TromaDance 2009

Legendary B-movie director and president of Troma Films Lloyd Kaufman is returning to New Mexico this weekend (Nov. 20, 21 and 22) for the sixth annual TromaDance New Mexico Film Festival. Starting this Friday night, TromaDance will unhook the leash and let three days’ worth of mind-bending, low-budget, high-trash cinema loose inside the Guild Cinema.

Nostalgic memoir looks at love mid-century-style

If you’re already addicted to the suave, mid-century setting of AMC’s “Mad Men,” you might want to give An Education a look-see. Think of it as an across-the-pond rumination on much the same temporal subject. Based on the memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber, the film relates Barber’s mildly scandalous teenage affair with a much older man.

Space-age toon covers familiar territory but still has fun

After having our eyes thoroughly scourged by the monstrous, 3-D “performance capture” technology of Disney’s A Christmas Carol (Kill it! Kill it with fire!), the comparatively old-fashioned computer-animation of Planet 51 comes as something of a soothing balm. The film isn’t anything special, but the high-concept setup, pleasing animation and intriguing art design make for a fun family romp.

“V” on ABC

One of the bright spots on the fall 2009 schedule (at least for those of us who are ’80s-obsessed) looked to be ABC’s “reimagining” of the camp-classic 1983 sci-fi miniseries “V.” But before it even aired, the Internet was atwitter with ugly rumors. First, ABC fired and hired a number of showrunners (a TV term for “a non-writing producer responsible for day-to-day operation of a series”). Then, ABC tried to screw the show’s original creator, Kenneth Johnson, out of credit (and therefore royalties) by saying this new TV show called “V” (about lizard-like alien invaders plotting a wholesale looting of Earth’s resources and fighting off a scrappy human resistance while pretending to be beneficent) had nothing in common with that old TV show called “V” (about ... yeah, pretty much the exact same thing). Not surprisingly, the network lost that battle. Finally, ABC came up with the ridiculous idea of running just four episodes of the show and then pulling it off the air until next spring.

Week in Sloth

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