The subgenre that is grifter noir features unsavoury characters like kingpins, loan sharks, petty thieves, cops on the take, and others. They are absolutely delightful to watch, especially when the story is done right: full of twists and turns.
Gary Yates should be a proud man. He did it spot-on right. Kevin Pollak is Harlen, an older con man who is losing his touch.
There are staples of a genre and then there are the immortals. George A. Romero's 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead is still one of the greatest horror films of all time. It still holds its own and scares the pants off you with each viewing. It is eternal.
Ten years after that classic, Romero awakened our fears once more with Dawn of the Dead.
Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Posted by: Mark McLeod • March 19, 2004 @ 11:59am
Focus Features is a relatively young distributor and is the art-house division of Universal Pictures. In their short existence, they have distributed an amazingly high number of excellent motion pictures. In the last year alone they were the studio behind multiple Oscar nominee Lost in Translation and the film that ended up as my favorite of 2003, 21 Grams.
Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Posted by: Dean Kish • March 19, 2004 @ 11:59am
It's been almost 2 years since we have had a glimpse at the upside-down world of script-crafter Charlie Kaufman. The Oscar-nominated screenwriter has delivered such head scratching films as Human Nature, Being John Malkovich, and Adaptation.
Review: Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
Posted by: Mark McLeod • March 12, 2004 @ 11:59am
Cody Banks (Frankie Muniz) is not your ordinary teenager. In fact he's a secret agent for the CIA recruited after requesting a spy kit by mail. Now a couple of years older, Cody and the rest of the junior agents are spending the summer at Camp Woody, a super secret training facility masquerading to their parents as a summer camp.
Review: NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience
Posted by: Mark McLeod • March 12, 2004 @ 11:59am
For 38 weeks of the year, fans of stock-car racing tune into NASCAR races. The speed, the pressure, the teamwork, and the danger are just a few of many reasons why this has become one of the biggest money making efforts in sports entertainment.
Review: NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience
Posted by: Dean Kish • March 12, 2004 @ 11:59am
As IMAX moves further into the 3D universe, you continue to be dumbfounded to what can be accomplished with that old 1950s gimmickry.
Charles Martin Smith loves our frozen tundra and Farley Mowat. In 1983, he starred in Never Cry Wolf, adapted from Mowat's book. Now, he directs The Snow Walker, another movie based on works by Farley Mowat. Like Never Cry Wolf, this movie is just as entertaining.
Barry Pepper and Annabella Piugattuk star in this lost-in-the-north story.
The year was 2001 and it was the first time that the Soothsayer threw his hat into the Oscar ring.
That year in my Oscar article, I complained about Oscar neglecting the idea of having an award for animated feature films.
There have been great boxing movies like Rocky, The Champ, and of course the historic Raging Bull. There were even some more average but enjoyable boxing films like Goldie and the Boxer, Gladiator, and Streets of Gold.
SBM on Social Media