If the Maltese Falcon is to be considered the grandfather of the Film Noir genre, which many have claimed it to be over the years, then ‘Out of the Past’ is definitely the genre’s chief biological father. For when you break down this movie to its basic D.N.A components, you see a perfect and incriminating match. As here we see the next generation of noir … Continue reading Out of the Past Review
Gangster Squad is a sleek and stylish 1940’s Los Angeles period piece/shoot em’ up filled with terrific actors, great costumes, elaborately ornate sets, and wall to wall action. Now, if only the producers had invested as much in an actual story and some three dimensional characters as they did in the carnage and aesthetics, we might have really had something worth talking about here. As … Continue reading Gangster Squad Review
A great big vintage car rolls up to a prison. Two old friends, both of them wearing suits that look like they have some serious age to them make some cursory small talk and then embrace. After exchanging brief pleasantries, they drive off for one last adventure to relive their glory days. It sounds like the set up for a sequel to the Blues Brothers, … Continue reading Stand Up Guys Review
Humphrey Bogart is considered by many movie-buffs to be one of, if not the, greatest actors of all time; so you knew it was only a matter of time before a Bogart movie was finally featured in this series (and considering this is the first Bogart film I’ve seen, you can probably guess another popular film of his will also be coming soon). Bogart stars … Continue reading The Big Sleep Review
The Big Lebowski is a difficult film for me to review. I have probably spent more time watching this movie than any other movie in existence, but yet, I cannot say that it truly ranks with the all time classics of cinema and maintain my editorial credibility here. From a plot point of view, it’s simply a tangled mess that collapses in on itself many … Continue reading The Big Lebowski Review
In the closing scene of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed a rat crawls across a window ledge. This is a rather overt but appropriate piece of symbolism. Since, for the most part, The Departed is a movie about rats. No, not the furry little rodents your grandma used to set traps out for, the other kind of rat, that being the Henry Hill and Donnie Brasco … Continue reading The Departed Review
There seems to be two basic trains of thought on this movie among the different reviews I have read. No one, at least not many that is I would say, would argue that this is a great movie, however, camp one says almost in unison that Righteous Kill is at worst a bad movie made decent by the two greatest living actors of theirs or … Continue reading Righteous Kill Review
William reviews Public Enemies (2009). Johnny Depp becomes John Dillinger completely, but Michael Mann somehow turns one of history’s most exciting criminals into a sleep aid. Continue reading Public Enemies Review
