8 Million Ways To Die (1986)

I really wanted to see 8 Million Ways To Die (1986) because of the posters: it basically looked like a very Eighties neo-noir action thriller which is a sub-genre that I love. It was a commercial flop at the time and has a creaky reputation due to being the last film of director Hal Ashby […]

White Heat (1949)

Tracking down the titles that I haven’t seen from Danny Peary’s Cult Movies 2 book has included a lot of Hollywood classics like White Heat (1949) directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, which was a critical and commercial success upon release. Nowadays, its known more for its a heavily referenced iconic closing line, […]

Lost River (2014)

Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River (2014), has always sat there beckoning me. When it came out, it received mixed to poor reviews and sort of disappeared. Yet it also looks like a Nicolas Winding Refn movie, who I am a fan of. After years of putting it off, I finally dove in. For the […]

Dead Pigeon On Beethoven Street (1972)

I always loved the use of Can’s ‘Vitamin C’ in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, but you know who used it first in a private eye flick way back in the 1970s? Samuel Fuller did, shooting an episode of a German crime TV anthology in West Germany (called Tartot) and spinning that into his own […]

One From The Heart (1981)

I used to love Tom Waits. When I was younger, I bought up most of his discography. At some point, I grew a bit tired of the barroom drifter persona and the sound; I still like him and his music, but I think I moved on from it at a certain point. Even with his […]