Josh Bell
Story Archive
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Film
Thor at the Bus Stop
Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009 Despite the mystical overtones, Thor isn’t a supernatural movie.
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television
Hipsters: the sitcom
Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 Bored is far too smug and weak-willed to actually be funny, but at least it’s sometimes light on its feet and has few pretensions to profundity.
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Music
Shadows Fall
Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 The new Shadows Fall disc, Retribution, doesn’t sound like it was crafted for the radio, or for anyone other than the band’s dedicated fanbase.
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Reviews
Jennifer’s Body
Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 Maybe it’s a little early to call Diablo Cody a one-trick pony, but, well, she’s a one-trick pony. The screenwriter of Juno’s second screenplay, the horror-comedy Jennifer’s Body, seems to have never met a genuine human emotion.
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Film
Lorna’s Silence
Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 Belgian filmmaking brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne explore the depths of guilt in their latest film, Lorna’s Silence, an often heart-wrenching story about an Albanian immigrant caught in the middle of a shady citizenship scam
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Film
Paint by numbers
Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009 It’s a shame short films don’t really get their due as an art form, because not every story needs to be blown up to feature length. Shane Acker’s 2005 animated short film 9 was nominated for an Academy Award, but still only reached a fraction of the audience that Acker’s new feature version will, even if it turns out to be a giant failure.
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Film
Humpday
Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009 You’d hardly expect to see Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson in a movie making out with each other or discussing the logistics of filming themselves having sex, but most of what else goes on in the acclaimed indie comedy Humpday is sort of the low-key version of one of those bro comedies.
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Film
Sucking out the flavor
Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009 Now that Miramax is giving a proper release to his latest effort, Extract, Mike Judge (Office Space and Idiocracy) has delivered some of the dullest material of his career.
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Film
The Girl From Monaco
Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009 Anne Fontaine’s The Girl From Monaco starts promisingly enough, with a high-powered Parisian lawyer, in town for a scandalous murder trial, fending off the advances of a beautiful woman.
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Music
The Black Crowes
Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009 Like a sitcom, The Black Crowes’ follow-up to their 2008 reunion album Warpaint was recorded in front of a live studio audience.
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Film
Parking-lot film fest
Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009 It’s no CineVegas, but the Pahrump Film Festival is entering its third year, having expanded in 2008 from the patio at the Red Sky BBQ into the restaurant’s parking lot.
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Reader-submitted film festival
Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2009 Got an unknown film that deserves attention or an underrated movie that needs another look? Josh Bell wants you to pick what he reviews.
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Warm, dull nostalgia
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009 Ken Johnson of Foxx & Mackenzie in the Morning on 97.1-FM joins Josh to talk about safe, boring (or maybe heartwarming) movies Taking Woodstock and Adam.
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Film
Killer Biker Chicks
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009 Killer Biker Chicks provides plenty in the gratuitous-nudity department, but it fails pretty miserably on most other fronts.
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Film
Horror Showdown: Halloween II vs. The Final Destination
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009 Horror sequels Halloween II and The Final Destination both open this week, but neither was screened in time for review. We pit them against each other to see which is worth your time and money.
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Music
Green Day
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009 It’s nice that the members of Green Day connect so well with their audience, but the band’s concert this past Friday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center too often seemed more like a summer-camp talent show than an arena production by a world-famous rock band.
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Film
Review of a preview
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009 Despite showings of the special 16-minute preview of James Cameron’s Avatar allegedly being sold out across the country, the 6 p.m. screening at the Regal Red Rock this past Friday was barely two-thirds full
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Film
Goodbye Solo
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009 The immigrant community depicted here is Africans in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, represented by Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane), a cheery Senegalese cab driver who sees life as a long string of opportunities.
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A Basterd of a film
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 Film critic and historian Tony Macklin joins Josh to talk about Quentin Tarantino’s new Inglourious Basterds and ends up in a debate over the nature of film criticism.
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Phil Anselmo: mellow metal dude?
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 The murder of ex-Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell in 2004 seemed to be a wake-up call for Phil Anselmo, and at tonight’s House of Blues concert by his current band, Down, the metal legend was downright mellow.
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Film
Movie classics to admire and mock
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 Movie fans have a couple of opportunities to check out genre classics from two very different perspectives this week: One with the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and also a silent film festival.
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Film
The Stoning of Soraya M.
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 Filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh (an American) stages Soraya’s story as an over-the-top harangue, overemphasizing all the obvious points into incoherence.
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Music
Colbie Caillat
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 Colbie Caillat is the musical equivalent of warm milk: bland, safe and best consumed when you need to get some sleep.
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Film
Post Grad
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 If only life after college were as easy as it’s depicted in Post Grad, a listless comedy starring Alexis Bledel as a recent college graduate trying to find her place in the world.
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The good(s), the bad and the ugly
Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 Michael T. Toole, contributor to Las Vegas Weekly, Turner Classic Movies and many other outlets, joins Josh to talk about the quite good sci-fi movie District 9 and the quite bad Jeremy Piven comedy The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard.
