Living for the Cinema

Adapted from the French smash hit of stage screen "La Cage Aux Folles," this raucous farce about two VERY different families about to join via marriage was directed by the late, great Mike Nichols who directed modern classics of various genres including The Graduate, Catch-22, Working Girl, Silkwood, and Carnal Knowledge. It was a smash hit back in the spring of 1996 and was also one of the first Hollywood blockbusters to be lead by gay characters. What helped was that those two l...

Acclaimed Five Time Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, Before Sunrise) has returned with his latest opus which received a TON of strong buzz on the festival circuit last year....and was then purchased by Netflix and held for a mostly streaming release this year. :/ It's the SEMI-true story of a fake cop named Gary Johnson (Glenn Powell) who worked with the local police to help draw in and apprehend citizens planning on committing murder....by pretending t...

Thirty years ago, this high-concept action thriller loosely described as "Die Hard on a Bus" surprisingly took the world by storm. It was directed by Jan De Bont (Twister) and stars Keanu Reeves with an uncharacteristically short haircut (for him) as Jack, a young up-and-coming LAPD cop learning the ropes from his more veteran partner Harry played by Jeff Daniels. Together they get roped into a high-rise hostage situation set on an elevator rigged with explosives and after they re...

Welcome to the Living for the Max series. Over the past 45 years, there has been no other film franchise QUITE as inventive nor as consistently exciting as The Mad Max Saga….four films mostly chronicling the post-apocalyptic adventures of lone wolf Max Roxatansky played three times by Mel Gibson and most recently by Tom Hardy. As each film has been directed by Australian cinematic genius George Miller, they have each reflected his unique vision while also being HUGELY influential ...

"The Magic Is Back!"That was the official tagline in the marketing for this highly anticipated sequel to '87's Lethal Weapon when it was first being released just under thirty-five years ago. We were rejoining the story of two very different Los Angeles cops who became friends at the end of the previous film....wild-haired, suicidal widower Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and slowly retiring family man Roger Murtagh (Danny Glover). At a time when the buddy cop action film was a fairly ...

COPPOLA WEEK continues! Fifty years ago sandwiched between his two multiple Oscar-winning masterpieces of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Francis Ford Coppola finally had studio support to write and direct this passion project which he had been working on since the mid '60's. The story focuses on Harry - a surveillance expert played by Oscar-winner Gene Hackman - who has recorded a mysterious tape of a couple he was assigned to "bug" and hears something concerning on it w...

In time for its upcoming 45th Anniversary, Memorial Day AND the recent resurgence of its Oscar-winning director screening his long-developed passion project (Megalopolis....hopefully coming out later this year), what better time to revisit a film which itself was a long-gestating passion project for Francis Ford Coppola? All of the crazy stories behind its troubled projection have seemingly been remembered as much as the film itself but make no mistake, this Vietnam/Cambodia-set war dra...

It's time to return of the most beloved and longest running franchises in cinema, the ongoing chronicles of an alternative timeline in Earth's history when humanity destroyed itself and the apes took over our planet, originally starting with the 1968 classic Planet of the Apes starring Charlton Heston. Coming out seven years after the last entry (War of the Planet of the Apes) which closed out a highly popular and acclaimed trilogy films focusing on the primate protagonist known as Caes...

What happens when you combine the directing trio (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker) behind the spoof smash Airplane , the on-screen debut of one of the beloved movie stars of his generation (Val Kilmer), one of the most acclaimed actors/movie stars of HIS generation (Omar Shariff), satire focusing on World War II spy dramas, musical numbers satirizing Elvis road comedies, one underwater Western saloon fight, AND one extended sequence playing on misperceptions of the Swedish language??...

Based on the beloved 1980's TV show starring Lee Majors, this romantic action comedy tells the story of a veteran stuntman Colt (Ryan Gosling), his director Jody (Emily Blunt), and ALL of the craziness which is occurring on and off the set of a major Hollywood production named where the main Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor Johnson) is apparently missing. Directed by former stuntman David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train), this movie is very much a love letter to stunt performers....with lots...

