Directed by the late, great Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Serpico, Network) and in honor of his 100th Birthday (!), this courtroom drama stars the legendary Paul Newman as a semi-alcoholic Boston attorney taking on what might be his most challenging case yet! The family of a pregnant woman - recently sent into a permanent coma in the care of a Cathol…

In honor of Pride Month and celebrating this film's upcoming 30th Anniversary, it's time to embark on the exciting adventures of three drag queens travelling across the Australian Outback on a bus which actually shares its title with this movie. :) This Oscar-winning cult hit was directed by Stephen Elliott and stars Terrance Stamp, Guy Pearce, and…

In honor of the Juneteenth holiday and just in time for the 35th Anniversary of its U.S. release, this is very likely THE signature filmmaking achievement from one of our most important filmmakers. It was written by, directed by , and also happens to start Oscar-winner Spike Lee in a relatively straightforward fictional tale (though loosely based o…

Just in time for Father's Day, here is a fondly remembered action comedy starring two legends which was first released 45 years ago this month. Those two legends are Peter Falk (TV's Columbo) and Alan Arkin (Oscar-winner for Little Miss Sunshine) who play two VERY different fathers whose respective son and daughter are about to get married. Falk pl…

Adapted from the French smash hit of stage screen "La Cage Aux Folles," this raucous farce about two VERY different families about to join via marriage was directed by the late, great Mike Nichols who directed modern classics of various genres including The Graduate, Catch-22, Working Girl, Silkwood, and Carnal Knowledge. It was a smash hit back in…

Acclaimed Five Time Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, Before Sunrise) has returned with his latest opus which received a TON of strong buzz on the festival circuit last year....and was then purchased by Netflix and held for a mostly streaming release this year. :/ It's the SEMI-true story of a fake cop named G…

Thirty years ago, this high-concept action thriller loosely described as "Die Hard on a Bus" surprisingly took the world by storm. It was directed by Jan De Bont (Twister) and stars Keanu Reeves with an uncharacteristically short haircut (for him) as Jack, a young up-and-coming LAPD cop learning the ropes from his more veteran partner Harry played …

Welcome to the Living for the Max series. Over the past 45 years, there has been no other film franchise QUITE as inventive nor as consistently exciting as The Mad Max Saga….four films mostly chronicling the post-apocalyptic adventures of lone wolf Max Roxatansky played three times by Mel Gibson and most recently by Tom Hardy. As each film has been…

"The Magic Is Back!" That was the official tagline in the marketing for this highly anticipated sequel to '87's Lethal Weapon when it was first being released just under thirty-five years ago. We were rejoining the story of two very different Los Angeles cops who became friends at the end of the previous film....wild-haired, suicidal widower Martin…

COPPOLA WEEK continues! Fifty years ago sandwiched between his two multiple Oscar-winning masterpieces of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Francis Ford Coppola finally had studio support to write and direct this passion project which he had been working on since the mid '60's. The story focuses on Harry - a surveillance expert played by Osc…

In time for its upcoming 45th Anniversary, Memorial Day AND the recent resurgence of its Oscar-winning director screening his long-developed passion project (Megalopolis....hopefully coming out later this year), what better time to revisit a film which itself was a long-gestating passion project for Francis Ford Coppola? All of the crazy stories be…

It's time to return of the most beloved and longest running franchises in cinema, the ongoing chronicles of an alternative timeline in Earth's history when humanity destroyed itself and the apes took over our planet, originally starting with the 1968 classic Planet of the Apes starring Charlton Heston. Coming out seven years after the last entry (W…

What happens when you combine the directing trio (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker) behind the spoof smash Airplane , the on-screen debut of one of the beloved movie stars of his generation (Val Kilmer), one of the most acclaimed actors/movie stars of HIS generation (Omar Shariff), satire focusing on World War II spy dramas, musical numbers…

Based on the beloved 1980's TV show starring Lee Majors, this romantic action comedy tells the story of a veteran stuntman Colt (Ryan Gosling), his director Jody (Emily Blunt), and ALL of the craziness which is occurring on and off the set of a major Hollywood production named where the main Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor Johnson) is apparently missing. D…

If you're director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas, and you have been tasked with developing a sequel to one of the most beloved and highest grossing action adventures (Raiders of the Lost Ark) of all time, what do you do for a follow-up? Well in this case, you go broader, sillier, and DEFINITELY creepier! :o And apparently, you piss off…

From Oscar-nominated Italian director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) comes a erotically charged drama about....tennis. At its core is a love triangle among three aspiring professional tennis players played by Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, and Mike Faist. We follow all three characters over a thirteen year period as they struggle through both thei…

Welcome to the Living for the Max series. Over the past 45 years, there has been no other film franchise QUITE as inventive nor as consistently exciting as The Mad Max Saga….four films mostly chronicling the post-apocalyptic adventures of lone wolf Max Roxatansky played three times by Mel Gibson and most recently by Tom Hardy. As each film has been…

