Hong Kong action meets big budget Hollywood in this entry on the 101 Action Movies list as John Woo fills the screens with stand-offs, explosions, and his signature balletic gunplay. John Travolta and Nicolas Cage play interchangeable roles as FBI agent Sean Archer and terrorist Castor Troy. Travolta as Archer is desperate, and obsessed…
Tag: prison
The Rock (1996) – Michael Bay
Michael Bay finds his way back onto the 101 Action Movies to see before you die, and brings an impressive cast with him, in this, my favorite of his films. With his usual pacing and editing, Bay makes a full-out action movies with a surprisingly sympathetic villain. Ed Harris plays General Hummel, who has lost…
Continuum S02E09 – Seconds
This week’s episode of Continuum tackles one of the age-old questions would you go back in time and kill someone, say Hitler, if you knew that it would save thousands, if not millions of lives? Kiera (Rachel Nichols) is confronted with that very question when Julian (Richard Harmon) is released from prison and slowly…
The Rambler (2013) – Calvin Reeder
Writer/Director Calvin Reeder isn’t David Lynch, but with The Rambler, he’s well on his way down the same Lost Highway. The Rambler, starring Dermot Mulroney walks that Lynchian white line, introducing us to odd characters, weird moments, mundane ones, and a world of oddity and confusion. Recently released from prison the Rambler (Mulroney) whose…
Hot Docs: The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear – Tinatin Gurchiani
The best documentaries can amaze and move you, and some leave you in stunned silence at the beauty of what you have just seen. Tinatin Gurchiani’s The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear does all of these things. Halfway through this feature I realized exactly what it was. It’s your grandmother’s patchwork quilt, some pieces…
Escape From New York (1981) – John Carpenter
“Call me Snake.” The 101 Sci-Fi Movies just brought me one of my favorite John Carpenter films, Escape From New York (though I like all of Carpenter’s and Kurt Russell’s collaborations – even some moments in Escape From L.A.). Kurt Russell plays Snake Plissken, the coolest anti-hero ever as far as I’m concerned. A…
TIFF 2012: Blackbird – Jason Buxton
The premise of this one intrigued me enough that I was willing to take a chance on it and hope for the best. I didn’t actually know much about it going in, which I think allowed me to take the journey it was offering even more completely, and I am glad that I did. …
The Mind Reels 