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 [...]

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 [...]

Movie Review: DRIVE (2011).

I’ve been thinking about something lately, and seeing Drive recently turned out to be a bit of synchronicity since, in its own way, Drive is largely an illustration of the concept: Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean it isn’t real.  And vice versa.  Drive isn’t something that happened.  It started as a terrific, mean little novel by James Sallis, and was [...]

The Mickey Rourke Archive: KILLSHOT (2008).

  Originally posted on 6-15-2009, this is a column I hope to resurrect one day soon.   By the time The Wrestler was released last year, my Netflix queue became scattered with random Mickey Rourke films of yesteryear. I’ve always liked Mickey Rourke, and his filmography is a pretty damn interesting place to wander around. [...]

From The Archives: MIAMI VICE (2006).

#10.  Miami Vice (2006) I’m sure that there are people who will roll their eyes or sneer at my inclusion of Michael Mann’s Miami Vice feature in my top ten of the entire decade, but that’s fine.  I never started compiling this list with the intention of sounding smarter or cooler than anyone else. These [...]

Stone Classics: THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980).

The Blues Brothers is actually a very hard one to write about, for me anyway.  Writing about this movie is exactly like writing about music: It can be interesting to do, to a point, but eventually you really just need to listen to the song.  As much as I enjoy reading about and writing about movies, ultimately movies are made [...]

Cult Classics: THE STUNT MAN (1980).

    There’s a whole lot of strange business right up from the very start of The Stunt Man, Richard Rush’s brash, bawdy, throroughly virtuosic “lost film” from 1980. It begins with the image of a buzzard, which literally comes to life off the title logo, swooping down to a busy road, where a mangy [...]

Now On DVD: DRIVE ANGRY 3D (2011).

Drive Angry 3D is like a Rob Zombie remake of Vanishing Point.  I guess that’s not a compliment.  I was looking forward to this, too!  (Proof here and here.)  Ultimately, it was like hooking up with a beautiful girl you’ve been crushing on for months, only to discover that she’s a sloppy kisser.  You’re still [...]

Cult Classics: VANISHING POINT (1971).

Sooner or later I will write a full-on piece on Vanishing Point.  In the meantime, I dug up these notes from my primitive movie journal.  This is how I was writing back in 2007… A weirdly cool, existential car chase movie from the 1970s, back in the days when an overtly Jewish guy could be the [...]

Now on DVD: THE GREEN HORNET (2011).

    The Green Hornet’s release date had been pushed from last year into this January.  January is typically a Bermuda Triangle, a dead zone where nothing can thrive, a month where good movies go to die against many many bad ones.  The release date did not bode well for fans of Michel Gondry, the [...]