Living for the Cinema

"Crime is the disease. Meet the Cure." "The strong arm of the law." Back in the spring and summer of 1986, those were among several snappy taglines for this highly anticipated action thriller starring Oscar-winner Sylvester Stallone as his direct follow-up to TWO smash successes lead by him the previous year: Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rocky IV.  THIS time, he was playing t...

From acclaimed writer/director Kristoffer Borgli (Dream Scenario) comes this dark romantic comedy starring Zendaya (Euphoria, Dune's 1 &2) and Robert Pattinson (The Batman, Good Time) as a happily engaged couple whose relationship is put to the test when an unexpected turn sends their wedding week off the rails.  Also co-starring Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie, and Hailey Gates, let's fi...

Twenty-five years ago, this high-energy musical adaptation of the both the comic book and TV cartoon was released to much hype....and no one showed up. :( It was a sizeable flop at the box office but has since garned a devoted cult following as a result of its sharp satire and catchy soundtrack.  It's a seemingly simple story about three young ladies from the small town of Riverdale who are j...

ANYONE SEEN RITCHIE??? That's the central question driving this pulpy action thriller starring Steven Seagal (Under Siege, Hard To Kill, Marked For Death) during his breakout period in the early '90's.  Here he plays Gino Felino, a dogged NYPD cop on a mission....to capture the killer of his partner.  That would be the aforementioned Richie Madano, a cranked out mob enforcer played...

Richard Gere (Pretty Woman, Chicago, American Gigolo) plays Martin Vale, a hot-shot Chicago attorney who just landed his latest high-profile case, the suspected brutal murder of the Archbishop by a rural teenager from Kentucky who was apparently working for the Archbishop.  The young suspect is the mild-mannered Aaron Stampler who is played by Oscar-nominee Edward Norton (Fight Club, 25th Hour, A...

Just in time for Opening Day 2026, we are revisiting this beloved baseball comedy from fifty years ago starring Oscar-winners Walter Matthau (The Fortune Cookie, The Odd Couple, The Taking of Pelham 123) and Tatum O'Neal (Paper Moon, Little Darlings) as Coach Buttermaker and aspiring star player Amanda respectively.  Of course, their team is the titular Bears which is rag-tag group of mostly...

“Living for the STREEP” Series: We are here to celebrate the career of Mary Louise Streep….now known to most as Meryl Streep who has become widely known by critics, film-lovers, and audiences as likely our GREATEST LIVING ACTRESS.  Ever since her earlier breakout roles in the late 1970’s in films such as The Deer Hunter, and Kramer Vs. Kramer, she has carved out a filmography filled with brilliant...

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Oscar-nominated Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no memory of how he got there.  As his memory returns, he uncovers a mission to stop a mysterious substance from killing the Sun, which can save Earth.  Soon he encounters a mysterious being from another planet and together, they form a bond and embark on this mission.  This inspiring spa...

There Can Be Only One.  Only one Immortal that this - the Immortals are special swordsmen who can live forever, except when they are facing off against other swordsmen who can kill them but ONLY by decapitating them.  The Immortal this particular story focuses on is Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) who is from the Highlands of Scotland in the 1500's when he discovers that he has this uniq...

Oscar-nominated actress Maggie Gyllenhaal follows up her Oscar-nominated directorial debut (The Lost Daughter) from a few years ago with this VERY loose reimagining/adaptation of a portion of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  This portion of course focuses on the desire of Frankeinstein's monster (played by Oscar-winner Christian Bale) create a companion which he gets helps doing from anothe...

An undercover Boston cop (Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio) and a mole (Oscar-winner Matt Damon) in the police attempt to identify each other while infiltrating the Irish Mob in South Boston.  The head of that Irish gang is Frank Costello played by three-time Oscar-winner Jack Nicholson and the main handlers for the undercover cop are played by Oscar-nominee (for this film) Mark Wahlberg and Emmy-wi...

Released just over thirty years ago to acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, this was writer/director Tom DiCillo's (The Real Blonde, Johnny Suede) love letter to the trials and tribulations of independent cinema.  It takes place most only a chaotic film set where Nick (Steve Buscemi) is the beleaguered director only looking to get ONE good extended take of the next scene for this film which...