If you're director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas, and you have been tasked with developing a sequel to one of the most beloved and highest grossing action adventures (Raiders of the Lost Ark) of all time, what do you do for a follow-up? Well in this case, you go broader, sillier, and DEFINITELY creepier! :o And apparently, you piss off millions of parents who were ok taking their children to see faces melting off on-screen for the previous one but draw the line at seeing so...

From Oscar-nominated Italian director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) comes a erotically charged drama about....tennis. At its core is a love triangle among three aspiring professional tennis players played by Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, and Mike Faist. We follow all three characters over a thirteen year period as they struggle through both their athletic careers and their relationships to each other. And playing throughout all of this is high-energy electronic music fro...

Welcome to the Living for the Max series. Over the past 45 years, there has been no other film franchise QUITE as inventive nor as consistently exciting as The Mad Max Saga….four films mostly chronicling the post-apocalyptic adventures of lone wolf Max Roxatansky played three times by Mel Gibson and most recently by Tom Hardy. As each film has been directed by Australian cinematic genius George Miller, they have each reflected his unique vision while also being HUGELY influential ...

Fifty years ago saw the release of what ended up being one of the more iconic conspiracy thrillers of the 1970's even though it wasn't really a commercial hit upon initial release. Directed by Alan J. Pakula who would go on to direct the even more iconic All The President's Men a couple of years later, it stars Oscar-winning legend Warren Beatty as a journalist working for a small publication in the Pacific Northwest who inadvertently stumbles on a mysterious organization which might ha...

Denzel Washington stars in this intense drama/thriller as Creasey, a sad, alcoholic ex-CIA assassin who finds a new purpose in life as he forms a special friendship with the precocious Pita played by Dakota Fanning. Pita is the daughter of a Mexican industrialist played by Marc Antony who has hired Creasey to serve as a bodyguard since there has been a rash of kidnappings in their area. Tragedy occurs and then Creasey sets off on a brutal mission of revenge where we see his old ha...

The original Die Hard released in 1988 remains one of THE most influential movies of all time as it pretty much set the template for dozens and dozens of action films to follow....just over eight years after it was first released, this was the first one to transport that core story to an ice hockey arena. :)In the lead role of a John McClane-like hero, it starred the "Muscles from Brussels" at the peak of his popularity, Jean Claude Van Damme. And in the critical role of a commanding Ha...

HAPPY 300TH EPISODE - Thanks to all listeners and subscribers for your continued support!!! :) The acclaimed writer/director of Ex Machina and Annihilation has returned to deliver his largest production yet, a dystopian war drama taking place in a possible future where the USA (no longer) is now experiencing its SECOND Civil War as several states have seceded from the Union resulting in an ongoing brutal conflict among several different factions. This story follows four journalists (Kir...

Dev Patel, the Oscar-nominated star of acclaimed films such as Slumdog Millionaire and Lion, has become the latest Hollywood actor to take his career in a new direction.....by directing this propulsive revenge action thriller taking place in a fictional city within India modeled on Mumbai. Patel also stars as "Kid" who is a young drifter on a mission to avenge the death of his mother at the hands of corrupt local politicians, gangsters, police, and even religious leaders. And while he's...

Back in the early days of the comic book movies, it was rare to see one released to theaters which was not only financially successful but also generally beloved by fans. There were the Batman films....and then everything else including The Rocketeer, The Shadow, and Dick Tracy. But just under thirty years, one came out which not only proved to be both financially successful and hugely influential for so many other subgenre films which were to follow up but also was being released...

Thirty-five years ago this May, we first saw the release of a relatively small action drama starring then movie star Patrick Swayze as THE Greatest Bouncer/Cooler around who has been hired to clean up a troubled roadside bar in Missouri named the Double Deuce. The character's name was Dalton and he DID clean up that bar along with the surrounding town of Jasper, defeating the evil Brad Wesley played by Ben Gazzara. Directed by Rowdy Herrington, the movie opened to mediocre ...