Pain and Gain

While Michael Bay originally conceived "Pain & Gain" as a "small movie" that he would make before his most recent "Transformers" sequel, nothing about Bay's new film is little. As we're repeatedly reminded throughout the film, "Pain & Gain" is based on a true story: Between 1994 and 1995, three Floridan body-builders tried to get rich quick by robbing and killing. In "Pain & Gain," Bay's typically vile brand of chauvinism...

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It's a Disaster

Seven friends and one newcomer gather for a Sunday “couples brunch.” Because most of them have known one another for years, and because they are fairly petty and duplicitous, they embed covert barbs and hidden agendas in almost everything they say and do. Conversations appear familiar and convivial on the surface but carry a disconcerting undertone of cattiness that’s almost a private language.Even before they sit down to a feast of mimosas, Tracy’s...

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Next vacation, how about a nice hotel?

For some 30 years now, small clusters of movie teenagers have made the journey to various cabins in various woods. The return ratio for such trips is one surviving, bloodied, traumatized, hospitalized teenager for every 10 dead friends left behind. And the ratio of entertaining, original movies about attractive young people and the hideous monsters that stalk them is about the same. For every clever remake or freshly twisted spin, there are innumerable...

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Love is blind and so's this sociopath

"Simon Killer," a maddeningly short-sighted character study about a disturbed young American in Paris, is consistently unsettling, but not always for the right reasons. Writer-director Antonio Campos ("Afterschool") takes great pains to establish his antihero protagonist, Simon (Brady Corbet), as a voyeur with a very limited field of vision. The film's rocky first half hour establishes Simon as a socially awkward, self-involved character with a ...

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A mysterious sci-fi relationship primer

A romance, a thriller, and a science-fiction drama, "Upstream Color" tantalizes viewers with an open-ended narrative about overcoming personal loss. It's the long-awaited follow-up to the equally sophisticated 2004 time travel drama "Primer" by American indie wunderkind Shane Carruth, and it's every bit as good. A young couple are connected by a singular, mysterious experience, a form of hypnosis caused by body-snatching maggots that alienates them...

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Remembering the Roger I knew

Werner Herzog and Roger Ebert at Ebertfest, 2007. Photo by Jim EmersonRoger Ebert's last review is on the screen in front of me and I can't quite bring myself to deal with it. I'd like to get it posted right away because I know that's what Roger would want under the circumstances. ("We'll be getting a lot of traffic!") Actually, he filed two or three other reviews before his condition took a sudden turn for the worse. But this final one -- sent...

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A few characters in search of transcendence

This was the last movie review Roger Ebert filed.Released less than two years after his "The Tree of Life," an epic that began with the dinosaurs and peered into an uncertain future, Terrence Malick's "To the Wonder" is a film that contains only a handful of important characters and a few crucial moments in their lives. Although it uses dialogue, it's dreamy and half-heard, and essentially this could be a silent film — silent, except for its mostly...

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A whole world lies waiting behind door No. 237

What is "Room 237" really about? On the surface, Rodney Ascher's documentary exhibits the theories a few obsessive fans have put forward to reveal what they think Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" is really about. According to them, Kubrick stashed "hidden meanings" in the vacancies, hallways, ballrooms, bathrooms, walk-in storage areas and hedge-mazes of the Overlook Hotel in his 1980 horror film. Trouble is, the "Room 237" conspirators — er, contributors...

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A Constitutional Argument Against the So-Called "Monsanto Protection Act"*

How awful is a new GMO law amendment you’ve probably heardderided as the MonsantoProtection Act?To answer that question, I’ve turned to page 199 of my dog-eared2001 copy of Examples & Explanations: AdministrativeLaw by William F. Funk and Richard H. Seamon. There, thesection on the availability of judicial review of federal agencyactions begins with a quote from Marbury v. Madison(1803), America’s most important Supreme Court decision.“[W]hat...

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Covered at Reason 24/7: Former FCC Leaders Want Even More Television Censorship

There are a number of folks out therewho feel the team name for the NFL's Washington Redskins isculturally insensitive. Racist, even. Since the team has thus farclung to their controversial mascot, some former FCC leaders areproposing forcing their hands by trying to punish televisionbroadcasters who say or air its name.Politico reports:In a letter toRedskins owner Daniel Snyder, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt,former Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein...

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Isn't it Time You Read a Fun, Nanny State-Mocking Book?

Peer into the future. Notour future (hopefully), but a future in which Michael Bloomberg'smost feverish dreams about saving us from ourselves have come true.That's the premise of Bacon and Egg Man by Ken Wheaton, a novelthat should be satirical, but really is just an extrapolation downthe path set by smoking bans and soda restrictions. In Wheaton'smid-21st century, the northeastern United States seceded from theunion under the leadership of a "King...

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Baylen Linnekin on the Libertarian Argument Against the So-Called "Monsanto Protection Act"

While the rule under the amended law istemporary, writes Baylen Linnekin, word is its supporters arealready moving to make it permanent. And you’re naïve or stupid ifyou think other federal agencies won’t be seeking the same power tooverride judges' decisions they don’t like. View this article...

