Trailer: JUAN OF THE DEAD.

If you’ve ever read my ravings about the Congolese neo-noir Viva Riva!, you know how excited I can get when I see a national cinema stretch its wings for the first time.  Juan Of The Dead is Cuba’s first horror movie, which of course is something politically and historically significant.  It also looks like a [...]

Screening in NYC: STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997).

When Starship Troopers was released, the TV spots went heavy on the use of Blur’s ”Song #2″ (Woo-hoo!) and explosions and the Melrose Place prettiness of its cast.   I remember seeing those ads.  I remember how the marketing went overboard to make Starship Troopers look like, for example, Independence Day, from the year before, the kind of hooting-and-hollering [...]

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 [...]

Screening In NYC: THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE (2009).

BAMcinématek  is showing Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 film The Girlfriend Experience as part of the 10 Years Of Magnolia Pictures series celebrating the truly invaluable independent distributor of terrific films. By design, The Girlfriend Experience isn’t the highest-profile or showiest picture of Soderbergh’s fascinating, versatile career.   It’s small, quick, and painful, like a lightning jab to the [...]

Screening In NYC: NIGHT CATCHES US (2010).

    Let’s take a moment to credit some of the lesser-heralded arts of movie-making, such as production design, set dressing, and costumes.  Night Catches Us is set in Philadelphia in 1976, and looks it.  The movie feels contemporary and believable, but also convincingly forty years ago.  Let’s also compliment its cinematography – Night Catches [...]

Screening In NYC: THE TOWN (2010).

        The Movie: The Town. The Location: Pier 63 23rd Street and West Street New York, NY   The Price:  Nada!   _______________________________________________   The Town, one of my top ten movies from 2010, is playing tonight in New York City FOR FREE at 8:30pm, as part of the great RiverFlicks For Grownups summer [...]

Cult Classics: STREETS OF FIRE (1984).

Streets Of Fire is a deeply, profoundly, compellingly strange movie. It’s an action movie. It’s a musical. It’s both at the same time. It’s fun to try to describe this movie:  Is it Blade Runner meets West Side Story? Is it a Broadway-fied spin on the early Bruce Springsteen catalogue?  Is it The Warriors welded [...]

SCREENING IN NYC: Ghostbusters (1984).

One of my top three favorite movies ever is also one of the best-made comedies of all time.  I’m speaking of course – again – about Ghostbusters, which is playing tonight in Brooklyn. The screening begins tonight at sundown, as part of SyFy’s Movies With A View, an outdoor film series which runs through September.  Obviously I recommend that [...]

Cult Classics: BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR (2008).

People sometimes give me a hard time about not giving certain movies a hard time.  As far as I can be classified as a critic, I have to be considered a much more forgiving critic than you’re likely to find anywhere else.  I am eminently disposed to overlook a movie’s flaws in order to focus on the [...]