Category: Director

  • Trap (2024)

    If movies won Oscars for their marketing campaigns, M. Night Shyamalan would be sitting pretty. The trailers for his films are invariably intriguing. The writer-director whose works range from the sublime The Sixth Sense to the opposite-of-sublime The Happening has an indisputable gift for high concepts perfect for elevator pitches. And since Shyamalan has been…

  • Prince of the City (1981)

    Although Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the City hit movie theaters in 1981, its deliberate pace, brooding vibe and moral ambivalence place it squarely in line with the director’s string of 1970s-era masterworks that included Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Network. Based on a 1978 nonfiction book by Robert Daley, Prince of the City changes names and times, but it essentially…

  • A Stanley Kubrick countdown

    Stanley Kubrick, arguably the greatest filmmaker of his generation, shuffled off this mortal coil 25 years ago today. He was 70 years old. Only six days earlier, he had given Warner Brothers the final cut of what would be his last motion picture, Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick didn’t make me a cinephile, but he did…

  • Romance on the Big Screen

    This week we commemorate the 95th anniversary of that fateful day seven members of the George “Bugs” Moran gang were mowed down, deep-dish Chicago style, by four of Al Capone’s Tommy gun-wielding henchmen. Or to put it another way, this Wednesday marks Valentine’s Day. As such, it seems as appropriate a time as any to…

  • Hugo (2011)

    Given Martin Scorsese’s prodigious love of film, it is hardly surprising that he made a mash note to the medium that has so dominated his life. To some extent, Scorsese’s entire catalog has been a love letter to movies, immersed as he is in the singular possibilities of cinema. What is unexpected, however, is that…

  • The Last Detail (1973)

    There is no doubt that screenwriter extraordinaire Robert Towne wrote The Last Detail with his friend Jack Nicholson in mind. As 1st Class Signalman Billy “Badass” Buddosky, one of two Navy lifers tasked with escorting a young midshipman to the brig, Nicholson was gifted with a meaty role that enabled him to demonstrate his full…

  • Killer Joe (2011)

    Brutal, pulpy and lurid. That sums up the irresistible allure of Killer Joe – provided, that is, you find deep-fried perversity to be irresistible. The second collaboration between director William Friedkin and writer Tracy Letts (their first being 2006’s Bug) serves up trailer-trash noir as savage as it is savagely funny. You will be forgiven…

  • Female (1933)

    The car-manufacturing magnate at the center of Female is one tough cookie, a take-no-prisoners mogul by day and take-no-guff seductress by night. That, in a nutshell, sums up the vitals of this 1933 comic gem. The movie is funny, the dialogue whip-smart, and dependable director Michael Curtiz doesn’t outwear things, with the picture clocking in…