Why Most Surf Movies Suck

The formula for surf movies is pretty simple: Show us some waves, tell a few good stories and feature plenty of good wipeouts.
Seems easy enough. Yet, a lot of surf movies really suck. And there are a few reasons for this:
First of all, some meathead surfers figure they’ll  make films so they won’t have to get real jobs. Which […]

Ranking the Pixar Movies

 
You know, you just can’t go wrong with Pixar movies.
Everything about them is good — the art, the plots, the casting. In fact, even the worst of the Pixar flicks – “Cars” — is still pretty darn good.
So, of course, I wasn’t disappointed with “Wall-E.” By now you’ve seen all the reviews, so I won’t bore you […]

Family of Surf Bums

New Documentary “Surfwise” Explores Unusual Family’s Endless Summer 
Imagine growing up in a 24-foot RV, surfing every day and never having to go to school.
Sounds completely awesome, doesn’t it?
Now picture sharing that camper with eight siblings and two parents — who, by the way, have more than healthy sex drive.
Ick, right?
But that’s the lifestyle the Paskowitz […]

The "Dude," or "Duderino" If You're Not Into the Whole Brevity Thing, Returns to the Comic Pages

An Homage to “The Big Lebowski” Continues in Mutts Strip
So this Mutts guy really loves “The Big Lebowski.”
Last February, Patrick McDonnell, creator of the syndicated Mutts cartoon strip, dedicated a week’s worth of strips to “The Big Lebowski,” the 10-year-old Coen brothers nod to noir (which, by the way, was a hit last week at […]

Shine a Light on the Stones

 
Old Or Not, The Rolling Stones Rock in New Scorsese Movie 
When I saw the Rolling Stones in concert, there were a lot of jokes about them being the geezers of rock and roll, who’d probably need walkers onstage and so on and so forth.
That was 19 years ago.
Mick Jagger was 46, which now seems pretty young in retrospect. Because now the Stones […]

Yeah, I’m lame — New Year’s at home

One of my favorite New Year’s Eves occurred when I sat alone in my living room and watched “The Blues Brothers.”
What can I say – it’s a great movie. And after years of disappointing New Year’s Eves, I found it refreshing to just stay at home and do nothing.
Heck, I didn’t even watch Dick Clark […]

Sliced ears and underwear — favorite music/movie pairings

Among the many things I liked about the movie “Superbad” was the music.
On the one hand, funk songs by Curtis Mayfield, Jean Knight and Bootsy Collins might not seem to match a film about geeky white kids trying to score before going to college. And yet at the same time it was just oh-so right.
You […]

Gonna need a bigger boat

Just days before the 4th of July, business owners are worried that shark sightings will hurt sales on their busiest week of the summer.
Sound like recent news from Avila Beach and Pismo? Well, yeah. But it was also an integral part of the plot for “Jaws,” Steven Spielberg’s first really big movie, which ironically will […]

Moviegoer comedians

So we saw “Knocked Up” over the weekend, and — as expected — it was a clever comedy with lots of laughs. But one of the best lines from the night came not from stars Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd or Leslie Mann.
It came from my friend Dan.
The packed theater was watching a preview for “The […]

See this movie!

It’s true that when you have a child, you don’t get out as much. And that’s OK — though it means I see far fewer movies than I once did and wind up learning a lot more about “Blue’s Clues” and “Dora the Explorer” than I ever expected. (Kids, sing along: “I’m the map, I’m […]