I’ve been writing a series of posts on Criterion Collection film releases for this site. Some of the Criterion titles I’ve covered have been things like campy romps and low-budget oddities, but most of the movies in question are decidedly highbrow fare: critically acclaimed cinematic works directed by noted auteurs. As I’ve been plowing away…
Although mankind would like to think that they have free will throughout their life, there is the inarguable fact that one has absolutely no control over their upbringing. We are brought into this world knowing nothing and are powerless from being imprinted with the values and ideologies of our parents, guardians, and mandated norms in…
When film noir is brought up, the first thing people tend to think of is the environments that these films are associated with. They think of the dark alleys and smog-saturated urban locales of American cities (typically LA but sometimes New York) where many an evil deed has taken place. However, rural noir is a…
While Mexican director Guillermo del Toro has become a vastly recognizable artist across several mediums (with his name gracing novels, films, FX’s The Strain, and even aborted video games), there is certainly one particular piece of his that has gained him respect and favor throughout the industry: Pan’s Labyrinth. The 2006 dark fantasy film was…
Not many films sci-fi films can truly attest to having the legacy that Blade Runner has accumulated in the 35 years since its release. Loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the film told a contemplative tale of a future police officer tasked with terminating artificial humans known as…
What is it that makes for a great crime film? Is a movie a crime film simply because it deals with illicit characters? In that case, couldn’t a lot of political films be classified as such? Or what about corporate life? Aren’t these people infinitely worse than the robbers, thugs, and gangsters that continually saturate…
Making a crime thriller set in contemporary New York is tricky these days for one principal reason: there isn’t that much crime there anymore. In the 44 years since Martin Scorsese released Mean Streets, the Concrete Jungle has cleaned up its act by pushing out the pimps, pushers, and pornographers and replacing them with overpriced…
THE DEFENDANT: Barb Wire first hit stands as a Dark Horse comic in the early ’90s. A part-time bounty hunter, Barbara Kopetski (aka Barb Wire, played by Pamela Anderson), owns a bar called The Hammerhead in the lawless city of Steel Harbor, the “last free city” in the midst of the second American Civil War.…
It seems like every time I make a list of my favorite crime novels and movies, it gets longer. The longer you live, the longer it gets! I added another movie to my list just last week—more on that in a short moment. The first serious crime stories I read were the short stories…
For a movie that has accumulated such a high volume of accolades since its premiere, it’s a bit perplexing to find that Baby Driver is actually a bit of a difficult movie to review. Perhaps it’s because so much has been said about the film already, but the more likely reason is that the movie…
