It’s taken me a while to get around to watching Ryan Gosling in Drive, I’m not sure what was holding me back, but I finally settled into this one, and I have to admit, I really dug it. First off, let’s mention the cast that surrounds Gosling in this film, there’s not an actor that…
Tag: brutal
High Plains Drifter (1973) – Clint Eastwood
High Plains Drifter marked the first time Eastwood directed a western. Keeping in line with the work he put in on his spaghetti westerns, the movie is a darker, grittier style western, as opposed to the type of film made prior to them. To illustrate that the Stranger he’s playing is a bad dude, Eastwood…
Mississippi Burning (1988) – Alan Parker
Mississippi Burning was relevant when it was made in the late 80s (it was relevant when I watched it nine years ago and wrote about it then), and sadly, here in 2024, it’s still relevant, because racism still seems to be way too rampant. The Oscar-winning film (Cinematography) has a stellar cast and is based…
Star Trek: Picard (2020) – Stardust City Rag, and The Impossible Box
Jonathan Frakes directs Stardust City Rag, which starts off brutally, and takes us to some dark places with the characters even as Picard (Patrick Stewart) gets to pose as a villain. Written by Kirsten Beyer, this episode first aired on 20 February 2020 and opens with a Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) flashback as we…
The Killer (2023) – David Fincher
David Fincher finally gets a chance to deliver his passion project to the screen. Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Fincher has been working on getting this one made for a while. A dark story, that definitely needs towards the noir, it follows a nameless character, referred to only as The Killer…
Evil Dead Rise (2023) – Lee Cronin
Lee Cronin wrote and directed Evil Dead Rise a nice new spin on the classic horror franchise that promises the ultimate in grueling horror. As much as I love the originals, and Bruce Campbell, I love that the new films have eschewed some of the comedic elements and really leaned into the brutal gore and…
Extraction II (2023) – Sam Hargrave
So despite the crap shape Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is at the end of the first film, he gets rescued, saved, and rehabilitated. In fact, Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) retires him to Austria in a little cabin by the lake, but when an unnamed man (Idris Elba) shows up and offers him a job, one with…
Punisher: War Zone (2008) – Lexi Alexander
Ray Stevenson didn’t get a fair shake at playing Frank Castle aka The Punisher, in the 2008 follow-up to The Punisher starring Thomas Jane. Jane declined to return as he felt the script didn’t go in the way that he wanted to portray the character. What was there to dislike? And what did Ray Stevenson…
Green Room (2015) – Jeremy Saulnier
Two Star Trek alum star in Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room, Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart (in a way you’ve never seen him before), and with a couple of other recognizable faces like Imogen Poots and Alia Shawkat, Saulnier is intent on plunging the viewer into a gruelling and brutal experience as a punk band attempts…
Boys Don’t Cry (1999) – Kimberly Pierce
It’s been a while since I’d settled in to watch this. In fact, I hadn’t seen it since its original release onto home video, back when I was jockeying a till for a video store that no longer exists. And while it may not have been cast, or even produced the same way today as…
The Mind Reels 