Dir. Martin Scorsese. Starring Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Juliette Lewis Among its top ten grossing films in the colorfully named genre “Thriller – Psycho/Stalker/Blank from Hell,” Box Office Mojo places seven of them between 1987 and 1994. Cape Fear is not even the highest grossing film of its ilk from 1991; Sleeping with the… Read More Cape Fear (1991)
Dir. Jan de Bont. Starring Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, Philip Seymour Hoffmann The roving band of free spirits who chase tornadoes, who each have their own weird nickname and their own competency within the group, have seen it all in their years of following twisters…except for an F5. Only Jo (Hunt), whose father was killed… Read More Twister (1996)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. A lovely young woman named Melanie (Hedren) – all lovely young women are named Melanie – is a flirt, a prankster, a teaser. She has the sort of verve for mischief that one… Read More The Birds (1963)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson Rebecca must be one of the great depictions of anxiety ever to appear on the big screen. Where some people dream of performing a role they haven’t practiced in front of a capacity crowd, or having an exam placed in front of them on a subject… Read More Rebecca (1940)
Dir. David Cronenberg. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris It’s almost too bad that A History of Violence isn’t a French movie about a reformed mobster from the tough streets of Marseille who escapes to the Massif Central and starts a family, because then the title would make a little more sense. In English, the term… Read More A History of Violence (2005)
Occasionally I try to come up with a contemporary parallel to show how bizarre it was that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a fairly well-known actor from a famous family. That’s something which is lost from history classes, and which it’s worth at least bouncing around. The best example I’ve come up with is if Kiether… Read More The People vs. O.J. Simpson (2016) and O.J.: Made in America (2016)
Dir. Richard Linklater. Starring Jason London, Rory Cochrane, Matthew McConaughey Deadwood, the Joe Rudi of Peak TV, takes the murder of Wild Bill Hickok more or less as its starting point. It’s a great place to start your TV show, especially if you’re a viewer who has never heard of Will Bill, knows he’s being… Read More Dazed and Confused (1993)
Dir. Steven Spielberg. Starring Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns One of the cliches of Oscar history is the lament that the awards for 1998 passed over Saving Private Ryan in favor of Shakespeare in Love. “Passed over” is a little strong, seeing as Private Ryan racked up wins for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Film Editing, and swept the… Read More Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Dir. Ridley Scott. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young The opening shots of Blade Runner are a watershed moment, every bit as essential to the canon of opening scenes as Star Wars or Clockwork Orange or The Searchers. It is a perfect establishing shot, so much more than “look at this building we’re in.” It sets a tone for the entire… Read More Blade Runner (1982)
Created by David Simon. Starring Dominic West, Larry Gilliard, Jr., Sonja Sohn I remember how frustrated I was watching Glee, a show which in its first season gave meaningful screen time and plot directions to, by my count, at least sixteen different characters. Plot arcs which could have sizzled and developed over the course of… Read More The Wire, Season 1
Seeing Things Secondhand 