Fifty years ago saw the release of what ended up being one of the more iconic conspiracy thrillers of the 1970's even though it wasn't really a commercial hit upon initial release. Directed by Alan J. Pakula who would go on to direct the even more iconic All The President's Men a couple of years later, it stars Oscar-winning legend Warren Beatty as…

Denzel Washington stars in this intense drama/thriller as Creasey, a sad, alcoholic ex-CIA assassin who finds a new purpose in life as he forms a special friendship with the precocious Pita played by Dakota Fanning. Pita is the daughter of a Mexican industrialist played by Marc Antony who has hired Creasey to serve as a bodyguard since there has be…

The original Die Hard released in 1988 remains one of THE most influential movies of all time as it pretty much set the template for dozens and dozens of action films to follow....just over eight years after it was first released, this was the first one to transport that core story to an ice hockey arena. :)In the lead role of a John McClane-like h…

HAPPY 300TH EPISODE - Thanks to all listeners and subscribers for your continued support!!! :) The acclaimed writer/director of Ex Machina and Annihilation has returned to deliver his largest production yet, a dystopian war drama taking place in a possible future where the USA (no longer) is now experiencing its SECOND Civil War as several states h…

Dev Patel, the Oscar-nominated star of acclaimed films such as Slumdog Millionaire and Lion, has become the latest Hollywood actor to take his career in a new direction.....by directing this propulsive revenge action thriller taking place in a fictional city within India modeled on Mumbai. Patel also stars as "Kid" who is a young drifter on a missi…

Back in the early days of the comic book movies, it was rare to see one released to theaters which was not only financially successful but also generally beloved by fans. There were the Batman films....and then everything else including The Rocketeer, The Shadow, and Dick Tracy. But just under thirty years, one came out which not only proved to be …

Thirty-five years ago this May, we first saw the release of a relatively small action drama starring then movie star Patrick Swayze as THE Greatest Bouncer/Cooler around who has been hired to clean up a troubled roadside bar in Missouri named the Double Deuce. The character's name was Dalton and he DID clean up that bar along with the surrounding t…

Every major filmmaker has to start somewhere....and this Neo-Noir thriller was the feature filmmaking debut for Joel and Ethan Coen forty years ago. Yes the same brothers who have delivered many memorable films since then including Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, Inside Llewelyn Davis, and No Country For Old Men for which they wo…

As we approach Baseball Opening Day 2024, what better way to celebrate than to revisit one of the more beloved baseball films of the 1980's, a comedy with heart focusing on a true underdog franchise, the Cleveland Indians? Directed by David S. Ward, the story focuses on one Cinderella season for the ballclub which is now under the control of a new …

Welcome to the Living for the Max series. Over the past 45 years, there has been no other film franchise QUITE as inventive nor as consistently exciting as The Mad Max Saga….four films mostly chronicling the post-apocalyptic adventures of lone wolf Max Roxatansky played three times by Mel Gibson and most recently by Tom Hardy. As each film has been…

What happens when a top-flight director (Walter Hill - 48 Hours, The Driver) decides to to spearhead a new original story blending various genres including gritty crime drama, rock musical, and star-crossed love story....also setting it within an unrecognizable urban setting and time period? Well the result is one of the more bizarre financial flop…

Of all of the dozens of post-Pulp Fiction imitators to be released throughout the 1990's, this might be one of the more memorable ones even though it opened roughly 25 years ago to middling box office. It director Doug Liman's follow-up to his seminal indie gem of just three years - Swingers - and while he once again kept the cast young and the loc…

In the lead-up to St. Patrick's Day, what better time to celebrate than to revisit what is considered by some to be a modern crime drama classic focusing on the Irish mafia? Directed by Phil Joanou (Three O'Clock High), this story focuses on Terry (Sean Penn) who has recently moved back to the old neighborhood - Hell's Kitchen in New York City - an…

What better way to celebrate March Madness than to revisit a basketball movie which actually isn't a basketball movie but does still feature lots of basketball.....sorta? :) Benny and Josh Safdie followed up their breakout success of a couple of years prior - the extremely tense urban thriller Good Time starring Robert Pattinson - with an even TENS…

This is the story of a bored suburban housewife Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) who finds herself drawn to reading personal ads and becomes especially interested in those featuring a mysterious woman named Susan (Madonna) who she ends up sorta stalking. And through a series of unfortunate events, Roberta inadvertently becomes mistaken for Susan while al…

Kicking off Women's History Month, here is a truly unique take on one of the most famous (or infamous) monarchs in the history of French royalty. Kirsten Dunst stars as the eponymous Queen married to King Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) - their reign lasted from 1774 through 1793 and happened to be during one of the most tumultuous periods in French …

Since we are apparently still several years away from the next Star Wars or Star Trek movie on the big screen, director Denis Villeneuve has given us the next best thing....or maybe something even better? :) This long-awaited sequel to the Oscar nominated sci-fi blockbuster Part 1 picks up EXACTLY where the previous film left off.....Paul (Timothee…

