Title	Excerpt	Author	Date	Total Comments	Recent Comment
The Beacon	Sabbatical Films is the Dallas company that brought the world Exit Speed.  For those who missed it, Exit Speed was a modern day Western, with the settlers being a group on a bus, the outpost fort being a junk yard and the Indians being a meth fueled biker gang.  It…	Gmurray	11/13/09	0
Gravestoned	While some in Hollywood fret of the demise of the parameters of profit, maverick independent film makers are taking on the big boys.  These local feature dreamers are making home grown films that challenge the box office and the DVD rental counter.  With the advent of cheaper cameras, editing and…	Gmurray	11/13/09	0
Gravestoned interview	Famed painter Michael McWillie comes across very down to earth.  In a dark shirt and faded blue jeans, he looks more like a guy taking time off his day to catch a flick at the Studio Movie Grill.  But he is at the cinema to promote his latest endeavor, the…	Gmurray	11/12/09	0
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans	The first The Bad Lieutenant was a 1992 Harvey Keitel vehicle that was all grit over polish, a film that showed the underbelly of being one of the city’s finest.  It was more of an art-house film that had all the elements of a big action piece.  So, I guess…	Gmurray	11/06/09	0
The Fourth Kind	An alien encounter of the first kind is sighting. An alien encounter of the second kind is evidence. An alien encounter of the of the third kind is contact. An alien encounter of the fourth kind is abduction. As a kid, I thought that Close Encounters of the Third Kind…	Gmurray	11/06/09	0
Cirque Du Freak:  The Vampire’s Assistant	Vampires have become the newest in-vogue characters, both in the movies and television.  With The Vampire Diaries and and Tru Blood on the small screen and Twilight on the big one, we just can’t seem to escape those blood suckers.  The latest to take a crack at the genre is…	Gmurray	10/23/09	0
New York, I Love You	The anthology film is a rare bird in the multiplex nest of the 21st century.  Every once in a while, some producers get the bright idea of giving a bunch of different directors a chance to craft different short stories into a large narrative.  We have had New York Stories…	Gmurray	10/16/09	0
It came from Dallas Press	Dallas is not known for much in terms of film-making locations.  Though the greater Metroplex has seen a large share of cinematic projects, it is still not considered a major player.  In the box office smash Zombieland, both Garland and Dallas were faked in Georgia.  Even the TV show Dallas…	Gmurray	10/14/09	2	10/15/09
Coco Before Chanel	Audrey Tautou is one of the most amazing actresses of our generation.  In a world where celebrity is confused with talent, Audrey is a woman who lets the work speak for itself.  Even when she is stuck in a inferior film, she still shines with a grace and passion seldom…	Gmurray	10/09/09	0
Couples Retreat	Vince Vaughan has been making a name as a funny man for a number of years.  At first he was regulated to second banana position and was very successful with that status.  In films like Wedding Crashers, he proved that waiting and taking comedic shots was the best way to…	Gmurray	10/09/09	1	10/11/09
Paranormal Activity	There is just something special about a low budget film.  Where Hollywood loves to just throw bushels of cash at actors and productions, the little guy has to accomplish his vision on borrowed time and money.  Paranormal Activity is a film that is a study in how to make a…	Gmurray	10/09/09	0
Love Happens	The romantic comedy is a staple of storytelling pretty much since the beginning of time.  The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare is a perfect example that the idea has been around and used forever.  The tragedy also has been around forever and look at Romeo and Juliet as an…	Gmurray	09/18/09	0
Bright Star	Young love, how is warms the heart.  Everyone remembers that first pang of feeling, that ember that glows inside the breast and never is ever fully extinguished.  It is that idea that drives the period piece Bright Star, the latest film by Jane Campion, the creative force behind the Oscar…	Gmurray	09/11/09	0
It Might Get Loud	Try as I might, I just cannot play guitar.  For years I’ve fiddled with every means on cracking the magic behind those six strings, but it is still an enigma.  I can play a few songs but it just doesn’t sound like much of anything.  So it amazes me when…	Gmurray	09/04/09	0
Filmmaking Outside of Hollywood	Russ Pond is a former University of Texas graduate, an engineering major but also a man with a dream.  He had been working in corporate America for 16 years and one day he had a thought.  That idea was if he were in a car wreck he wouldn’t have to…	Gmurray	08/10/09	0
Paper Heart	“I’ve had the blues/the reds and the pinks/and all I can say is/ love stinks” is how the J. Geils band summed up the concept of love in their hit song from a few decades ago.  It is the most recorded subject that the Beatles ever took on.  And it…	Gmurray	08/07/09	0
Fissure	The word fissure refers to a break or a crack, an imperfection to the system.  But is also refers to an opening.  That idea is explored in the new Dallas made independent production Fissure. The film plays like a Twilight Zone episode.  Paul Grunning is a cop on administrative leave…	Gmurray	07/31/09	0
