If there was a movie that was supposed to be dead at the box office, it was “All The President’s Men.” A movie about government. A movie about newspapers. A movie about recent history where everyone who would be interested in these subjects already knows the ending. It made back…
Each year, television is inundated with Christmas movies, and some channels play them like radio stations play Christmas music – wall to wall. I rarely see “Scrooge,” by far my favorite version of the famed Charles Dickens classic, “A Christmas Carol”. There are tons of them, mind you, but to…
“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…
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…
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…
The original Jaws is generally recognized as an amazing film that basically created the summer blockbuster movie model. Summertime was not traditionally the time for audiences to stay indoors to watch movies, and Jaws changed that. The Jaws sequels don’t have any positive reputation at all. Jaws 3 was in…
Dustin Hoffman isn’t just an actor. When he works, the film becomes all encompassing, and in the 1970s he was on a roll. He wouldn’t just play a part. He studies the part. He fights over scenes. He rewrites scripts. He does everything they tell actors not to do. …
If there was a time when the world was turning upside down, it was the 60s and 70s. The turmoil from Vietnam to Watergate made many question the things Americans relied on for decades. That anti-establishment arc found its way into many films. Sometimes it was overt, like in films…
Really good science fiction answers a really cool question that begins with “What If.” Sadly, since Star Wars, science fiction his been thought to be spaceships flying through the galaxy or if we go back as far as the fifties, spaceships landing or attacking Earth. Some really good science fiction…
Norman Wexler, the reason I love Saturday Night Fever. He suffered from mental illness most of his life and was rumored to be the inspiration for Tony Clifton, Andy Kaufman’s stage alter ego. But he turned a movie about nightclub dancing into a social commentary. He was a screenwriter who…