The tough guy renaissance is already drying up. The revival of macho 80s stars in action vehicles specifically designed to emulate the look and feel of the violent flicks these guys made a couple decades ago was never for everyone, but for a brief while, it was most certainly for me. Seeing Sylvester Stallone, Dolph…
In my high school days, I wrote a script about a hitman who does drugs with Jesus. I thought it was edgy. Fortunately, you’ll never see it to know otherwise. Occasionally though, juvenile ideas like that land on the desks of eager producers. In rarer cases, they’re blessed with a million dollars and a distribution…
Cinematic sentimental gestures don’t come much more desperately inspirational than the slow motion shot of a person reaching skyward with a swelling score accompanying their ascent. In his syrupy drama The Impossible, director J.A. Bayona reserves this moment for the third act, but it’s not like the sentimentality sneaks up on us. This kind of…
Arnold is back — and he’s bitter. And so is the script for The Last Stand. After two terms as governor of “Cally-fornia,” as well as bit parts in a few movies here and there, Arnold Schwarzenegger has finally returned to his above-title billing as the action hero we’ve come to expect: The lone wolf…
Some years ago I learned 1930s and ’40s era gangsters learned to talk “gangster” from the motion pictures. James Cagney probably had more to do with coining gangster lingo and slang than John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and Al Capone combined. Gangster Squad gets the clothes right, does a decent job with 1949 era Los…
You just can’t keep old people down anymore. Returning to their actiony, murderous ways from “Red,” is Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich in Summit Entertainment’s Red 2. This time the retired assassins — with Willis’ lady in tow (Mary-Louise Parker) — take their skills across the pond to such locales as London, Paris…
Highly influential, passionately inspired, and awfully long-winded, Quentin Tarantino has amassed a filmography that is soaked in self-indulgence. He’s made some great movies regardless, but I find myself now exhausted by his work, even if at times I’m thrilled and engaged. The experience of watching a Tarantino movie tends to be a scattered one, pieces…
