Living for the Cinema

Master '80's auteur Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill, Silverado, Body Heat) kicked off the '90's with this dark comedy based upon the bizarre true story of a philandering husband whose wife conspired to murder him....and yet he wouldn't die. :o The husband is Joey played by Oscar-Winner Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda, Dave), the wife is Rosalie played by Emmy-Winner Tracey...

It's 106 miles to Chicago, they've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and they're wearing sunglasses.... The brothers are Joliet Jake Blue (John Belushi) and Elmwood Blues (Dan Ackroyd)....and they're on a mission from God.  Well actually they're on a mission to save the Catholic home where they grew up and to get the band back together.  See...

Twenty years ago, Sir Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Napoleon, 1492, Black Hawk Down) directed yet another large-scale historical drama.....this time taking place during the Crusades as we watch war escalate between the Saracins and Christian armies sent over from Europe.  And apparently no one really cared. :( The film received middling reviews and box office upon release.   However following in the tr...

John McClane is Back!  After successfully defeating terrorists at Nakatomi Plaza in the first movie and Dulles Airport in the second movie, McClane (Bruce Willis) is once again working as a NYPD cop.  Hung over and once again on the outs with his wife, he has been called back into duty to track down a mysterious new threat who's not only planting explosives around the city but is specifically...

Out on her first night on the beat, rookie NYPD cop Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) comes upon a robbery in a grocery store and takes down the perpetrator.  However as soon as she takes him down, things take a strange turn as one witness flees the scene with that perp's weapon.  Soon after, Megan meets a mysterious commodies trader named Eugene played by Ron Silver (Timecop, Reversal of Fortu...

Welcome to the LIVING FOR THE BOYLE review series!  Daniel Francis Boyle originally hailed from Manchester, England and his filmmaking career took off thirty years ago in 1995 with the release of acclaimed cult thriller Shallow Grave.  And ever since then, Danny Boyle (as he’s officially known) has carved out a uniquely successful career not only achieving box office success several times but also...

What's this?  Yet ANOTHER movie/series about a married couple who are also spies?!? :o Yes this thriller is about a couple of British spies who both work for the same intelligence agency and apparently there's a dangerous leak which has occurred at this agency.  One of them has been tasked with finding out who the leaker is while the OTHER might actually be the prime suspect....uh-oh, co...

Who doesn't love a movie focused on a party?? :) Well when they're done right at least....Animal House, Bachelor Party....and thirty-five years ago, director Reginald Hudlin (Boomerang) made his debut with one of the better ones.  It also starred a hip-hop duo no less, Kid & Play - Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin co-star as two high school friends who just want to rap, dance,...

Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer, The Host) returns from his Oscar triumph five years ago with his first directorial effort since his worldwide smash Parasite, which remains the ONLY foreign language film to ever win the Oscar for Best Picture.  This time around, he's directing a high concept sci-fi comedy adventure taking place in the future focusing on Mickey (Robert Pattinson) who works as an &qu...

With only their third feature film (following Blood Simple & Raising Arizona), The Coen Brothers (Joel & Ethan) delivered one of the most unique crime dramas of its era...or any era.  This neo-noir takes place during the Prohibition Era in an unidentified American city which is currently enmeshed in an ongoing war between two rival criminal organizations, one lead by Leo (Albert Finney) an...

Thirty years ago this month, acclaimed director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm) gave us a terrifying viral thriller which at the time MIGHT have seemed like pure fiction....but WAS it? :o  Well regardless it was a big hit and featured a stacked cast featuring Oscar-winners Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Cuba Gooding Jr plus Rene Russo and the late,...

Six years before she would achieve success and acclaim with The Substance, recently Oscar-nominated French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat directed this nasty little grindhouse thriller.  It's a simple story about a young, aspiring actress/model named Jen (Matilda Lutz) who is staying with her wealthy MARRIED boyfriend Richard (Kevin Janssens) for the weekend at his remote vacation home out in the...