Lovely By Surprise	Making an independent film from your own script must be a monumental task.  You have to go from the vision in your head to the vision on the screen in such a serpentine path.  Along the way, everyone wants to interject their own ideas to your work. There are the…	Gmurray	07/31/09	0
G-Force	Like every other person on the planet, I have a soft spot for Disney.  Everybody I have every talked to about their first movie always states that Disney was their maiden venture in the hallowed halls of cinema.  My first remembered flick was Jungle Book.  For some kid, G-Force will…	Gmurray	07/24/09	0
Cheri	It has been said that the surest way to win the Oscar is to do a period piece.  The lavish sets and pompous costumes just lend an air of respect, whither deserved or not.  The latest flick to try this early Academy push is the pompous sex romp Cheri. The…	Gmurray	06/25/09	0
Imagine That!	Eddie Murphy is one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.  His movies have made millions of dollars, thrilling a hoard of fans.  But he has gone from an R rated wise-cracking street hustler to a PG rated dad figure.  His turn to family fair has been dismissed by some and…	Gmurray	06/12/09	0
Dance Flick	Doing a parody flick is one of the hardest attempts to pull off successfully.  For every one like Airplane! and Young Frankenstein, there are dozens like Epic Movie and Dracula Dead and Loving it.  What looks funny on the printed page seldom works when put in front of the cameras. …	Gmurray	05/22/09	0
The Soloist	Jamie Foxx has slowly built a reputation for giving standout performances.  His Ray Charles was a textbook example on how to perfect a character.  He had not only every movement down perfectly, but he also had every mood.  At the end of the bio-pic when Ray takes off his glasses,…	Gmurray	04/24/09	0
17 Again	Making a decent reality-based fantasy film is a uphill task.  Making a sword and sorcery epic is one thing but to place a film in the realm of reality, you must get the audience to suspend their disbelief and still keep the flick in a frame of reference.  There are…	Gmurray	04/17/09	0
Gigantic	Gigantic is a little film about the little moments in life.  Paul Dano stars as Brian, an unhappy mattress salesman and ‘surprise child’ who encounters an business man (John Goodman) and his daughter Happy (Zooey Deschanel).  Paul first meets Dad when the man comes into the store to buy a…	Gmurray	04/17/09	0
Matt Aselton makes a Gigantic film	Gigantic stars Paul Dano as Brian, a mattress salesman and ‘surprise child’ who meets an business man (John Goodman) and his daughter Happy (Zooey Deschanel),  The young couple becomes increasingly intimate and find that the path to love has many hurtles, most of which come from the family headed by…	Gmurray	04/17/09	0
Hannah Montana: The Movie	Hannah Montana is a phenomenon that I truly do not understand.  Then again, I’m not a tween girl.  The Disney Channel TV show about a simple young woman with a secret identity as a major pop sensation is a sensation in its own right.  The program has spawned everything from…	Gmurray	04/09/09	1	08/31/09
Adventureland	No one ever forgets that first summer job, the one where it is low pay and long hours.  Everyone seems to hate it at the time but looks back on it years later with fond memories.  Such is the script by Super Bad scribe Greg Mottola with his newest creation…	Gmurray	04/03/09	0
Fast & Furious	The first Fast and Furious was the film that turned Vin Diesel into a movie star.  This fast moving, action paced thrill ride was just the kind of a fun time movie needed at the theaters.  Well, it’s now more than a few years later and Mr. Diesel’s star is…	Gmurray	04/03/09	1	04/05/09
Edge of Love	Period pieces are a wonderful way to delve into history.  Stories of times gone past that still carry weight are a great way to shine a light on the problems of today and realize that those universal truths are universal for a reason.  Love stories are always a timeless truth. …	Gmurray	04/03/09	0
Robert Siegel goes from The Wrestler to a Big Fan	The young word-smith gave the sport-entertainment business of professional wrestling a very human face with the story of Randy the Ram.  It is a beautifully crafted exercise in how a man deals with the failing grasp of fame.  Now Siegel gets behind the lens as director of his script Big…	Gmurray	04/02/09	1	08/30/09
Big Fan	First of all, I want to state that I am no fan of professional sports.  I loved playing football, basketball and baseball as a kid.  I supported with glee my high school and college teams teams.  But once all the money and lack of team fidelity got involved, I lost…	Gmurray	04/01/09	1	08/28/09
The Haunting in Connecticut	When I was a kid, the biggest horror thrill ride was a flick called The Amityville Horror.  It was about a haunted house where evil events still were a part of the makeup.  And the most important thing about it was ‘it was based on a true story’ something that…	Gmurray	03/27/09	0
I Love You, Man	Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  There is this large swath of funny that Judd Apatow has created.  The comedy giant has been making some of the freshest funny films of the last decade.  So it would make sense that others would travel down this well worn path.  Such…	Gmurray	03/20/09	0
