With Brad Pitt’s F1 set for release as a Big Summer Movie in days, this seems like a good time to look back at movies about professional auto racing—and please note the deliberate use of the word “professional.”
28 Years Later is choppy, lazy, filled with cheap CGI, pretentious in its serious moments, only pretends to be about something, and not worth your time.
Believe it or not, Gene Hackman was not director William Friedkin’s first choice for The French Connection. Hackman wasn’t even Friedkin’s tenth choice.
We’re all tired of remakes and reboots and reimaginings… Granted, they are not all bad. Okay, most of them are. In the world of horror, lousy remakes abound, but here are five exceptions.
Like all movies these days, Ballerina could use some sex appeal, but the Woke Gestapo long ago put the “Male Gaze” on a cattle car to Wokeschwitz to exterminate fun, and until Wokeschwitz is liberated, welcome to sexless entertainment and less fun.
Gene Hackman created one of the screen’s great characters—an evil man trying and failing to do the right thing.
Kids will love Karate Kid: Legends, and old guys like me, who saw the original in the theater in 1984, won’t regret their 41-year commitment.
What makes The Conversation timeless, what most interests me, moves and speaks to me, is a flawed man’s failed quest for redemption.
The last hour of Final Reckoning is worth the price of the ticket. The problem is the 11 or so hours it takes to get there.
This is all well and good, but what lifts Night Moves into another realm is the slow, agonizing spiritual destruction of Harry Moseby.
Director Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning (1988) is a perfect mix of a serious movie about a serious topic and a crowd-pleaser.
Great movies like Hoosiers can do more than show us what it was like back then. Through music, photography, and believable characters, great movies can magically, even spiritually, transport us back to that time and place.
Scarecrow accomplishes what all the best movies accomplish: you are gifted with the opportunity to meet new people, see new places, walk in shoes owned by those other than you, and not have every question answered.
The MCU’s primary threat has devolved from eliminating half the population with a snap, to making us feel sorry for ourselves. And honestly, in our present-day, narcissistic culture, where feeling oppressed is a badge of honor, most people do that anyway.
I Never Sang for My Father is also a reminder that before long, I will be the Tom character, the scared old man staring mortality and infirmity and being a nuisance dead in the face.
Although far less serious than its predecessor, which I also enjoyed, The Accountant 2 is unquestionably a good time at the movies.
Heist stands as the best movie David Mamet has both written and directed, and the gold standard in crafting a plausible heist and con.
Rami Malek is a terrific actor, but woefully miscast. He’s not even believable as an intellectual man of action, which is not to say he couldn’t be in a better movie.
Sinners lays down its cards right away: the pleasures of the flesh conjure evil and maybe even eternal damnation. Is it worth it, or not?
True art asks only that we observe and then roll around its many questions until we learn something about ourselves.
Drop worked for me, primarily because it’s surprisingly disciplined. Director Christopher Landon and screenwriters Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, trust their material and audience.
If you can believe it, Hollywood has already pumped out fifty or so Iraq War movies. Most of them were produced during the war with the unforgivable goal of undermining the war effort.
The good news is that over the last 35 years, this expertly crafted 97-minute action thriller starring Gene Hackman has earned more appreciation.
With two cups of Taken, a tablespoon of John Wick, a dash of The Equalizer, and Jason Statham stirring the pot, A Working Man hits the action sweet spot and then some.
The Package (1989) should be screened in every acting class as an example of what a brilliant actor like Gene Hackman can bring to a script that doesn’t give him much character to work with.
Class Action is entertaining, compelling, intelligent, and heartfelt, and the opportunity to watch two fantastic actors deliver, and then some.
The Disney Grooming Syndicate’s live-action remake of Snow White (2025) is something beyond bad. My hope was to surprise everyone with a rave review. That was not to be. Other than Gal Gadot, who is obviously enjoying herself while firing off double barrels of charisma as the Evil Queen, you could put this movie in a deep freeze and it would still stink.
The slow-rolling train wreck that is the Disney Grooming Syndicate’s live-action remake of “Snow White” continues to roll along with a disastrous 47 percent “rotten” score at Rotten Tomatoes.
Is Full Moon in Blue Water a classic? Maybe not. But it is ridiculously likable, filled with charm, rewatchable, and populated with relatable and flawed characters.
Pig is a slow, quiet, satisfying burn; 92 minutes of subdued tension where nothing after the first act happens as you expect.
Marlon Brando gets the credit he deserves for changing acting forever, but people forget he basically created the 1950s Beat Generation.
Conclave is what I call an HBO-TV movie, a handsomely produced, left-leaning feature that never feels like a movie-movie.
The Mighty Gene Hackman was found dead in his home in New Mexico Wednesday night, along with his wife and dog. The former U.S. Marine and two-time Oscar winner’s cause of death is not yet known, though the local authorities have so far ruled out foul play. He was 95.
I not only don’t see the feminist subtext in The Substance, I reject it entirely because to look at it through a feminist lens leaves you without a solution.
Osgood Perkins is a very good director. With The Monkey, he mostly hits what he aims for, which is one grim chuckle after another.
Audition (1999) is one of those classic, must-see horror movies I’d heard about and finally decided (after only a quarter-century) to pull the trigger on.
With Captain America: Brave New World, the Disney Grooming Syndicate’s Marvel division has another stinker on its hands. And unlike those pre-Avengers: Endgame stinkers, there’s no sense that if you miss this one, you will miss a chapter in an over-arching story you’re already invested in.
Companion is a pretty ingenious story backed by a pretty ingenious concept brought to life in a pretty ingenious way.
Flight Risk is eager to entertain, sometimes over-eager, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s charming, forgettable, and exactly the kind of movie that reruns on cable TV for years.
Nosferatu reminds us that we can never escape the consequences of our mortal sins.
