The Professionals (Special Edition)
The Professionals (Special Edition)
Movie DVDBefore The Wild Bunch, there was The Professionals, Richard Brooks’s marvelous ode to friendship, loyalty, and disillusionment. It may not have the stylistic bravado or fatalistic doom of the legendary Sam Peckinpah film, but Brooks’s storytelling is simple and steady and just as insightful. The difference is Brooks is a lot more… More
Donovan’s Reef
Donovan’s Reef
John Wayne’s last film with mentor and long-time collaborator John Ford (The Searchers) is a 1963 comedy about a group of war veterans settled on a South Pacific island. When the daughter of one of them (Jack Warden) comes for a visit, the freewheeling status quo between the boys is disrupted. This is Ford in his… More
Emperor of the North
Emperor of the North
In this gritty and violent period drama set in the depths of the Great Depression Lee Marvin stars as A #1 the acknowledged King of the Hoboes. A #1 is famous among his fellow tramps for his ability to catch a ride on any train no matter how risky the hop or dangerous the guards. He acts as a sort of mentor for Cigaret (Keith Carradine) a… More
The Big Red One - The Reconstruction (Two-Disc Special Edition)
The Big Red One - The Reconstruction (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Movie DVDSam Fuller’s The Big Red One was already one of the best films of 1980, despite the fact that the version released to theaters ran barely half as long as the director’s cut. Fuller had been America’s ballsiest B-movie auteur, an ex-newspaper reporter of the hardnosed breed who made fiercely personal, radically… More