Sometimes people ask me why I watch so many movies, why I spend so much time reading about, studying and looking for hard-to-find old movies. Now, as a response, I can just present them with a copy of “Make Way For Tomorrow.” This is why I search through old movies. This is something special. Never [...]
If you’ve seen every episode of “The Cosby Show,” and are disappointed that you haven’t seen Dr. Cliff Huxtable shoot anyone down in cold blood, have I got a movie for you. 1972’s “Hickey & Boggs,” re-teams Bill Cosby with former “I, Spy,” co-star Robert Culp. (Culp also directed the film.) “Boggs,” is a typical 1970s [...]
‘Across a 110th Street’ is a 1972 film directed by Barry Shear, and starring Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto. I hadn’t heard of the film (though I’d heard the song) until a trailer festival I went to a few months back. The film looked gritty, violent, and right up my alley, so I threw it [...]
These ‘best of’ lists are always a bit of a pain to write and to read. You usually start out scanning the list for stuff you’ve seen and loved, and then you probably count the number of movies you’ve seen. Sometimes you finish the list feeling like you’ve seen the right things, and sometimes you [...]
In Italy in the early 1970s the spaghetti western fad was slowly dying and filmgoer’s attention was now turning to poliziotteschi, a cop-and-robber brand of cinema that contained high body counts, violence and lawlessness. 1974’s “Emergency Squad,” contained all the elements, presented in an exciting and entertaining fashion.
Director Gianfranco Parolini’s 1969 spaghetti western, “Sabata,” was a surprise hit. So much, in fact, that this film, wasn’t even going to be a Sabata story. However, once the box office receipts came in, “Indio Black,” was re-named, “Adios Sabata.” Unfortunately, the movie plays as convoluted as the story that happened behind-the-scenes.
Riding high on the James Bond/spy wave, some of the most memorable movies from the 1960s are international affairs, with art and jewel thievery being a completely reasonable career choice. Thankfully, 1968’s “Grand Slam,” does nothing to dispel any of these cliches.
There are three words that, depending on your reaction to them, will say what you will think of Alex Proyas’ latest sci-fi thriller starring Nicolas Cage: CGI flaming moose. Thoughts?
In 1981, Thomas Harris introduced the world to Hanibal Lector in his book “Red Dragon.” Lector was a supporting character, while the lead was serial killer investigator Will Graham.
In 1937, Michael Curtiz teamed with Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Bette Davis to make “Kid Galahad,” the story of a rising boxer and a crooked manager who sets up a fixed championship fight. In 1962, Elvis Presley tied on the gloves for the remake. In the Presley movie, he plays Walter Gulick, just [...]
Abel Ferrara took on Jack Finney’s horror/sci-fi classic of aliens out to get the human race with 1993’s “Body Snatchers.” While the story is effectively told and is a good tale, sadly it is inevitably compared to the two previous “Body Snatchers” movies which, for my money, are some of the best films of their [...]
If you’ve seen every episode of “The Cosby Show,” and are disappointed that you haven’t seen Dr. Cliff Huxtable shoot anyone down in cold blood, have I got a movie for you. 1972’s “Hickey & Boggs,” re-teams Bill Cosby with former “I, Spy,” co-star Robert Culp. (Culp also directed the film.) “Boggs,” is a typical 1970s [...]