With its title that immediately calls to mind William Wellman’s rip-roaring 1931 film classic, Mann’s crime epic is a cool and calculated throwback to the romanticized heyday of gangster films. Mann is clearly infatuated withContinue reading
Category: Mainstream U.S. Cinema
The Deep (Peter Yates, 1977)
Based on the second novel by Jaws author Peter Benchley, this underwater adventure yarn about a middle-class class couple who discover sunken treasure during their Bermuda vacation was a massive undertaking, with nearly half theContinue reading
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (Carlos Saldanha, 2009)
A decent third entry in the now seven-year-old series about cuddly creatures from the Pleistocene Epoch having dangerous adventures and learning lessons about family and togetherness. The use of 3-D imagery is done quite wellContinue reading
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Michael Bay, 2009)
Takes everything that was terrible about the first Transformers movie and amplifies it to utterly deafening proportions. (Hollywood Jewel 16, Waco, TX)
Year One (Harold Ramis, 2009)
In theory, Jack Black and Michael Cera make the perfect odd couple. Black’s comedy emanates directly from his anarchic spirit and love of all things crass, which is accentuated by his devilish leer and cockedContinue reading
The Taking of Pelham 123 (Tony Scott, 2009)
In this third crack at John Godey’s 1973 novel about the hijacking of a New York City subway, Scott imposes his signature stylistic grab bag of spastic random zooms, machine-gun editing, bleary slow motion, andContinue reading
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973)
Yates’s smart, low-key crime drama was shot entirely on location in the cold, grim environs of Boston, giving it a rough, lived-in feel that imbues the most mundane of activities with a sense of unadornedContinue reading
Land of the Lost (Brad Silberling, 2009)
Silberling’s big-screen comedic take on the low-budget ’70s Saturday morning TV series tries hard to throw goofy entertainment your way and fails at virtually every turn. Part of the problem may be that the movieContinue reading
Even Money (Mark Rydell, 2007)
There is no doubt that the cast is impressive—Ray Liotta, Tim Roth, Danny DeVito, and Oscar winners Kim Basinger and Forest Whitaker—and the thematic intentions are certainly good. But, while there are undeniable moments ofContinue reading
The Hangover (Todd Phillips, 2009)
Phillips’s most recent foray into the crass comedy of male bonding as an extreme sport manages to take a tired conceit and make it feel inventive and funny and just out of line enough toContinue reading