Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” released theatrically in 1971. Based on the novel “The Siege of the Trencher’s Farm” by Gordon Williams, it came out the same year as “A Clockwork Orange,” “The French Connection,” and “Dirty Harry,” causing quite the uproar from conservative Americans, who were worried about the increase of violence in movie houses….
The Driver (Ryan Gosling) has no need for a name. He embodies his job description — a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. Life outside of the 1973 Chevy Malibu, his vehicle of choice, is anonymous. That is, until Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall, walks into the Driver’s life….
Directed by Tomas Alfredson (“Let the Right One In”), Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy successfully drops us right in the middle of 1970’s Cold War London where we join members of MI6 at a meeting in a bunker known as “The Circus.” Attendees are Control (John Hurt), George Smiley (Gary Oldman), Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Percy…
Persistence is an admirable quality to possess. Our parents instilled the old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” to encourage us to not give up — anything is possible. Well, that’s not necessarily true; there’s a point when it becomes pathetic to keep trying — no matter how long and hard…
It’s all in a touch — love, rage, suffering and happiness are all defined by our proximity to one another. Even a soldier a thousand miles away staring at a screen that a drone projects back to him needs to press a key to make an insurgent disappear. Steven Soderbergh’s fitfully disturbing and fully realized…
There’s nothing that makes a grown man cry like a good sports movie. It might be the love of the competition or a nostalgic recapturing of the dreams most young boys have of being a giant sports star with ultimate glory in sight. Boxing films, in particular, have been some of the most successfully tear-jerking…
Gonzalo López-Gallego’s mockumentary Apollo 18 has been delayed five consecutive times. But that doesn’t mean that the director used the time wisely. NASA, which often works with filmmakers who are using space as a backdrop for their films, denounced the movie due to their minimal involvement (never even seeing a rough cut) and Bert Ulrich,…
