Amy Nicholson

Sandler and Barrymore Hurt Us in Blended

Amy Nicholson
A romance ripped from the pages of Deuteronomy, Frank Coraci's Blended posits that the best reason for a woman with sons and a man with daughters to get married is that they can take care of each other's kids. Quel pragmatisme! In the world of this sitcom love story, men......
Olivia Munn; Credit: Photo by Ryan Orange

Olivia Munn: Hollywood's Favorite Girl Geek

Amy Nicholson
One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2014 issue. Check out our entire People 2014 issue. "I still consider myself a journalist," Olivia Munn says. She's not talking about her role as economics whiz Sloan Sabbith on Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom, which starts its third and final season......
Betsy Sodaro; Credit: Photo by Ryan Orange

Betsy Sodaro: The Next Great L.A. Comedian

Amy Nicholson
One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2014 issue. Check out our entire People 2014 issue. Upright Citizens Brigade comedian Betsy Sodaro - the next great female comic - grew up in front of an audience. Her father, a playwright, put her to work when she was 4,......

Jon Favreau Returns to His Indie Roots With Chef

Amy Nicholson
Chef, the back-to-his-roots indie flick from Jon Favreau (Iron Man), is to modern foodie culture as his own Swingers is to '90s swing revival. Favreau plays Carl Casper, a culinary bad boy, barreling egotist and divorced father with a chef's-knife tattoo stretching down his right forearm and "El Jefe" across......
True Romance

True Romance Gets Its Own Fan Festival

Amy Nicholson
True Romance didn't play by the rules. When Quentin Tarantino–penned, Tony Scott–directed, giddy, swoony, bloody trifle opened in 1993, critics adored it and audiences stayed away. "I was really bummed out when the movie came out that it didn't do better," says Patricia Arquette, who starred as the cheery hooker......
Siggi Hjartarson outside his Iceland Phallological Museum

The Final Member Tracks Two Men in a Cockfight to Donate Their Penis

Amy Nicholson
"You ladies, and most men as well, are always thinking about the size, aren't you?" accuses Sigurdur "Siggi" Hjartarson, the founder of the Iceland Phallological Museum and star of the documentary The Final Member, which plays at Cinefamily April 25-30 joined by a pop-up penis display. "In nature and among other species, this......
Macon Blair plays a near-mute

Blue Ruin Is Like an Action Movie But More Real

Amy Nicholson
Everything in the opening scenes of Jeremy Saulnier's nerve-racking revenge drama Blue Ruin is the color of a bruise, from the ocean to the bullet hole–pocked 1996 Pontiac Bonneville that homeless near-mute Dwight (Macon Blair) calls home. It's fitting. Dwight has never overcome the pain of his parents' murder when......