Far East becomes Old West. John Sturges remakes Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI as a western, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Katanas become guns, samurai become gunslingers, Far East becomes Old West. A small Mexican farming village, tired of being ransacked annually by a marauder and his henchmen, hire seven gunslingers to repel them. Soon enough, the villagers realize meeting violence with violence … Read More
12 YEARS A SLAVE
Twelve Thousand Years A Slave… and Counting… 12 YEARS A SLAVE is a great movie on its surface, is a horrible story when viewed in context of American history and is unspeakably terrifying when placed against the larger sociological canvas. I’ll explain all this in a moment if you’ll just stop fussing about the n-word… on the surface 12 YEARS … Read More
SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME
The Passion of the Goombah. If you can get past Paul Newman‘s insufferable “schoolyard Italian” SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME is… well, it’s still pretty mediocre. It’s a tribute to boxing legend Rocky Graziano, his street youth, his thug life, his Army AWOL, his boxing career under the name “Graziano” (real name Thomas Rocco Barbella), his insipid love life with … Read More
THE BLOB
The Teen Squad Jam Sandwich. When I saw THE BLOB as a young kid, it was terrifying. I didn’t care about the tepid acting, the simple, linear storyline, and especially didn’t notice any subtexts of Sex Equals Death, or Not All American Teen Hooligans Are Bad. And who the hell was Steve McQueen? Now, well, the pulsing strawberry jelly representing … Read More