Viola Davis Has No Doubt	The first things one notices about Viola Davis is how young, thin and pretty she is in person.  The actress, Oscar nominated for her role in the movie Doubt, is very different physically from the character Mrs. Miller that she plays.  This must lauded film stars Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour…	Gmurray	02/23/09	0
Karma Police Press	By Gary Dean Murray These days, Dallas productions are few and far between.  With every film project that has been made in the Metroplex there are dozens of rumored productions.  Dallas is a place of hopeful filmmakers and few hope fulfilled filmmakers.  The deck is stacked against making a movie…	Gmurray	02/09/09	0
Coraline	Stop motion animation has grown by leaps and bounds even in this computer generated world of cinema.  What basically started with Willis O’Brien and The Lost World took us to King Kong and Mighty Joe Young.  Ray Harryhausen added a new chapter to this painstaking tedious form of art with…	Gmurray	02/06/09	1	02/06/09
Outlander	Great science fiction is something wonderful to behold.  When all the elements work together and the grand themes are put into place, it becomes a magical experience.  Unfortunately, most of the time the elements don’t work and we get something less than perfect.  Such is the new sci-fi adventure story…	Gmurray	01/24/09	0
Inkheart	Brendon Fraser is a actor of unfulfilled promise.  He has crafted some stunning performances such as in Gods and Monsters, but he seems to have taken roles that feel more like a paycheck than a commitment to a performance.  We’re talking George of the Jungle, Dudley Do-Right and The Mummy…	Gmurray	01/23/09	0
Hotel for Dogs	It must be hard to make a successful kids live action movie.  There are too many different factions that have to be appealed to.  You must make it kid friendly but not so ‘kiddie’ that the adults are turned offed by the ordeal The films with the best of both…	Gmurray	01/16/09	0
Last Chance Harvey	When I saw the preview for Last Chance Harvey before Grand Torino, I though that the entire movie is in the trailer.  The people who are putting together the promotion materials have basically told the tale in a scant few minutes.  After seeing the movie, I found that I was…	Gmurray	01/15/09	0
Not Easily Broken	Not Easily Broken refers to a chord wrapped around two individuals on their wedding day.  Dave (Morris Chestnut) and Clarice (Taraji P. Henson) are our two African American people very much in love, betrothed and starting on careers.  She is in real estate and he’s going to be a major…	Gmurray	01/12/09	0
The Wrestler	A seasons back there was this documentary entitled Beyond the Mat which was about professional wrestling.  One of the featured performers was Jake ‘The Snake’ a former Superstar of Wrestling who had fallen on hard times.  This once famous wrestler still performed but it was in small venues for little…	Gmurray	01/09/09	0
The Reader	I find that the most fascinating part of history is the entire era around WWII.  The rise and fall of the Third Reich is one of the major parts in the chronicle of the world.  Every aspect of this conflict is full of intriguing stories that beg to be told. …	Gmurray	12/23/08	0
Danny Ledonne Is Playing Columbine	The game Super Columbine Massacre RPG! was a game that sparked controversy the moment it appeared on the Internet.  It is a role playing game where players can be the two killers of the school shooting.  Creator Danny Ledonne made the game more to come to his feeling about the…	Gmurray	12/03/08	2	12/04/08
Olaf Fleur Uses The Higher Force	Set in the frozen areas of Iceland, the story of The Higher Force is of David, a petty criminal who dreams of a better life.  He has a slow boss, and crazed girlfriend and a crazy mother.  His only joy in life is penning poetry, which he shares with his…	Gmurray	12/02/08	0
Drake Brothers Show Us a Dark Visioneer	This is a winning film by Brandon and Jared Drake, offering a different and wildly skewed take on urban life in a not to distant parallel future.  How did you come to crafting this project? My brother and I graduated from UCLA at the same time and decided to start…	Gmurray	12/01/08	1	11/21/09
Four Christmases	The Christmas movie is a cash cow for actors.  With residuals, the talent can be assured that a Yule flick will be played at least once a year for decades to come.  Heck, even Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is still trotted on the TV screen each year.  Last season,…	Gmurray	11/27/08	0
Let The Right One In	When Interview with a Vampire came out, I found it an interesting take on a vampire story.  The part of the film that made me give pause were the scenes with the Kirsten Dunst character.  The idea of a child vampire is intriguing. Her mind would keep growing but her…	Gmurray	11/14/08	0
Happy Go Lucky	There are moments in the cinema when you know you are witnessing something wonderful, a moment that will be remembered by those who love movies.  Such is when Sally Hawkins takes center stage in the slice of life flick Happy Go Lucky.  This is easily the biggest breakout performance of…	Gmurray	11/03/08	0