Cinema Junkie

There are less than three months until Halloween. Spirit stores are already posting signs looking for employees and I am still trying to track down tentacles for my Lovecraft haunt this year. So basically it’s panic mode. Fortunately, I spent this past weekend at ScareLA where my sense of panic was understood by fellow Halloween enthusiasts.

Mike Birbiglia's new film "Don't Think Twice" looks to an improv group experiencing some growing pains.

If Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland were geeks, they would be putting on a "Hobbits" version of "Les Mis" or a "Star Wars" take on "The Phantom of the Opera." That's what Turning Tydes is doing at Comic-Con.

Olivia de Havilland, the loveliest of all Maid Marians, turns 100 years old this month and that's reason enough to screen "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and celebrate this 1938 Technicolor classic.

Since she was 17 years old, Tymisha Harris has idolized legendary dancer, singer and activist Josephine Baker. Now she pays tribute to the first international black superstar in a one-woman show called "Josephine" at the San Diego International Fringe Festival.

June 22 is Bruce Campbell's birthday. That's cause for celebration and I am calling this podcast Hail to the King, Bruce Campbell in his honor.

With the first folio in San Diego this month, Cinema Junkie returns to the Bard for an episode all about "Macbeth."

When you think of Africa on film, what comes to mind? Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in "Out of Africa"? Leonardo DiCaprio in "Blood Diamond"? If so, then here's a fresh take on Africa from a first-time filmmaker from Kenya.

FilmOut, San Diego’ LGBT film festival, kicks off its 18th year Friday and will showcase some 40 films in three days. Cinema Junkie highlights one dark gem, “Downriver.”

The First Folio — the book that gave us Shakespeare — is touring the U.S. so what better time to talk about Shakespeare on film.

Cinema Junkie travels to Egypt by way of an actor described as the "Egyptian Brad Pitt." In other words, he’s a big star even though most Americans don’t know his name, Khaled El Nabawy.

Cinema Junkie serves up two archive interviews featuring Steve Martin and George Takai, both of whom have musicals currently on Broadway that premiered at the Old Globe Theatre.

Cinema Junkie takes you on a pilgrimage to mecca, also known as the TCM Film Festival.

Monsterpalooza, a convention celebrating the art of movie monsters, has grown so big that it has moved from the Burbank Marriott to the Pasadena Convention Center. Cinema Junkie checks in with some of the people at the convention.

The 1922 murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor inspired playwright Joe DiPietro to write "Hollywood," which has its world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in May. Cinema Junkie gets an early behind the scenes look at the play in progress.

Academy Award-winning film editor Alan Heim was at Groovy Like a Movie for a San Diego Filmmakers event on April 12. Cinema Junkie sits down with the veteran craftsman for a master class in how to cut a film.

FilmOut San Diego is screening John Waters' 1977 film "Desperate Living" at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Museum of Photographic Arts. The perfect excuse to dust off a 1997 archive interview.

Cinema Junkie speaks with a veteran filmmaker and a newcomer whose works were featured in this month's San Diego Latino Film Festival.

WonderCon 2016 took place over the weekend in Los Angeles, and KPBS' Beth Accomando took advantage of the event to talk with Seth Laderman of Comic-Con HQ and Ted Adams of IDW Publishing.

"Mad Max: Fury Road" was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar this year and took home more awards than any other film, but none of the stunt people received any recognition from the Academy. Stuntman Jeff Wolfe talks about a rally and petition to get an Oscar category for stunts.

Masked wrestlers, nunsploitation, monsters, and San Diego Latino Film Festival's Un Mundo Extraño — Cinema Junkie looks to extreme Latin cinema with Horrible Imaginings' Miguel Rodriguez.

Turner Classic Movies launches its March spotlight program, Condemned, a look at more than four decades of censorship, the Catholic Legion of Decency, and the film industry.

For almost two decades, starting in the late 1950s, you could count on Hammer Films for breathtakingly lurid Gothic horror tales that served up vampires, werewolves, monsters and luscious ladies. British author Antony Earnshaw talks about the studio and it legacy for the launch of a yearlong film series Get Hammered at the Digital Gym Cinema.

Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer talks about making documentaries from a subjective point of view in "The Act of Killing" and "The Look of Silence," which is up for a Best Documentary Oscar this Sunday.

This year is off to a good start with "Bone Tomahawk" and "The Witch" (now playing throughout San Diego) serving up well-crafted horror tales that challenge expectations about the genre.