Robert Downey Jr.

Fear of a Shane Black Planet: The Iron Man 3 Auteur's Career, Reconsidered

Iron Man 3: Iron Deficiency

It's shtick and explosions for the great Robert Downey, Jr.

What Is a Movie Critic's Job in the Summer of Comic Books? A Discussion

Amazing Spider-Man

The spider becomes a man and a joy.

The Amazing Spider-Man

The spider becomes a man - and a joy.

The Avengers: Rise of the Shawarma

Anyone who has ever watched a movie based on a Marvel comic knows you've got to stay put until after the final credits roll. There's always a clip that alludes to the sequel, prequel or a spin-off -- but no one would have imagined that the post credits scene from The Avengers would spark a major sha ... More >>

Things Go Boom in Avengers

Superheroes bump superegos in Joss Whedon's all-star film.

Who Should Induct Axl Rose And Guns N' Roses Into The Rock Hall?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is coming up quick on April 14, and the presenters for the event have been announced, except for one artist. Just who will speak about and induct Guns N' Roses? Who is even qualified? Rapper Chuck D will induct the Beastie Boys, while funnyman Ch ... More >>

Drink Along With Art Attack As We Liveblog The Golden Globes

The awards ceremony everybody acts like they care about (but nobody really does) is back. That's right, the Golden Globes, those annual accolades bestowed upon Hollywood's finest by the justified and ancient Hollywood Foreign Press Association, air this Sunday at 7 p.m. on NBC. And as an added tre ... More >>

Holmes, Sherlock Holmes

Everyone's favorite Victorian detective gets a Bond makeover in Game of Shadows.

Only at the Alamo: Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang

Houston's thelastplaceyoulook Gets Into The Christmas Spirit With "Do You Hear?"

Photo by Groovehouse​Rocks Off is getting into the Christmas spirit, slowly but surely, and now that it's finally December, all your Facebook posts concerning your holiday plans have become much more tolerable. The music, classic though it may be, has needed an update for quite some time. In ... More >>

Prisoners of Sex: 10 Movie Womanizers, from the Sick to the Sublime

The movies are full of bed-hopping men -- think of Humphrey Bogart's serial flirtations in The Big Sleep (1946), and Richard Roundtree laying his way uptown and down in Shaft (1971). But in Steve McQueen's Shame, slated to open in Houston December 16, womanizing is not just an outgrowth of the plot ... More >>

And Now, the Least Anticipated Movies of Fall/Winter 2011

​Pop Rocks will return Thursday. The fall/winter movie season kicked off last weekend as Contagion dominated the box office (the highly touted Warrior, not so much). I've already covered, in some depth, those releases coming up in the remainder of 2011 that might merit a closer look. We learn ... More >>

Beyonce In Blackface: Innocent Or Insult?

hearthesiren.wordpress.com​Good intentions are one thing. Perception vs. reality is another. So goes the story with the recent outpouring of outrage and defensive stances over Beyonce's French fashion magazine photo shoot for L'Officiel Paris. The Houston icon used dark brown facepaint to pay ... More >>

Why the Golden Globes Are Relevant...No, Really

Just as relevant as the Academy Awards. Sorry.​The 2011 awards season kicked off Sunday night with the 68th installment of the Golden Globes, a.k.a. That Awards Show No One in Hollywood Takes Seriously But They All Attend Anyway Because They're Too Chickenshit to Blow It Off. Though now that ... More >>

Top Eight Worst Musician Vanity Film Projects

​Rocks Off won't speak for everyone, but if we ever found ourselves a platinum-selling artist, we kinda doubt we'd press our luck by veering off into the world of acting. We mean, it hardly ever works from the opposite direction (right, Don Johnson?), so what good can possibly come from assumi ... More >>

Zach Attack

Galifianakis steals another Todd Phillips buddy comedy in Due Date.

Free Lindsay Lohan: Chances Hath Spoken!

Craig Hlavaty​You get it? Because Lindsay Lohan dated a girl and Chances is a bar where women kiss women on the mouth and hold hands?

Scared Straight

The people intent on "fixing" lesbians and gays are really pissed this movie title is already taken

Built to Last

Iron Man 2 will lead to 3 and probably 4, but that doesn't mean it's good.

New On DVD: Elementary, My Dear Iron Man

​With his 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, out on DVD today, Robert Downey, Jr. joins a long line of distinguished and, hmmm, sometimes odd, actors to play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous detective. The first name that comes up is Basil Rathbone, who many consider the definitive Sherlock, making 14 ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Golden Bozos

You know awards season is in full swing when all the celebrities converge upon the Beverly Hilton to get drunk and act like receiving an award from the same organization that once honored Pia Zadora is something to be proud of.That's right, it was Golden Globes night last Sunday. And while the just ... More >>

For Woodstock: The Five Lamest Hippies In The Movies

Forty years ago this weekend, hundreds of thousands of unkempt youngsters descended on the town of Bethel, NY for an advertised "three days of peace and music." Woodstock has since become etched into our country's history, not just for symbolizing the 1960s, but also for unleashing the continuing th ... More >>

Game 6

Winning is easy; losing is complicated"

Houston's Latest Sherlock Holmes, On Being Buff And Avoiding Cliche

Photo courtesy Alley TheatreThis year's ExxonMobil Summer Chills production at the Alley Theatre  will be Sherlock Holmes and the Crucifer of Blood, allowing company actor Todd Waite to once again play the master detective in all his dressing-gowned splendor.The show runs Wednesday, July 15 thr ... More >>

A Disciplined Duet

Foxx and Downey's performances nearly save The Soloist from visual excess and shameless exploitation

Why Robert Downey, Jr. Will Not Win for Best Supporting Actor

I finally saw Tropic Thunder this past weekend on DVD, and my God, it was hilarious. Fantastic, funny, full of Hollywood-stabbing humor, and Tom Cruise completely won back all of my respect with his part as Les Grossman. SO, that said. Robert Downey, Jr. needs to win for Best Supporting Actor thi ... More >>

Robert Downey Jr. Plays Jesus for Artist Sam Taylor-Wood

Anything for Art

Never Mind the Blackface. What About When Robert Downey, Jr. Played Jesus?

Apocalypse Whatever: Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller's Hollywood send-up lacks firepower

The Not Terrible Hulk

In the shadow of Iron Man, the latest from Marvel can't live up to its billing

The 2008 MTV Movie Awards Turn Back the Clock

Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man Is a Marvel

Mighty Avenger

Charlie Bartlett Could Use a Dose of Mean

Kids These Days

Joshua, Sunshine, 3:10 to Yuma, Zodiac: 2-Disc Director's Cut

Chow Time Again

DVDs

Diamonds in the Rough

Idol Chatter

Hometown Legend

Coming of age and stayin' alive on the mean streets of Astoria, Queens

Ones and Twos and 54

True Blue Confessions

Let's join Madonna for a friendly round of Celebrity Breach of Confidentiality

Exhuming McCarthy

The Red Scare returns in Good Night, and Good Luck

Sex, Drugs and Jeff Tweedy's National Geographic Collection

Rock memoirs take us behind the music

Icky, Icky, Icky

Nicole Kidman falls in love with a ten-year-old boy -- sorry, her dead husband

The Tired Gun

Or: Why winning an Oscar sometimes means losing sight of a career

Better in Pairs

Generally a letdown, the year in film offered some well-crafted works that are best viewed as double features

Mixmaster

Director James Toback crosses racial, gender and class lines in the gracefully gritty Black and White

Promiscuous Prudes

James Toback's startling new film dives into the messy mindlessness of sex