From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money Most people roll their eyes at the thought of “direct to video” sequels, essentially attempts to follow up a big hit theatrical film and continue it as a franchise, almost never using any of the original big name actors or crew and instead concentrating on making the […]
From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter The ambitious 1996 Robert Rodriguez / Quentin Tarantino collaboration From Dusk Till Dawn created a curious formula that nonetheless was extremely effective: spend the entire first half of the film building a story where criminal miscreants (Tarantino’s specialty) somehow wind up on the run before finally landing […]
From Hell The mystery and aura surrounding the legendary Whitechapel killings by the assailant who was coined “Jack The Ripper” is ironically not a mystery at all when one considers some recorded history and obvious logic. Jack The Ripper was of course Sir William Gull, the official physician to Queen Victoria and the British Royal […]
From Russia With Love Right off the bat (with a bizarre opening sequence showing a Bond clone being killed in a training exercise), the viewer can see the improvements over the stylistically weak Dr. No: The villains (including the first appearance of Ernst Stavro Blofeld) are introduced early, and are good; the budget, locations, and […]
Frost/Nixon In bringing to life arguably the most famous political interview of all time, Ron Howard succeeds in making one of his best (and certainly to be underrated as the years go on) films ever. Howard does a fine job of depicting how in the mid 70s as the administrations of Ford and then Carter […]
Full Metal Jacket Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam opus was severely overshadowed in its time of release by Oliver Stone’s Platoon the year before, but there can be no doubt that this is the superior film in every way and deserved multiple 1987 Oscars. It’s also my opinion that despite the brilliant fast-paced opening 45 minutes in […]
Funhouse Tobe Hooper remains to this day one of the most truly underrated of horror filmmakers which in some ways is understandable given his first initial effort. 1974’s original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre left an indelible mark on all of cinema for all time, an achievement in horror that no other filmmaker in the […]
Funny Farm Chevy Chase’s stature as being one of the funniest human beings to exist during the 1980s remains forever intact, but the interesting thing about his legacy is that compared to his other esteemed peers of the time, he starred in almost as many duds as he did undisputed comedy classics, a phenomenon that […]
The Fury With 1976’s Carrie, many people felt that Brian De Palma had created a horror classic that would be the last word in the field of psychic and telekinetic ablity. But (aside from Sissy Spacek’s remarkable acting), a closer look reveals something else, a film that for ¾ of its running time played off […]