preview/Bill_On_Movies

'Bizarre' star culinary diplomat to world

Globe-trotting Travel Channel host breaks bread in anthropological study of planet's unusual food

Think of it as Adventures in Culinary Anthropology, with a sideline in ambassadorial studies. Just by breaking bread with them, not to mention kidneys, brains and entrails, Andrew Zimmern probably does more to enhance relations between people than a dozen diplomats. Read More

Film based on Nicholas Sparks book drawing attention in Charleston

Adapted by screenwriter Jamie Linden ("We Are Marshall") from the novel by Nicholas Sparks, the feature film "Dear John" is approximately midway through its 10-week shoot in the Charleston and Harleyville areas, with additional location filming having taken place on Edisto Island.

Herzog documentary finds charm at bottom of world

No penguins, vowed Werner Herzog. No fluffy waddling munchkins. No anthropomorphizing, and no sentimental slop in his documentary, "Encounters at the End of the World." The National Science Foundation and the Discovery Channel may have paid the famously dour filmmaker to venture to McMurdo Station, a community of 1,100 somewhat eccentric scientists and researchers in Antarctica, but no one was going to tell him what to film at the bottom of the world when he got there. Read More

Celebrating everything Lebowski

Can you Lebowski? Are you missing a rug that pulled your whole room together? Can you roll a bowling ball with scruffy aplomb? Do you take unnatural pride in hoarding the Coen of the realm"? Then you have a shot. Find out if you've got the right stuff on June 21 at 7 p.m. when the second annual Lowcountry "Big Lebowski" Celebration pays homage to its chosen icon at Madra Rua Irish Pub in North Charleston. Read More

Faran Tahir ... Actor a 23rd Century pioneer

Faran Tahir, who played a most convincing villain in the recent "Iron Man," also shared his thoughts with The Post and Courier on becoming the first Federation captain of Pakistani ethnicity. This, for the new "Star Trek" film, which is already in post-production for a May 8, 2009, release. Read More

Felder festival of short films long on terrific film making

Fanfare for a fandango, please. Taking the (film) short path to hearts and minds is the 5th-annual Felder Film Festival, a consistently engaging celebration of short films mounted by Moving Images Group, the digital cinema division of Actor's Theatre of South Carolina. Read More

Popular Allen returns to 'Indiana Jones' franchise

This Marion's no librarian, but a rip-roaring, booze-swiggin' match for rough-hewn adventurer Indiana Jones. And to the delight of millions, Ms. Ravenwood is back, plucky as ever. Maybe a little more seasoned to boot. Read More

Lighten up, Indiana Jones is escapism and we love it

So far, reviewers have been less kind to Our Man Indy than the Soviet villains with whom he contends, circa 1957, claiming the film relies too heavily on our fondness for the first three films instead of digging into Jones' "dark" heart. Read More

Film highlights amazing life journey of Robert Smalls

"My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life." Robert Smalls, in 1895. It was an extraordinary turn of events. Read More

Ang Lee to direct Woodstock comedy

Though sophisticated western audiences are quite familiar with the work of the late Akira Kurosawa and other exemplars of Japanese filming of its Golden Age, the emergence of Chinese (Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, King Hu), Japanese (Hayao Miyazaki, Masayuki Suo) and Vietnamese (Tran Anh Hung) filmmakers over the past 15-20 years has exerted considerable influence. Read More

Locally produced surf film an inspirational journey

An A-Frame of a film, "Finding Pura Vida" is a locally produced documentary on surfing community's penchant for cause travel, which is to say sojourns to surfing destinations with more than just exhilaration in mind. Read More

Film festival in Charleston hopes to inspire, entertain

Drum roll, please. Summer Spooner had a scant 24 hours of turnaround time between completing her fourth year as managing director of the Beverly Hills Film Festival and hitting the ground running as director of the inaugural Charleston International Film Festival, which unspools May 1-4 at the Terrace Theatre. Read More

Francis Ford Coppola now calling Buenos Aires home

The maestro has gone gaucho. Francis Ford Coppola, 68, believes he's finally where he's supposed to be, a place where he can revel in financial and artistic control. Yes, Buenos Aires, Argentina, land of comparatively low production costs and much cultural ferment, especially the streets of this cosmopolitan capital. A city, one might add, with a large Italian community dating back to the early 20th century. Read More

David Lynch Filmmaker goes fishing

Hook, line and sinker. The Ayatollah of the Abstruse, filmmaker David Lynch, has gone angling for metaphors in his latest tome on creative ideas, "Catching the Big Fish" (Penguin). Read More

New DVD set will give film fans something to 'Lean' on

It was perhaps the longest, most puzzling hiatus by a great filmmaker in cinematic history. After 1970's "Ryan's Daughter," British director David Lean said sayonara to motion pictures for the better part of 15 years, leaving devotees and film historians to ponder what landmark films he might have made during all those fallow years. Read More