Candy, released in 1968, is a completely crazy little film that offers up so many odd-ball surprises that it’s nearly impossible to describe the bizarre culmination of all of its psychedelic pieces. Directed by prolific actor Christian Marquand and adapted by the brilliant Buck Henry from the 1958 novel of the same name by Terry…
Richard Sarafian’s 1971 road movie Vanishing Point essentially puts on a 98 minute clinic of “being cool.” The cinematography by the amazing John A. Alonzo (Scarface, Chinatown, Harold and Maude) is out of control awesome, the swift editing by Stefan Arnsen keeps a beyond-fast pace, and the on-location shooting and stunt driving is truly tremendous….
War for the Planet of the Apes is Grade-A blockbuster filmmaking. I will forever judge and compare the CGI in every movie that I see moving forward against the FLAWLESS work done in this film. Seriously. What the hell? I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Everything about this movie works like gangbusters, from the…
I’m a fan of all of the works from writer/director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Her, Where the Wild Things Are), but the 2002 meta-comedy Adaptation is probably my favorite piece from idiosyncratic and deeply thought provoking cinematic voice. Written with his singular brand of existential dread and tack-sharp satire by Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, NY,…
WTF is your usual run of the mill cabin in the woods teen slasher movie. But I’m going to cut this one a whole chunk of slack. This movie is a low budget indie. A movie made on a shoe string budget, yet it looks like any other cabin in the woods style movie, studio…
The Men Who Stare At Goats will always make me laugh and I’ll always find this particular story extremely fascinating. Adapted by the smart screenwriter Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Frank, The Debt, Our Brand is Crisis) from the brilliant book by gonzo-journalist and musician Jon Ronson, the film was directed by Grant Heslov,…
There’s no use denying it. We have no actor who could ever approximate late 70’s Clint Eastwood, no actress quite like Sandra Locke during that time period (she’s SUPER hot in this movie…), the action is forceful and brutal and nearly unrelenting once the narrative kicks into overdrive, while the undercurrent of rape that…
Face/Off unquestionably represents the one and only time that Hollywood really got out of the way of action maestro John Woo and allowed him to go for broke with a big-budget and play on an R-rated playground of his patented poetic ultra-violence. I saw this film twice during opening weekend back in the summer of…
Easily one of Ridley Scott’s most ambitious movies, 1492: Conquest of Paradise is not without its flaws, but also, not without its merits, most of which stem from the enormity of the physical production; had the script been more historically accurate then we might have had one of the greatest epic adventures of all time….
Tonight’s feature presentation is To Live and Die in L.A., which is most likely the best Michael Mann film that Mann didn’t actually direct. Yes, the film certainly shows some trademarks of its legendary director, William Friedkin (Sorcerer, The French Connection), but there’s a general ambiance and sense of style that feels cut from Mann’s…
After Hours was the first movie where Scorsese worked with legendary cinematographer Michael Ballhaus – sparks would immediately fly and a cinematic love affair would be born. Griffin Dunne was perfectly cast as a Kafka-esque lead character suffering a bizarre night of big city antics that begins to feel like some sort of nightmarish fever…
23 years ago, Tony Scott cheated on Jerry Bruckheimer with Joel Silver and the results were the over-the-top and totally flamboyant The Last Boy Scout, a mean and nasty action flick from the acid-tinged typewriter of genre-master Shane Black. Pairing Bruce Willis with Damon Wayans, on paper, probably seemed like a great idea (to someone…
I don’t get too hung up on poetic license and the reshaping of history when it comes to glossy and well-meaning Hollywood biographical tales, so in that regard, I enjoyed last year’s Oscar nominated drama Hidden Figures from director Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent). This is the compelling story of three African-American women who led the…
John Carpenter’s 1981 classic Escape from New York, which the filmmaker wrote in the late 70’s as a direct response to the Watergate scandal, was not a movie that I grew up repeatedly watching as a kid, even though I’m definitely a “child of the 80’s.” That being said, I was always aware of its…
The Game is my FAVORITE film by David Fincher. I’m not saying it’s his BEST (between Seven and Zodiac I’m still undecided), but make no mistake, the one I keep coming back to the most over the years is this underrated 1997 effort, which coming two years after Seven, seemed like the next logical step…
Many people seem to love to hate David Fincher’s divisive, Oscar-baiting epic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but I’m definitely not in that group. This is a ravishing movie, filled with more emotion and heart than any previous Fincher film and any Fincher film to come after. Yes, the heart that beats all throughout…
