I’m probably stepping into a minefield here, but I’m not the biggest Robert Altman fan. Who doesn’t love The Player? And as great as M*A*S*H is, I came to it by way of the television series, so it never resonated with me as much as I would have liked. That being said, I really liked…
Tag: hard boiled
Hard Boiled (1992) – John Woo
The Directory, filling out the last section of DK Canada’s marvellous The Movie Book, brings me a 90s action classic. One that set the standard for Honk Kong cinema, and found fans all over the world with its style of balletic violence, beautifully crafted shots, and fantastic set pieces. Not to mention, the exemplary Chow…
Murder, My Sweet (1944) – Edward Dmytryk
Dick Powell doesn’t quite have the narration patter down of a hard-boiled private investigator, especially not for the one he’s playing, Philip Marlowe, still, this is a great little film-noir bringing another incarnation of Raymond Chandler’s iconic character to the silver screen. And he handles the actual dialogue with his co-stars well, it’s just the…
Kiss Me Deadly (1955) – Robert Aldrich
Boy, can Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) pick ’em in this, the next film in DK Canada’s The Movie Book. Based on Mickey Spillane’s novel of the same name, the film sees the private investigator caught up in a corker of a mystery. I’ve always been interested in the character, I grew up with Stacy Keach…
Sunset Boulevard (1950) – Billy Wilder
As I return to the films of yesteryear, thanks to DK Canada’s The Movie Book, I settled in for a film that I’ve never been sure I wanted to watch, Sunset Boulevard. I just never imagined it would be my thing, but it does have a great pedigree including a cast that includes Gloria Swanson…
Out of the Past (1947) – Jacques Tourneur
Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas bring the noir genre to roaring life on the big screen with this 1947 adaptation of the novel by Geoffrey Holmes. It’s also the first recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book following my screening of Point Blank. Mitchum is Jeff Bailey. He lives…
The Killer (1989) – John Woo
An assassin with a conscience, a cop who doesn’t care about collateral damage and a lounge singer suffering from blindness due to being caught in a crossfire. These three characters are the center of this entry on the 101 Action Movies list, and John Woo’s first appearance on it. Chow Yun-Fat plays Ah Jong, an…
Good Morning, Mr. Hunt
Good morning, Mr. Hunt… You’re mission should you choose to accept it… I settled down to watch my copies of the Mission: Impossible films this weekend, and I will say this, this is a film series that undeniably gets better as they go along. Though if I was chosen to rank them, I think…
The Mind Reels 