Ron Howard was best known as a television actor in “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Happy Days” but his resume as a director is second to no one. In 2018, he was called in to helm the Star Wars movie “Solo.” He directed the “Da Vinci Code” trilogy along with…
“Dirty Harry” was one of those movies that was almost never made. Actors turned down the part. Studios turned down the script. It morphed from a story about a New York cop chasing a serial killer who is eventually shot by Marines, not by Dirty Harry. Then it was moved…
I love recommending another take to a film that’s about another take, after another and another and another. “Groundhog Day” just may be the best Bill Murray comedy, and that’s a pretty high standard. It’s probably in a fourway cluster at the top of my favorites (with “Meatballs”, “Caddyshack and…
In the seventies, mainstream horror movies were more supernatural than slasher movies. From “The Exorcist” to “The Omen” to “Carrie”, it too devils and demons to be scary enough for Hollywood to invest serious money into the genre. The “escaped lunatic” with a knife wasn’t enough. Films like that were…
Some sports movies work even if you don’t like the sport. You don’t have to be a boxing fan to like Rocky, and you certainly don’t have to like basketball to love “Hoosiers.” “Hoosiers” is a sport movie that really isn’t about sports, or even about basketball specifically. The same…
The only reason I ever heard of this movie is that I saw it at least a dozen times. I lived in a neighborhood that had a neighborhood movie theater, which played final-run movies for weeks on end. “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” played for weeks, and…
Once in a while, a movie comes along that was decades ahead of its time. That’s “Nighthawks”. Perhaps it’s better to say it was caught between eras. “Nighthawks” is a Sylvester Stallone vehicle that should’ve performed better than it did. It paired Sly with Billy Dee Williams as New York…
I must confess an affinity for business movies and that has stayed with me through the years. “Wall Street” was really my first. Oliver Stone make personal films. He fought in Vietnam, so he makes “Platoon,” “JFK,” and “Nixon.” His father was a stock broker, so “Wall Street” shouldn’t have…
There was a time when Eddie Murphy was the single most talented new force in film. Although not my absolute favorite Eddie Murphy film, “Beverly Hills Cop” remains a great example of a film that is absolutely nothing without its star. As the story goes, “Beverly Hills Cop” wasn’t even…
I sometimes get into an argument with myself if this is a Norman Jewison film or Al Pacino film. It’s not a Barry Levinson film, although he shared an Oscar nomination for the screenplay. The script isn’t the best thing about this film. It’s not even in the top ten…