Parenthood If there’s anything that one can give Ron Howard credit for, it’s his willingness to work in different genres without being pigeonholed in any one of them in particular, whether it be sci-fi (Cocoon), action (Backdraft), thriller (Ransom), or drama (Beautiful Mind). Here he takes on an ensemble comedy-drama about the lives of the […]
Passion Of The Christ Epic Hollywood movies about the life and meaning of Jesus Christ have traditionally turned out to be glossed over affairs, save for Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation which outraged many with its (fantasized) depiction of a love scene between Willem Dafoe’s Jesus and Mary Magnalene. Few ever thought that another film with […]
Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid One of the most disgraceful episodes in the annals of American history is that of The Lincoln County Cattle War Of 1878, ostensibly a conflict between the two top cattle ranchers in New Mexico, John Chisum and Lawrence Murphy for full undisputed control of the lucrative beef and livestock […]
Paths Of Glory It’s possible that the measure of the depths of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man can be measured in terms of our military establishment and mindset, as would be the case for Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 achievement, kind of a mirror image to his later Full Metal Jacket. Whereas Full Metal showed how […]
Patriot: Director’s Cut If one is looking for historical accuracy in a cinematic depiction of the Revolutionary War (outside of the awfully bloody fighting that actually took place in South Carolina at the time) then it would be prudent to look elsewhere as this film measures up as a decent action flick at best and […]
Payback: Straight Up (Director’s Cut) This new version of the 1999 Mel Gibson film, reconstructed by director Brian Helgeland and released on home video in 2006, comes across as a much more faithful rendering of the Film Noir crime genre whose origins inspired the story. As Helgeland was removed from the production way back when […]
Paycheck Time travel stories can sometimes be tricky with having everything make sense, but this 2003 John Woo entry (based on a story by Philip K. Dick) overcomes much of that while staying true to Woo’s signature breakneck pacing and visceral style. Ben Affleck (a guy who’s taken a lot of shit over the years […]
People Under The Stairs Experimentation within the horror genre is NOT something that you wind up seeing quite as often as you would think, as once a specific formula is laid out for a certain “type” of horror film (slasher, ghost story, etc.), most run of the mill horror filmmakers tend to stick to the […]
People Vs Larry Flynt There is little doubt that Larry Flynt was one of the most wretched, vile and disgusting human beings to come out of the 20th Century, a filth drenched pornographer who was one of the first to explicitly photograph women “open” for widespread distribution and admittedly fought many legal battles defending his […]