Barton Fink Review

Barton Fink is one of my favorite lesser known Coen brothers movie. In it John Turturro plays a brilliant stage writer for Broadway (from whom the movie gets its name) who gets lured to Hollywood in the 1940s to write screenplays for big studios. Turturro is perfectly at home as the naïve, paranoid stereotypical writer…

Slow West Review

If the real west were half as violent as depicted in this movie, we would have let the Indians keep it. A bounty hunter with a touch of conscience played with equal parts bravado and grit by Michael Fassbender keeps his true motives a secret from the naïve and gawky Scottish teenager (Kodi Smit-McPhee) for…

Gone Girl Review

This is the kind of mystery movie I didn’t think they made anymore, but I’m damn glad to see they still do. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike play Nick and Amy, a couple that fell in love young and wound up moving to rural Missouri and turn into your average miserable couple with a bored…

The Gunman Review

This is strictly a matter of personal taste, but I prefer my shoot em’ up style action flicks to be light on the preachy politics and heavy on the ass kicking suspense. Now, I realize any movie starring Sean Penn is going to be heavy on the former. I found I could mostly ignore that…

The Boy Next Door Review

  If you are a man, one of the trade-offs for being in a relationship with members of the opposite sex is that occasionally you have to watch garbage like this. Most of the time it’s not that big of a deal. If all chick flicks were as horrendous as “The Boy Next Door” it…

Escape Plan Review

My wife can’t stand Sylvester Stallone. Hates the way he looks, hates the way he talks, and hates the predictable turn most of his movies take. She represents a large group of people who harp on the guy’s faults, and I am not here to argue that those faults do not exist. I am just…

Double Indemnity Review

I’ve been meaning to see Double Indemnity forever now, but only just finally got around to it after stumbling across a special edition copy in my school library. I’ve reviewed a couple other pieces of classic film noir on this blog and intend to do more. Film Noir is one of my favorite genres of…

The Shining Review

Struggling writer Jack Torrance (Nicholson) takes a job as an off season caretaker at the Overlook Hotel. Torrance takes the position and moves in for the winter with his wife (Duvall) and son(Lloyd), in hopes that the solitude of the off season will clear up his writers block. The Overlook, a building virtually cut off…

Kiss The Girls Review

After his niece is abducted, criminal psychologist Dr. Alex Cross (Freeman) goes to North Carolina to aid/follow the investigation. What he learns is that his niece, Naomi, is the latest “trophy” of a man who calls himself “Casanova,” a man who collects women, but not necessarily for the purposes of killing them. Shortly after Casanova…

The Third Man Review

As a big fan of classic film noir it is to my utter embarrassment to have to admit to not having until now, finally seen ‘The Third Man’ in its entirety. The final motivating factor that pushed me over the edge was a statement written by my movie reviewing hero, the recently deceased Roger Ebert,…