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Can Computers Replace Teachers?: Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward

"Will computers replace teachers? Dear god I hope so," saysKatherine Mangu-Ward, managing editorof Reason magazine.At Reason Weekend 2013, the annual donor event for the nonprofitthat publishes this website, Mangu-Ward discussed the future ofeducation, how technology can change the classroom for the betterand why she loves computers more than people.About 21 minutes.Filmed by Alex Manning and Meredith Bragg. Edited by AlexManning.Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribeto ReasonTV'sYouTube Channel to...

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Vid: Can Computers Replace Teachers?: Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward

"Can Computers Replace Teachers?: Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward"is the latest offering from Reason TV.Watch above or click on the link below for video, full text,supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TVclips. View this article...

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The Greatest Column By Roger Ebert Had Nothing to do With Movies

It wasabout the late movie critic's memory of eating, written after hecould no longer eat or even talk.It'sfilled with elegies for crap food that are by turns hauntingand hilarious:Another surprising area for sharp memory is the taste andtexture of cheap candy. Not imported chocolates, but Red Hots, Goodand Plenty, Milk Duds, Paydays, Chuckles. I dreamed I got a box ofChuckles with five licorice squares, and in my dream I exalted:"Finally!" With...

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Alabama Legislators Need to Fix New Eminent Domain Law

Last weekend, Reasonbroke the news that Alabama has rescinded its strong statutoryprotections against the use of eminent domain for privatedevelopment. I stand by that claim, but based on subsequent localnews reports, SB 96 appears to be an inartfully crafted law ratherthan a nefarious attempt to bring back Kelo-style landgrabs.According to one legislator, any expansion of eminent domainauthority was inadvertent and will be excised. Legal minds inAlabama...

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President Obama Apologizes to Kamala Harris, Can Still Mislead on Guns, Sequester, Propose a Budget No One Likes

On Wednesday in Denver, thepresident made several misleading comments about gun policies. The mainstreammedia is increasingly picking up on the fact that sequestration isn’t thecalamity his administration promised. Both Republicans and Democrats are upset by thepresident’s budget proposal, which also came two months late.So what did the president apologize for today? Calling California’sKamala Harris, “by far the best looking attorney general in...

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De-Extinction Would Be Really Cool

The current issue of Science has anarticle on the costs and benefits of de-extinction, i.e., using biotechnologyto resurrect species. The article by Stanford University scholarsJacob Sherkow and Henry Greely note that extinct species might bebrought back to life by means of back-breeding, cloning, or geneticengineering.Back-breeding would use selective breeding of species closelyrelated aim at producing the phenotype of the extinct species,e.g.,...

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Covered at Reason 24/7: Despite Focus on Gun Restrictions, More States Move To Loosen Laws

Almost all of the media attention is onstates like New York, Connecticut, Colorado and Maryland that havemoved to restrict self-defense rights by making it harder tolegally own and use firearms. But some scribblers at the WestCoast's dear old newspaper of (scratchy) sort-of record peeked upover their cubicle walls and noticed something unexpected: Evenmore states are moving to protect the right to bear arms,and even to loosen restrictions on guns....

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What Other Types of Guns Can Sen. Feinstein Fail to Ban? What About Ones Made of Pixels?

Having all but failed in her ill-considered, poorly argued efforts toban assault weapons (the usual caveat: whatever “assault weapons”are), now California Sen. Dianne Feinstein seems ready to fail andfail harder going after violent video games.At a speech in San Francisco on Wednesday, she took her typicalaim against the National Rifle Association. But then she all butjoined the NRA in complaining about the glorification of violence in video games....

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In Memoriam: Roger Ebert

Thelate Roger Ebert's writing would have left a mark if he had nevergone on television in his life, but it was his TV show with GeneSiskel that made him a celebrity. You wouldn't have expected thatfrom their first show together: two writers droning on, not always surewhere exactly they should be looking, with no excitement beyond thepossibility that Siskel's 'stache will start eating his face. Butit wasn't long before they perfected the bickering-brothers...

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Reporter Faces Jail Time Over Source for James Holmes Notebook

FoxNews.com reporter Jana Winter is being pressed by James Holmes’ defense attorneys to reveal hersource for information about a notebook Holmes sent to hispsychiatrist before the Aurora theater shooting. Defense attorneyscontend her source must have violated a gag order by the judge. Ina hearing in December, 14 law enforcement officials were questionedabout the notebook, but none admitted to being the source. Thejudge wants one more detective questioned...

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A,M. Links: Obama Unveils Overdue Budget, Puerto Rico Reforms Pensions, South Koreans Not Rattled by the Nuke-y North

President Obama, just a fewmonths late, will unveil a budget including tax hikes (surprise!) and cuts toMedicare and Social Security.Add Maryland to the list of states taking advantage of publicpanic over Newtown to restrict self-defense rights. Meanwhile, a Texas non-profit isarming people who live in high-crime neighborhoods but can't affordguns.Reforming wildly underfunded public pensions may be beyond theability or interest of most state lawmakers,...

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Obama Claims Adam Lanza Used a Machine Gun at Sandy Hook

Yesterday I noted that President Obama continues to conflate so-calledassault weapons—i.e., semi-automatic guns defined byfunctionally unimportant, military-style features that offendpoliticians—with the rifles carried by soldiers, which can fireautomatically. In Denver on Wednesday, Obama described the guns hewants to ban as "weapons of war" and inaccurately identified one ofthe firearms used in last year's massacre at a movie theater innearby...

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