Remember when independent cinema was actually FUN? :p Well this cult classic was released during the height of the indie boom in the mid '90's and was pretty much the launching pad for rising star Parker Posey (Best In Show, Superman Returns, The White Lotus, The House of Yes) who plays the titular character, Mary.  Mary is an aimless young lady in her '20's living in Manhattan...

Glenn Powell (Top Gun Maverick, Twisters, Anyone But You) plays Beckett Redfellow, the apparent eventual heir of a multi-billion dollar fortune from the Long Island-based Redfellow clan.....only he's the eighth in line after his late mother was pushed out of the family right before he was born.  So inspired by the sudden reappearance of Julia (Margaret Qualley) a seductive socialist he has ha...

Back in the '90's, the enduring success of Die Hard helped inspire a slew of action thrillers often focusing on one protagonist taking on a group of terrorists within a confined space....and SEVERAL of them took place on airplanes including Air Force One, Passenger 57, and Con Air.  Amidst that crop came this well-liked and successful incarnation taking place on a commercial airplane hea...

A tough-as-nails cop (Chow Yun-Fat) teams up with an undercover agent (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) to shut down a sinister gun-runner (Anthony Wong) and the rest of his gang in Hong Kong. That's the standard IMDB description for the plot of this film but as directed by master action autuer John Woo (The Killer, A Better Tomorrow, Face/Off, Mission Impossible II), it's SO much more!  Infact this...

“Living for the STREEP” Series: We are here to celebrate the career of Mary Louise Streep….now known to most as Meryl Streep who has become widely known by critics, film-lovers, and audiences as likely our GREATEST LIVING ACTRESS.  Ever since her earlier breakout roles in the late 1970’s in films such as The Deer Hunter, and Kramer Vs. Kramer, she has carved out a filmography filled with brilliant...

One master thief (Chris Hemsworth) is planning one final score to steal some expensive jewels, one burned out, veteran cop (Oscar-nominee Mark Ruffalo) is on the trail to catch him after a rash of recent robberies, and one disillusioned insurance broker (Oscar-winner Halle Berry) gets involved to claim her own piece of the action....and ALL of this takes place along Highway 101 which runs through...

It's the late 1980's, the crack cocaine epidemic has hit New York City, and one rising drug kingpin is taking over the market - his hame is Nine Brown and he's played Wesley Snipes in what would be his breakout performance.  On his trail and trying to stop him is NYPD Detective Scotty Appleton played by Ice-T in what would be his first major on-screen perfomance.  And what results i...

Action visionairy John Woo (The Killer, Hard Boiled, Face/Off) directs this high-octane action thriller focused on a couple of "missing" nuclear missiles in the Rocky West and the brewing fight between two Air Force pilots who have different plans for them.  Deacon (John Travolta) hopes to use them to threaten to blow up an American city in exchange for a massive amount of money....while...

Once Upon a Time in the world of professional boxing....Apollo Creed was the champion of the world.  He eventually lost his title to Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone who would receive an Oscar nomination for his performance in this film) who would also lose the title before winning it back with Apollo as his trainer.  They remained very good friends right up until the day that Apollo tragically lo...

What if your boss was a REALLY ungrateful, unpleasant person and you ended up trapped on a deserted island alone with JUST him??  Well that's the tantalizing premise laid for out for this raucous new comedy thriller from the legendary Sam Raimi who directed both the Spider-Man trilogy in the early '00's along with his now iconic Evil Dead trilogy.  Dylan O'Brien (The Maze Runne...

We are approaching the 35th Anniversary of what is likely one of the most celebrated and influential movies of the 1990's.  Adapted from Thomas Harris' best-selling novel of the same name, this is the story of student FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) on her first assignment: to develop a psychological profile of the infamous serial killer, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) who i...

Could this be The BEST Zombie Film EVER?  Many die-hard fans of the zombie sub-genre might say so and they might be right - this post-apocalyptic zombie epic was also directed by what most consider the creator of this genre, the late, great George A. Romero. (Night of the Living Dead, Monkey Shines, The Crazies) It focuses on two police officers (Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger) and two employees of...

Just over six months after the previous entry in this franchise (28 Years Later), we return to the post-apocalyptic world of the "infected" in the UK though this time with a somewhat different focus.  This story focuses on Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) now exploring the possibility of building a bond and possibly even treating an infected "Alpha" named Samson (Chi-Lewis-Parry).  M...