The Coen Brothers are back! Well actually just one of them (Ethan Coen) but he's here to direct while also co-writing and co-producing with his wife and long-term Coen's collaborator Tricia Cooke. And what they have collaborated to deliver is an ambling, quirky, violent crime drama/comedy in the GREAT tradition of previous Coen Brothers' films like…

Welcome to the Living for the Max series. Over the past 45 years, there has been no other film franchise QUITE as inventive nor as consistently exciting as The Mad Max Saga….four films mostly chronicling the post-apocalyptic adventures of lone wolf Max Roxatansky played three times by Mel Gibson and most recently by Tom Hardy. As everyone has been …

Considering that he was one of the most influential musical performers of the 20th Century pioneering an entire genre (reggae) of music, it was only a matter of time before we were to see a big budget studio of biopic of the late, great Robert Nesta Marley hailing from Nine Mile, Jamaica. His life was tragically short but his music has lived on dec…

Probably the best way to describe this movie would be as a "Kung Fu Musical Comedy" but that MIGHT not do it justice! Produced by the founder of Motown Records (Berry Gordy) and directed by one of the early pioneers of African American cinema (Michael Schultz), it was a tale as old as time....of Bruce Leroy (Taimak), a young aspiring martial artist…

Just a couple of years before the breakout success of his seminal horror classic, John Carpenter directed this low-budget action thriller focusing on the siege of a soon-to-be-closing LA police station by a some local gangs who are trying to take down a rival gang-leader being held in custody by the police. As the gun fire and violence escalate, ev…

Poor Things is a high-brow steam-punk fantasy which just garnered the second largest number of Oscar nominations for 2023 including BEST PICTURE and has received universal acclaim for this surrealist tale of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone, also nominated for Best Actress), a young woman in Victorian England (?) who has recently been reborn/revived via a …

Once the Queen of Rom-Com's, Julia Roberts returned to the genre which made her a household name fifteen years ago and she also reuinited with Clive Owen, her co-star of Closer, their acclaimed drama about about five years prior. And they were both being directed by Tony Gilroy who just about 18 months prior had directed the seminal legal thriller …

Forty years ago this summer, we saw the release of this seminal biopic/concert movie from first-time director Albert Magnoli. It was the feature film debut of Prince who was a rising rock and pop phenomenon at the time and it featured wall-to-wall new songs from Prince and his band at the time, The Revolution. Both the film and its soundtrack becam…

Fifteen years ago, we saw the release of one of THE most surprising word-of-mouth hits of the 21st Century and that was this straightforward action thriller directed by Pierre Morel. It starred Oscar Nominee Liam Neeson as Brian Mills, an ex-spy/assassin with a "particular set of skills" who has just found out that his teenage daughter (Maggie Grac…

Welcome to the Living for the Max series. Over the past 45 years, there has been no other film franchise QUITE as inventive nor as consistently exciting as The Mad Max Saga….four films mostly chronicling the post-apocalyptic adventures of lone wolf Max Roxatansky played three times by Mel Gibson and most recently by Tom Hardy. As everyone has been …

Ten years ago at the Sundance Film Festival, every one who saw it was just dazzled by this low-budget music drama directed by then up-and-comer Damian Chazelle. And as the year progressed, so did more buzz before it was eventually released worldwide later that year to much acclaim and lots of awards attention. In fact, this film ended up being nomi…

NAVAL WEEK concludes with a highly acclaimed period seafaring adventure which just turned 20! Adapted from a series of beloved historical fiction novels from Patrick O'Brian, this film chronicles the journey of the HMS Surprise, a British seafaring vessel sailing across the Southern Hemisphere and in a continuous cat-and-mouse with the French Navy,…

NAVAL WEEK kicks off with what might be The LAST Great Cold War Thriller?? Could be as this adaptation of Tom Clancy's best-selling novel was released literally just a few months after the fall of the Soviet Union. It all takes place during the height of the Cold War back in the early 1980's. There's a brand new Russian submarine in the water which…

What's this, a well-regarded science fiction conspiracy thriller which featured an all-star cast and yet no one remembers it?? Well yeah if this film happens to come out the same year as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind....two BEHEMETHS from this era directed by master filmmakers/household names George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg re…

Forty years ago amidst a crop of various pop music-driven movies (Flashdance, Breakin), this Herbert Ross-directed teen musical drama hit the world by storm and made a star of its lead performer, the legendary Kevin Bacon. Beyond that, it also had a one of the most memorable soundtracks of the decades featuring several catchy pop gems including the…

From the director of The French Connection, The Exorcist, and.....Cruising :o....this was somewhat of a comeback vehicle for the late, great William Friedkin in the mid '80's after a series of highly publicized flops and commercial disappointments. It's a hard-edged LA-based crime story revolving around two Secret Service agents (William Peterson, …