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television
An addition to the Dollhouse
Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 Produced without Fox’s involvement and never aired on TV, the 13th episode of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse is now available exclusively on the DVD set of the first season.
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Music
George Strait
Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 George Strait has had approximately 97,569,708 top-10 country hits, and releases an album roughly every 10 minutes. No one gets to that place without being incredibly consistent.
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Film
The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard.
Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 When you can’t get will Ferrell, you get … Jeremy Piven? That’s apparently what the makers of the awkwardly titled The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard. decided, since the movie originally conceived as a starring vehicle for Ferrell.
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Film
Nights and Weekends
Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 With an almost uncomfortable level of intimacy, Swanberg and Gerwig chronicle the fumbling sex, circular arguments and vague, uncertain plans for the future that define so many relationships.
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television
Mad about this show
Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 TV critics everywhere are salivating in anticipation of Mad Men's return on August 16. Here are the four reasons we're all a-flutter...
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500 days of awesome
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009 Filmmakers Jerry and Mike Thompson of Thor at the Bus Stop join Josh to talk about unconventional romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer.
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Film
Julie & Julia
Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 Very little other than lots of cooking happens in Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia, a Frankenstein’s monster-like adaptation of two separate memoirs, but when it comes to Ephron, avoiding plot is probably a good thing.
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Music
Gloriana
Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 Pop-country quartet Gloriana is about as far as you can get from genuine country music and still manage airplay on country radio.
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Film
A Perfect Getaway
Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 Twohy’s first film since Riddick, A Perfect Getaway, smartly scales back the ambition, and although it’s a mediocre thriller at best, it has a certain pulp charm and appealing toughness to it.
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Film
(500) Days of Summer
Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 Although it puts on a front of being the antidote to quirky indie romantic comedies, the deceptively conventional (500) Days of Summer is actually just as sentimental and optimistic as the movies it purports to refute.
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Not-so-funny people
Thursday, July 30, 2009 Stand-up comedian and filmmaker Jason Harris joins Josh to pick apart Judd Apatow’s disappointing Funny People
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Music
Jordin Sparks
Thursday, July 30, 2009 Other than her dedication to abstinence, Jordin Sparks isn’t known for anything in particular, and her musical identity is similarly indistinct.
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television
In space, no one can hear you whine
Thursday, July 30, 2009 We have soap operas set in hospitals, high schools and apartment complexes, but why not one set in space? That’s the question answered by Defying Gravity, a rather maudlin combination of sci-fi and soap opera that tries too hard to capture the seriousness of both
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Film
Valentino: The Last Emperor
Thursday, July 30, 2009 The fawning documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor is so enamored of its subject, legendary Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani, that it almost loses sight of explaining why he’s so great in the first place.
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television
The real housewife of daytime TV
Thursday, July 23, 2009 In a field that also includes Oprah Winfrey and Tyra Banks, it’s impressive to come off as the most self-absorbed woman on daytime TV, but Wendy Williams nails it.
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Entertainment
Yawn shop
Thursday, July 23, 2009 Proving yet again that no profession cannot be made into a reality show, last week the History Channel premiered Pawn Stars (Sundays, 10 p.m.), a reality show set in the riveting world of Las Vegas pawn shops.
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Health hazards and heavy metal at the Killswitch Engage show
Thursday, July 16, 2009 Somewhere in the midst of drinking, moshing and headbanging, Killswitch Engage is performing... and they are awesome.
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Potter, Potter and more Potter
Thursday, July 16, 2009 Las Vegas Weekly Managing Editor Ken Miller joins Josh to talk about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince plus Watchmen on DVD.
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television
Nice try, Lindsay
Thursday, July 16, 2009 Breaking news: Lindsay Lohan is acting again. When was the last time that happened?
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Music
Daughtry
Thursday, July 16, 2009 For a guy who owes his success to an over-the-top TV talent contest that’s spawned the goofy likes of William Hung, Bikini Girl and Sanjaya, Chris Daughtry sure is dour.
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Film
DVD spotlight: Ghost Month
Thursday, July 16, 2009 Local filmmaker Danny Draven’s shot-in-Nevada low-budget horror feature Ghost Month is an admirable effort to bring the atmospheric storytelling and mythological focus of Asian horror films to the American direct-to-DVD market.
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Music
A Limp return
Thursday, July 16, 2009 This week marks Limp Bizkit’s first U.S. performance with its original lineup in eight years, a free concert at the Pearl. It should come as no surprise that Fred Durst & Co. are still a bunch of prima donnas.
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Film
Harry Potter and the raging hormones
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince spends more time on romantic misadventures than action, but shows off the actors' comedic chops and manages to be the funniest of the films so far.
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Brüno: annoying or hilarious?
Saturday, July 11, 2009 Roger Erik Tinch, art and online director for CineVegas , joins Josh to chat about Brüno and the sci-fi mindbender Moon.
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television
The real biggest loser
Thursday, July 9, 2009 Only with TV’s representation of the overweight so monumentally out of whack could the condescending new dramedy Drop Dead Diva (Lifetime, Sundays, 9 p.m.) be considered a positive step forward.