Pete's Popcorn Picks

07/02/08

Best of the East Bay: Cheap Dinner and a Movie

If you're looking for a fun evening of low key entertainment, remember that Diabloland has one of the last drive-in theaters still open or business. I have a blast everytime I go. This weekend, they're showing WALL*E with Get Smart and Hancock with The Incredible Hulk.

Here's my write up from the July Best of the East Bay issue

Cheap Dinner And A Movie

Editor Pick

→ If you’re tired of spending $75 on popcorn and movie tickets for family night at the multiplex, here’s a dinner and movie option where you get your money’s worth. First, call in an order of crispy tacos at Los Panchos taqueria in Pacheco. Filled with shredded chicken or ground beef, cheese, and lettuce, they go...

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07/01/08

Labyrinth, starring David Bowie, at the Parkway

I recently watched both The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, as these '80s favorites received print remasters and limited theatrical re-releases. I had somehow missed these movies when they came out in their initial release, but they're both well worth a look, thanks to epic puppet and animation work by the man-behind-the Muppets, Jim Henson. Tonight, July 1, Labyrinth will screen at 9:15 at Oakland's Parkway Theater (the original Bay Area pizza pub cinema), as a benefit for Health Initiatives for Youth.

More information here at the Parkway Website

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06/27/08

Diablo gets the first look at WALL*E

I have some good news to report. Wall*E, from our East Bay friends at Pixar, is easily the best film of 2008 so far. I think its the studios best effort yet, although I know I'll find friends who disagree on this point. Some people still love Toy Story, others pick The Incredibles, and WALL*E has a subversive undercurrent that some people will find distracting. Writer/director Andrew Stanton (who helmed my previous favorite Pixar effort, Finding Nemo) has made Wall*E in the style of those early 1970s sci-fi movies with a message about our modern world—think Westworld and Soylent Green and Silent Running. Movies like these came out every year until Star Wars came alongin 1977 and changed...

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06/18/08

Joan Blondell Fest at PFA

If earsplitting summer blockbusters aren't your thing, Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive is offering a terrific alternative this month. The actress Joan Blondell is being celebrated in a fantastic series of films. Blondell was an adorable star and her performances ranged from screwball comedy to serious melodrama. She was an absolute delight and I can't wait to see some of these at PFA. The Thursday, June 26 screening of Nightmare Alley is highly recommended...its a masterpiece of horror noir.


Friday, June 20, 2008
7:00 p.m. Three on a Match
This swift, sordid melodrama features Blondell, Ann Dvorak, and Bette Davis as former classmates drawn into an underworld of drugs and...

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06/17/08

R.I.P. Stan Winston

I was sad to hear about the passing of Stan Winston, the makeup and creature effects artist who passed away this week at 62. Winston created many of modern movies best monsters, goblins, and characters, including the Alien, The Terminator's cyborgs, Jurassic Park's dinosaurs, Edward Scissorhands' hands, the Predator, and most recently, Iron Man's metal suit. The guy was a genius.

If you're looking for something to Netflix, here are some Winston influenced films that can't miss. First, for R-rated sci fi horror, try John Carpenter's brilliant, and underrated The Thing, which has some of the gnarliest creature effects of all time. A more family friendly picture is...

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06/16/08

The Hulk rocks, and so does the Alameda Theatre

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Incredible Hulk on Saturday night. It's the right kind of big-budget blockbuster entertainment: diverting, innovative, slick, and professional, without the overlong running time that often hampers this type of summer movie. What is interesting about the Hulk, is that another version of the film came out just 5 years ago. That version, directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), had some interesting moments, but was ultimately bogged down by a long running time, and less than stellar CGI effects on the Hulk character. Rather than killing the franchise, Marvel Studios decided to re-boot and present a leaner, meaner version. The results are very entertaining.

Even more...

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06/12/08

Diablo gets the first look at The Happening...

I just saw M. Night Shyamalan's latest cry for help, The Happening. If you've watched TV in the last two weeks, you've seen the ads: The director of The Sixth Sense and Signs brings you his FIRST R-RATED FILM! I have to admit, the marketing had me intrigued. I wasn't the biggest fan of The Sixth Sense, but I also wasn't a hater of Lady in the Water and The Village, as many were. Also, I dig apocalyptic, end of the world horror (28 Days Later is one of my favorite films from the past decade), so I figured M. Night might have some really nasty stuff up his sleeve this time around.

I was dead wrong. M. Night has come down with an incredible case of the lames. The Happening is his worst film yet, a...

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06/11/08

Outdoor movies in the East Bay

Every summer, I get excited about seeing the mainstream Hollywood blockbusters on the big screen at the West Wind Solano Drive In theater in Concord. This local gem reopened last year after being shut down for several summers. Its a great place to catch a double feature, and a particularly nice family outing for  parents, as children under 11 are always free, and the sound can be turned up and down on the car radio if the little ones would rather sleep than watch Kung Fu Panda.

Throughout the East Bay, there are also many town and city recreation departments offering free or reasonably priced family movie nights in outdoor settings. Here are a couple of scheduled family flicks for summer 2008:

This...

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06/09/08

Cult Classic: The Foot Fist Way

Guys, if you're looking to wash that sickly sweet 2 1/2 hour Sex and the City taste out of your mouth—or, if you're looking for just looking for laughs of the darkest kind, venture over to the Shattuck Cinema in Berkeley this week to see The Foot Fist Way. This tiny budgeted film about a clueless Tae Kwon Do instructor features an awesome lead performance from Danny McBride. McBride plays Fred Simmons, a self-loathing jackass of the highest order who runs a Tae Kwon Do studio out of a North Carolina strip mall. Where bigger-budgeted goofball comedies (think Old School or Wedding Crashers) went for laughs through over the top hi-jinks before eventually wearing out their welcome by telling too much too-predictable story, The Foot Fist Way...

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06/04/08

Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

Some of my favorite movie memories involve trying to stay up past midnight on Saturday nights to watch Channel 2's Creature Features with my dad. If you weren't living in the Bay Area in the 1970s, you wouldn't remember this late night horror showcase, hosted by Bob Wilkins, and later, John Stanley. They would show all forms of the horror genre, from masterpieces like Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre to lovable lesser fare, like Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space. They also showed tons of cool vampire movies from Britain's Hammer Studios.

If I could stay awake, which wasn't often, I was allowed to watch until there was graphic nudity or graphic ritual violence, or both, at which point I was sent to bed. In the morning,...

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