Happy Thoughts: My May 2012 @WarnerArchive Order.

    At the last minute, I hopped on this limited-time-only sale from the great Warner Archive service, which makes older movies available to order.  It’s a great, fun way to catch up on (or discover) titles which fall outside of the quote-unquote canon.  I’ve got a growing stack of Warner Archive titles, and that [...]

Screening In NYC: THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID (1972).

  The eccentric, little-known, tremendously enjoyable 1970s Western The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid has, interestingly enough, been playing around New York City a lot lately.  This might be a cue from the universe telling all us Western fans to get acquainted.  Tonight it screens at MoMA as part of a film series dedicated to the work of its writer [...]

Screening in NYC: 48 HRS. (1982).

48 Hrs. is the midnight movie this weekend at IFC Center in New York City.  This movie is important for what it represents in the continuum of American action movies, and surprising as a viewing experience if that first point is all you know about it. Directed by essential action auteur Walter Hill and starring [...]

Stone Classics: THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948).

    One of the greatest American movies yet made, there’s no doubt very little that I can add to any discussion of this much-discussed 1948 film. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the run-down:     A down-and-out drifter (Humphrey Bogart) and his young partner (Tim Holt), team up with an unpredicable white-haired prospector [...]

My Top 50 Movies Of All Time (At This Exact Point In Time.)

I probably should be doing about 50 other things at this very moment, but I saw this great top-50 list today and was inspired it to immediately answer it.  I made my list very, very quickly, so in plenty of ways it’s the most honest form a list like this could ever arrive in.  While the numbering is fairly [...]

DONOVAN’S REEF (1963).

Look, I’m still on a high from meeting and talking to a stuntman and Hollywood legend who was actually IN one of the epic slugfests in Donovan’s Reef — among many, many other epic slugfests — so while I digest that information, here are a few words on this very fun movie: Donovan’s Reef was directed by the [...]

From The Archives: PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009).

Today is Michael Mann’s birthday.  I celebrate by re-watching (and re-posting) my initial thoughts about his most recent, and apparently most controversial, feature film.  The following is what I wrote about Public Enemies on July 3rd, 2009.  Public Enemies, I still maintain, has plenty to recommend it, but its unconventionality makes it a point of debate.  [...]

From The Archives: GRAN TORINO (2008).

  Take my words with as big a helping of salt as you choose, since I have got to be the biggest Clint Eastwood fan this side of forty.  I have found something worth remembering and studying within every entry of his directorial output, even in the ones I don’t happen to prefer, and if [...]

Cult Classics: BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986).

Today we celebrate a great American.  Oh totally, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but also: John Carpenter, one of my very favorite filmmakers of all time.  Here’s something I wrote on February 11th, 2009:  I recently received in the mail the limited edition 2-disc score album for John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China.  It’s a [...]

From The Archives: OUTLANDER (2008).

Originally published elsewhere.   The other day, I found a stack of my old artwork from my high school years. I didn’t remember myself as being the little metalhead that the evidence suggests that I was, but the proof is in the paper. Rock on, little fella! What metalheads and teenaged cartoonists and the producers of Outlander all [...]