Years ago, I added Swordfish to my Netflix DVD queue. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I saw it on some list of movies to watch, or I was just processing Netflix recommendations, or maybe I was looking for thrillers to add, or Hugh Jackman, John Travolta, or Halle Berry movies. I was interested in...
Why do people who make action films believe they need to be mindless entertainment? Why do they think that all we need and want are fist fights, car chases, gun battles, and big explosions? Those are staples of the genre. They need to exist in action films in the same way that kisses need...
When I was fourteen or fifteen years old, my oldest brother, Michael, took me to a movie. We saw a Western starring a young Jeff Bridges called Bad Company (1972). Though it was rated PG, I knew as we left the theater that I could never talk about the movie with my parents, because...
As writer, editor, and publisher of this blog, I consider it part of my mission to guide you towards movies that–as the saying goes–flys under the radar. These are movies that I enjoyed watching but that most people haven’t heard about. They might not be the best movies, the Oscar winners or the blockbusters,...
One of Harrison Ford’s line sounded more like Han Solo than Rick Deckard. There! I said it! Blade Runner 2049 has a flaw. Perhaps it has more than one flaw, but that Han Soloism in Rick Deckard’s mouth struck me as the most obvious false note in the movie. It wasn’t just the line itself...
Though I don’t have a favorite movie, or even a list of favorite movies, there are several movies that stand out to me as being superior to the norm and worthy as being considered among the greatest movies ever filmed. It’s no hyperbole to say Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner stands as such a...
In my review for It, the Stephen King novel, I stated that after reading the novel, I was less excited to see the movie. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the novel–I enjoyed it a lot and gave it a favorable review–but I found myself doubting that a 2-hour movie could do it justice....
About once a decade, since its release in 1980, I find myself craving to rewatch John Carpender’s The Fog. Like a chocolate craving, it’s a craving for calories without nutrition, because after seeing the movie again, I wonder why I chose to honor such a mindless craving. This is a bad movie. It’s bad...
Anyone who knows Classical music knows Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. Of this piece, Ravel called it a composition with “no music in it.” Since I never studied music, I don’t know what to make of this quotation, but I do know that I love to turn the lights off, pour a glass of wine, sit on...
Lee Child has made a name for himself writing the Jack Reacher novels, about an former military police officer who turned quasi-private investigator in civilian life. Years ago I read Tripwire, the third Jack Reacher novel. I found it entertaining, but not much else. It’s the type of novel we think of as a...
