The team at MoviePass is made up of movie diehards. We love that we make it easier for people like us to see more movies in theaters. For the Academy Awards, the biggest movie event of the year on Sunday night, we are holding the ultimate Oscar pool to reward the biggest cinephiles out there. We’re calling it #OscarsWithMoviePass. All you need to … Read More
When Justice Isn’t Just
“When Justice Isn’t Just,” a documentary dealing with racial inequality and political manipulation of the judicial system, will be screened — free – on Monday evening at 7 at the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum, 4130 Overland Ave., Culver City. The Mayme Clayton presents this monthly program in association with the BADWest St. Clair Bourne 4th Monday series. The film … Read More
Star Wars: The Fandom Menace
[Editor’s Note: In this feature-length essay, the Page’s Resident Art Critic discusses Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the context of the controversial prequel trilogy and George Lucas’s decision to sell Lucasfilm to Disney.] Let’s at least be honest and recognize Star Wars: The Force Awakens for what it is: Fan fiction. After the prequel trilogy failed to ignite the shining … Read More
Crimson Peak: Spirited, but Lacking Soul
Crimson Peak
Review of Crimson Peak. Guillermo del Toro’s ode to Gothic literature begins with one of those typically useless warnings: “Beware Crimson Peak!” Not something actionable like, “Don’t trust Thomas Sharpe and his sister” or “Stay away from Allerdale Hall if you value your life.” No: “Beware Crimson Peak,” delivered to a terrified little girl by her dead mother’s frightful apparition. … Read More
Throw Tom Cruise from the Plane
Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa and Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.
Review of Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation. So the plot is screwier than a screw factory’s assembly line, the villain’s motives more nebulous than a studio executive’s cigar smoke, fidelity to Bruce Geller’s vision a product of wishful marketing, and Ethan Hunt miraculously harder to kill, let alone bruise, than Bruce Willis in the Die Hard series; this latest entry in … Read More
Mr. Holmes and the Adventure of the Missing Point
Sir Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes
If creativity is a body, then fan fiction at its worst acts as a degenerative disease. A character or story is removed from a creator’s influence and subjected to the mutating effects of wish fulfillment, replacing an original concept with a derivative. The pathology comes partly from over-extension – more is good, goes the reasoning, and even more is even … Read More
What Might Have Been in Hollywood
Cary Grant
Cary Grant wanted to play Roger Byam in MGM’s “Mutiny on the Bounty.” Under contract to Paramount Pictures at the time, Grant could not win his release for the role. He learned, however, from that experience. When his contract was up in 1937, Grant never again signed a long-term contract with a major studio. The role of Byam went to … Read More
Wizard of Oz Comes Back to Culver City
[Editor’s Note: In advance of this weekend’s performances by Culver City Middle School students, this essay is by a teacher on special assignment — Student Gifts, Enrichment and Support Culver Park High School, Culver City Adult School, CCUSD iAcademy.] There is no place like home, and Culver City has been home of “The Wizard of Oz” since MGM (now … Read More
Good Things Come in Cardboard Packages
A review of The Boxtrolls. Who would guess that, in today’s reactionary America, an animated family-friendly (ish) film could be imbued with such a blatant, albeit non-specific and apolitical, social critique? It’s not the French Revolution, but where most films add silly but subtle adult innuendo over children’s fare, The Boxtrolls also hints at the instinct of an Occupy Wall Street protest. Richly animated with delightfully exaggerated character designs, details galore to feast on, and unimpeachable voice acting, the film is …
Three Student Films Debut Tonight at Sony
Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual and Performing Art’s Young Filmmakers will premiere three new films, “Flux,” “Artificial Silence” and “House of Eve” this evening, beginning with a reception at 6:30 at Sony Pictures Studios. The invitation-only event is at capacity.