holding out for a Sofia Coppola-helmed Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret?2012 finds the apocal]]> If you thought Twilight had a monopoly on the “melodramatic vampire movies that appeal to tweens” genre, think again. Amy Heckerling, the writer-director of Clueless, has signed on to a vampire rom-com involving a blood-sucking love triangle. Claire’s and Hot Topic combined can’t possibly carry enough black-eyeliner for the blowback of this project.--- ScreenDaily is reporting that Heckerling has been hired t]]> There you have it. A few months after axing Samantha Who?, ABC has seen fit to effectively cancel Eastwick by opting to not order any more episodes after its original 13-ep order. Perhaps I wouldn’t be as annoyed that my favorite hour-long of the new season is biting the dust if ABC hadn’t made the simultaneous announcement that they would be ordering more episodes of Christian Slater’s snooze-fest The Forgotten.--- Eastw]]> Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire hits theaters riding an ever-growing wave of hype and praise, including major awards at Sundance and Toronto and a cover story in The New York Times Magazine. The question remains whether audiences will embrace the film’s heavily-lauded performances and story of against-all-odds uplift, or be turned off by such plot buzzwords as “multiple incestuous pregnancie]]> Apparently, you need higher than a 14 percent rating on rottentomatoes.com for your movie to play nationwide. Who’d have guessed films have to be coherent before they reach us? Fox Searchlight yanked Gentlemen Broncos from theaters beyond the two in L.A. and New York where it debuted after reviewers creamed the film. Here’s a sample of the carnage: “If you didn't know otherwise, you'd swear that Gentlemen Broncos was made by a ]]> By now, two months after the rest of the new shows have premiered, you've surely been beaten into submission regarding the plot of V by ABC's marketing department, storing its plot in your brain even if you're unaware of it. Another of ABC's twisting and turning, creepy-crawly shows that repay the audience's dedication, V is a reboot of the '80s miniseries in which aliens arrive on Earth. Surprisingly devoid of tentacles or evil plans, these alie]]> Roger Corman’s funny, fucked-up horror film was made years later into a Steve Martin-Rick Moranis vehicle. This earlier version, though, shot basically for no money in 1960, starred Jack Nicholson, in whose performance one can see shades of the future Shining. Forego the songs for the funnier, scarier original tonight at Anthology Film Archives (9:30, $9). ]]> Director Glenn Silber created a victory dance out of his latest documentary, Labor Day, which will open tomorrow at Quad Cinemas. He wanted to show how the Service Employment International Union (SEIU) played a crucial role in securing President Obama’s campaign victory. --- And you have to give Silber props for some of his exclusive shots. His camera crews followed Obama from the early stages of his race against Hillary Clinton, and]]> In case anyone doubted Tim Burton’s trippiness, the latest Alice in Wonderland trailer oozes with opium-hazed hallucinations and acid-saturated colors that stay true to Lewis Carroll’s, ahem, inspirations. The trailer is released just weeks before MoMa’s Burton retrospective will show how the artist and storyteller became the goth darling he is today. --- ‘Tis the season, it seems, for those of us with dark, wa]]> It's been a good month for Chuck Klosterman. Just as the writer's latest collection of essays, Eating the Dinosaur, is hitting bookstores and Hollywood has come a-knockin' to adapt Fargo Rock City, his 2001 memoir about growing up as a metal fan in 1980s North Dakota. --- The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business blog reports that the script will be co-written by Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn and longtime Late Night with David Letter]]> Costa-Gavras' late-1960s film Z gets the Criterion treatment with the new DVD release this week. Our own Armond White has written a piece on the Criterion site. In it he writes:  "Costa-Gavras’s 1969 political assassination thriller Z appeared at the end of a decade of burgeoning cultural change and rampant paranoia. In the United States, this Algerian-French coproduction sparked a sensation, not just relaying the European ]]> As someone who views the majority of television programming through online channels (or free DVD screeners), the idea of charging for Hulu makes me want to slap some sense into a rich, balding media exec. News Corp. Deputy Chairman Chase Carey recently stated that he thought that Hulu would start charging for content as early as 2010. Do we see where this is going? OK, we're already watching ads for Cymbalta and suffering through strange viewing ]]> EVGrieve has some good news about Theater 80 on St. Marks—it's acquiring a high-def digital projector in order to occasionally show films. Who needs a new art house in the village when a classic venue can just come back into the game?--- Although the theater will still have a focus on live performances, this is still a good omen for all you cinephiles out there. Theater 80 was, at one point, one of the oldest revival theaters in the]]> Well, it’s been a wild crazy ride—almost like a zip line into an abyss. But now we’ve reached the end of My Antonio, and someone has to win. I don’t know who it will be, but I do know that it’s definitely not any of us viewers. Particularly those who spend way too long obsessively recapping every episode. On to the recap! ---“And then there were two,” Brooke says as she and Miranda return to the Hilton. T]]> While most of us remember Peter Greenaway for the visually spectacular Prospero’s Books or the disturbing The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, it’s been some time since we’ve had an original Greenaway to watch and ponder (his last was 1999’s 8 1/2 Women). Since his film Nightwatching still hasn’t received distribution Stateside, you'll have to content yourself with Rembrandt's J’accuse, a ]]> Antonio opens this episode himself, saying it’s going to be tough to choose between Brooke, Miranda and Tully. Really, Antonio? Choosing the top two girls out of that trio is tough? Then he and Brooke are jumping into a speedboat and crashing through the waves. It’s a recycled date, really: the open water version of Antonio’s rough terrain jeep date with Tania. Then they’re paddling along on boards, which seems silly and b]]>