Welcome to the LIVING FOR THE BOYLE review series!  Daniel Francis Boyle originally hailed from Manchester, England and his filmmaking career took off thirty years ago in 1995 with the release of acclaimed cult thriller Shallow Grave.  And ever since then, Danny Boyle (as he’s officially known) has carved out a uniquely successful career not only achieving box office success several times but also...

This is the story of Monica and Quincy who both grow up next door to each other in Southern California, apparently enamored of two things: the game of basketball and each other.  And as they grow up, they both develop into excellent basketball players and we also watch as their relationship develops.  Omar Epps (Higher Learning, Juice) eventually plays Quincy who is the son of a retired pro basket...

Twenty-five years ago, director Curtis Hanson (8 Mile, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) followed up his widely acclaimed crime drama classic LA Confidential with this quirky adaptation of the Michael Chabon novel of the same name.  This tells the simple story of Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) who wrote ONE great novel several years and is having.....some difficulties....writing the follow-...

Brady Corbet (Vox Lux) has directed a three and a half hour sprawling tale of a Jewish architect named Laszlo (Adrian Brody) who has escaped religious persecution in World War II Europe to come to America.  This epic drama kicks off with him arriving at Ellis Island in epic fashion, then restarting his career in Pennsylvania where he encounters a local industrialist named Van Buren (Guy Pearce) wh...

Director Nisha Ganatra (Late Night) delivers a throwback to big studio romantic comedies from twenty years ago with this frothy musical tale of Maggie (Dakota Johnson) who is the beleaguered personal assistant to legendary pop diva Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross)...yet has a good ear and aspirations of becoming a music producer.  And while trying to help produce new music for her boss, she also ha...

Edward (Richard Gere) is a wealthy industrialist who is feeling lonely one night while on a business trip.  While cruising Hollywood Boulevard, he meets a prostitute named Vivian (Julia Roberts) and he decides to hire her for the week to stay with him....what he didn't count on was falling in love. :o And what resulted was one of the most popular romantic comedies of all time, a worldwide phe...

Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh (The Ocean's Trilogy, Erin Brockovich, Contagion) returns to the big screen with a simple tale about one suburban family which has just moved into a new home....only to find out that they might not be alone. :o Not only that but they each have their own share of personal issues, mostly depressed teenager Chloe (Callina Liang) who has suffered a recent...

How do you remake a classic?  Well in the case of trying to bring back the LEGENDARY Private Detective John Shaft of the 1971 Gordon Parks cult hit starring Richard Roundtree, acclaimed director John Singleton (Boyz N The Hood, Poetic Justice) teamed with acclaimed writer Richard Writer (The Color of Money, Clockers) to....NOT remake it, they decided to "re-imagine" the character as a fo...

On January 15, the entertainment world lost a truly unique and highly influential talent….David Lynch (Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Twin Peaks) who passed away at the age of 78 from emphysema.  Over his illustrious career, he directed twelve feature films and was nominated for four Oscars including Best Director for this acclaimed classic released in the fall of 2001.  Considered by many fans an...

Director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead & Spider-Man trilogies) just seemed born to apply his skills to a send-up of a spaghetti western and back in the mid '90's he got his chance.  You've got Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct) at the PEAK of her star-power playing the strong-but-silent type, a gunslinger coming to the town of Redemption seeking revenge and getting roped into a gun-duel t...

Chances are if that you were watching some action thriller in the '90's featuring an airplane being hijacked, there was a strong likelihood that it starred Wesley Snipes....as this would be one of three (the others being U.S. Marshalls and Passenger 57) released during that time period with such a sequence.  And amazingly of all three, this would be the one to feature him most up in the...

Following up starring in a string of big budget genre epics (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi) in the early part of the '80's, Harrison Ford decided to detour just a bit with this smaller-scale suspense thriller directed by the legendary Peter Weir (Dead Poet's Society, The Truman Show).  Here he plays John Book, a Philadelphia police de...

Big Nick is BACK!  And so is Donnie the Driver....as played by Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr. respectively, they are the only significant hold-overs from the first first Den of Thieves which came out five years.  That original LA-based crime thriller directed by Christian Gudegast (who also returns to direct this sequel) ended up being a bit of a sleeper hit and has garnered a significa...