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Asked if he had any regrets in his career, Bob Hoskins didn’t hesitate. “The worst thing I ever did? Super Mario Bros,” the actor said. “It was a f***in’ nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent.”

He was speaking in 2007, 14 years after starring in the notoriously dysfunctional take on the hit Nintendo video game. And yet the tremor in his voice had been unmistakable. Hoskins had graced the occasional turkey across his decades in the industry. Super Mario Bros was clearly a different class of clunker. He sounded more than slightly scarred by the experience.

Video game adaptations are so ubiquitous nowadays that we tend not to even think of them in those terms any more. The recent Detective Pikachu was received as a surreal kids comedy starring Ryan Reynolds. Last year’s Rampage was sold as a vehicle for Dwayne Johnson...

Asked if he had any regrets in his career, Bob Hoskins didn’t hesitate. “The worst thing I ever did? Super Mario Bros,” the actor said. “It was a f***in’ nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent.”

He was speaking in 2007, 14 years after starring in the notoriously dysfunctional take on the hit Nintendo video game. And yet the tremor in his voice had been unmistakable. Hoskins had graced the occasional turkey across his decades in the industry. Super Mario Bros was clearly a different class of clunker. He sounded more than slightly scarred by the experience.

Video game adaptations are so ubiquitous nowadays that we tend not to even think of them in those terms any more. The recent Detective Pikachu was received as a surreal kids comedy starring Ryan Reynolds. Last year’s Rampage was sold as a vehicle for Dwayne Johnson...

We asked fans to boldly go where, well, many have gone before, and to make a case for their favourite sci-fi saga

Adaobi Ifeachor: 'Star Trek lets you release your inner nerd'

I have tried with Star Wars. After all, there are some enjoyable moments in the franchise: when the identity of Luke's father is revealed and finally seeing Yoda kick arse. But, for the most part, all I felt was an overwhelming sense of boredom. I rented the original trilogy as an adult. I sat through the prequels at the cinema. But, maybe you can never really connect with Star Wars unless you first watch the films as a wide-eyed child?

For me, it's the old science fiction versus science fantasy debate. Star Trek shows you how things work. It takes some pains to create believable rules around its technology and the universe the characters inhabit. Star Wars doesn't seem to bother.

Day seven of the 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival already?!? There are still four days and hundreds of great films to go!

Sliff’s main venues are the the Hi-Pointe Theatre, Tivoli Theatre, Plaza Frontenac Cinema, Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium, Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium and the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville, Il

The entire schedule for the 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival be found Here.

http://cinemastlouis.org/sliff-2012

Here is what will be screening at The 21st Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival today, Wednesday, November 14th

Booker’S Place

Booker’S Place plays at 7:15pm at the Tivoli Theatre

Booker Wright was an African-American restaurant owner who also served double-duty as a waiter in a whites-only restaurant in Mississippi in the 1960s. He became an unlikely activist for the civil-rights movement when he appeared on a 1965 network TV...

The 11th annual Coney Island Film Festival, running Sept. 23-25, offers an exquisite blend of freak show, burlesque and cinematic oddities, featuring movies about reformed gang members, unwitting superheroes, rock ‘n’ roll heaven and tons and tons of short films.

The fest opens with the portrait of a real-life Coney Island badass, Keith Suber, a reformed gang member who now teaches kids that violence isn’t the solution to their problems in the documentary The Last Immortal, directed by Charles Denson.

However, the highlight of the festival — in Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film’s opinion — is the headbangin’ documentary Heavy Metal Picnic by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn, which beautifully relives the glory days of ’80s era rock ‘n’ roll Maryland in all its raucous glory. Featuring footage from an outrageous backwoods farm concert and a reunion among its (slightly) more mature participants. Read the official Bad Lit documentary review here.

Ever wondered what would’ve happened if Shakespeare had still been penning masterpieces when the Coen Brothers were creating their cult classic The Big Lebowski? Perhaps not, but thankfully, Adam Bertocci has been doing that thinking for you. The screenwriter/filmmaker has brought the two forces together with his Shakespearean take on Walter and The Dude, Two Gentlemen of Lebowski....

If Jane Austen's literary classics can withstand being mashed together with zombies and sea creatures, surely The Dude can abide revision by The Bard. Writer Adam Bertocci has drawn inspiration from William Shakespeare and re-imagined the Coens' cult classic The Big Lebowski as a full five-act play, a "most excellent comedie and tragical romance" called Two Gentlemen Of Lebowski. Big Lebowski fanatics who have memorized every line should definitely witness how The Knave and Sir...

Have you ever wondered what The Big Lebowski would have sounded like if it had been performed at The Rose or The Globe? If not, you should have. Then you'd be as popular as Adam Bertocci is. He took the entire movie and reworked it into Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, and it's the greatest thing since Geoffery Chaucer penned Mont Dort-Quasse. I suspect the spring semester will begin in English Departments all over the world with links to Lebowski, and it'll be something freshmen think they alone know about for three or four more.

Unconvinced enough to click on the link? Read just the opening stanzas as intoned by the 16th century's Sam Elliott:

In wayfarer's worlds out west was once a man,

A man I come not to bury, but to praise.

His name was Geoffrey Lebowski called, yet

Not called, excepting by his kin.

That which we...

Regular readers may be aware that I'm a big fan of The Big Lebowski. Why, only this week I presented one of my buddies with the birthday gift of a t-shirt emblazoned with the image of John Turturro in the movie and the deathless slogan "Nobody F*#%$ With The Jesus" (which is really going to tie his wardrobe together). But even I can't claim to have spent too many sleepless nights wondering what the Coen brothers' tale of weed, bowling, and micturated-upon rugs would have been like if it had been penned by William Shakespeare. Nevertheless, that question has now...

Via Brahsome, we learned about The Big Lebowski as written by William Shakespeare. This massive and completely necessary task was undertaken by Super-Achiever Adam Bertocci. How do some of the classic Big Lebowski lines translate?

Jesus Quintana: You said it, man. Nobody f---s with the Jesus.

Quince: Thou speakest rightly, sir. No man misdeals with Joshua Quince, by Jesu.

------

The Dude: Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here!

The Knave: I beseech ye, there is a beverage here.

------

Walter Sobchak: You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me.

The Dude: Yeah, but Walter...

Walter Sobchak: Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon... with nail polish. These f--king amateurs...

The Knave: And where might a man fetch a toe?

Walter:

O toe!

Thou wouldst have a toe? A toe can be obtain'd.