KC Active has posted my reviews of The Baader Meinhof Complex, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, The Burning Plain and Amelia. Essentially, the one movie in this batch that’s worth sitting through is the German one. Read full post »

For those of you who are unfamiliar, The Wrap is a web site that often features useful and timely coverage of the entertainment industry. Unfortunately, the folks who prepare their e-mail list must have been working a little too hard on the timely part.

The headline for this… Read full post »

Spike Jonze's new film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's classic Where the Wild Things Are is more admirable than enjoyable. Here are my thoughts in this review from eKC.

Max Records in Where the Wild Things Are

As you probably know, today is the 150^th anniversary of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. I grew up only few miles from where he lived in Kansas. As kids, my classmates and I regularly visited the cabin where he resided, which is now a museum in Osawatomie, Kan.

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Yes, I know we can be a little behind here in Kansas City (despite what Rogers and Hammerstein said in Oklahoma!). So we had to wait two years and even two seasons before we finally had a chance to catch Spring Awakening on stage.

As you probably know, the… Read full post »

            For four decades, the members of the Firesign Theatre have been confusing and amusing audiences with their head-stretching and sidesplitting routine, “The Further Adventures of Nick Danger.” It was originally the second si/… Read full post »

The folks at eKC have just posted my review for the latest movie from Scott Hicks (Shine), The Boys Are Back. It stars Clive Owen as a sports writer who discovers that he's not quite ready for the responsibility of fatherhood after wife suddenly dies. It's based on the memoir of… Read full post »

Many dramatists have written about places they've never been and gotten a few details wrong. Shakespeare wrote about the "shores of Bohemia," and Bertold Brecht made a few blunders writing about China.

The folks at Saturday Night Live have imagined a group of Norwegian thespians making a New York-set… Read full post »

The nice folks at Cineaste  have published my interview with Joe Berlinger, the co-director of Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster in this quarter's issue of the magazine. He talked with me about his new film Crude about an Amazonian tribe in Ecuador that's s… Read full post »

Christopher Buckley recalls the human side of his famous parents but still gives them their due.

By Dan Lybarger

Christopher Buckley’s recollections on losing his parents are guaranteed to be anything but dull. His satirical novels Thank You for Smoking and Little Green Men have more… Read full post »

            Last month, when I learned that part time U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman had been asphyxiated and hung naked from a tree in Kentucky with the word “Fed” written on his chest, I was outraged and saddened.

  &nb… Read full post »

This was a busy week for movies at eKC. I offered my thoughts on Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story and Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying. On DVD for this month, I was impressed with Polish Oscar-winner Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn and enjoyed watching Zoë Bell clobber bad guys… Read full post »

This week I acknowledge how New Zealand’s Jane Campion has done justice to John Keats and his poems in Bright Star and condemn the needless remake of Fame.

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by Dan Lybarger

Is it really worth meeting someone who calls himself an “asshole” in print and online?

            Writer Tucker Max has made a comfortable living by making his readers squirm. His autobiographical tales of hard d… Read full post »

For this week, I gave an overview of the Kansas International Film Festival and shared my thoughts on The Informant! and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

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My review for R.J. Cutler’s The September Issue is up at eKC. While the documentary does reveal some interesting traits about Vogue editor Anna Wintour, it’s real star is actually Wintour’s accomplice Grace Coddington.

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The new animated film 9 is a dark treat for the eyes but has a few shortages in the story department. My review in EKC has more details.

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by Dan Lybarger

Some rogue contributor at Wikipedia let readers know his or her honest opinion of Representative Joe Wilson’s interruption of President Obama’s speech about health insurance reform last night.

Before the editors at Wikipedia locked up his biography, the final sentenc… Read full post »

by Dan Lybarger

 Magic Kisa is a 30-minute French comedy-thriller that’s so clever that it takes a couple of viewings to appreciate what writer-director Mathieu Saliva has done.

An ex-convict named Vic (Christophe Laubion) decides to play an unexpected visit on his brother Gino… Read full post »

by Dan Lybarger

 Last week when the Walt Disney Company announced it was spending $4 billion to buy Marvel Comics, the home of Spider-Man and Wolverine, geeks around the world became as nervous as if they were about to face Dr. Octopus in the flesh.… Read full post »

Every month, I review a couple of DVDs for eKC in Kansas City. This time, I’m discussing a new boxed set of historical documentaries hosted by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame and a collection of delightfully twisted cartoons from Bill Plympton.

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Last week, I received an unusual e-mail that was in my brother’s name. When I looked at the odd fonts and unusual language (my brother never greets me with “Sup”), I knew it was actually my 14-year-old nephew Jackson.

He’s been learning how to play guitar since Christmas (he… Read full post »

Leonard Zeskind focuses on hate groups in his new book

By Dan Lybarger

It’s almost impossible to live in the United States and not have heard about how Scott P. Roeder murdered abortion provider Dr. George Tiller; or how last week James W. von Brunn killed a guard at

… Read full post »

By Dan Lybarger

From 1997 to 2001, Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and ‘NSync sold 96 million albums in the United States alone. That was actually a fraction o… Read full post »