The Day After Tomorrow
March 31, 2005
Not since Armageddon (1998) has a film taken such a complete leave of its scientific senses. The Day After Tomorrow (2004) is Roland Emmerich’s latest cinematic ode to destruction movies. He’s already blown up the White House in Independence Day (1996)...
Street Mobster
March 25, 2005
Kinji Fukasaku’s Street Mobster (1972) is a fast-paced, balls-to-the-walls Japanese gangster film shot in glorious anamorphic widescreen that has been beautifully restored by the fine folks at Home Vision Entertainment. Virtually unknown over here (except...
Clerks: 10th Anniversary Edition
March 22, 2005
It’s hard to believe that the little independent film-that-could, Clerks (1994), is ten years old. Inspired by the low-budget success of Slacker (1990), Kevin Smith wrote, directed and starred in his ode to working a dead-end job as a cash-register...
Man on Fire
March 18, 2005
Tony Scott is a journeyman action film director capable of producing an excellent film when given the right material (True Romance) and truly abysmal ones when given the wrong material (The Fan). Either way, his films all have a distinctive look of a...
Division III: Football’s Finest
March 15, 2005
Like motability scooters in supermarkets, America does sports comedies better than us Brits. Exhibit A, m’lud: Slap Shot, Horse Feathers and The Bad News Bears versus Blackball, The Calcium Kid and Up ‘n’ Under. I may be doing the British film industry...
Baadasssss!
March 10, 2005
In 1971, Melvin Van Peebles made Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. It not only became the most successful independent film of that year but it also helped kick start a film genre known as Blaxploitation. These films empowered black actors and actresses...
