This bombastic tale of a corrupt cop and a rookie trainee having one bad day together feels in line with the stark and serious cinematography of the time, yet it’s so distinctly an Antoine Fuqua work. With Ethan Hawke’s newbie simmering against the go-for-broke finesse of Denzel Washington’s very bad, no-good officer, Training Day revels in free movies online tension, with washes of blue and green augmenting scenes where Hawke is bullied into getting high. But when things become too true to life, Fuqua knows to cut the style and let the actors carry the scene. We’ve seen Washington excel countless times, but the wild-eyed machismo he drenches his crooked character in here is yet to be topped.
The ultimate reveal — and Russell’s decision to target Nazi money — give the film a uniquely Lee quality, as it meditates on cosmic justice in an intricate way only he could manage. Owen is also undeniable here, turning in maybe the most memorable performance of a bank robber ever committed to film. Neither overly sentimental nor unsympathetic, Albert and Allen Hughes craft realistic characters with more nuance and complexity than traditional gangster films. In Menace II Society, their motivations extend beyond simple obligation or loyalty to family, and the weight of it all is constantly resting on the shoulders of everyone around them, despite how much they want it to change.
It’s too weird to explain my reasoning for which horror movies I can tolerate, but The Conjuring franchises are on that list — even The Nun series! The two movies aren’t exactly knockouts in the world of horror, but they get the job done for me. The Nun II is actually much better than the original as Taissa Farmiga’s Sister Irene must investigate the return of Valak, the scary looking nun/demon from The Conjuring 2. While Hollywood was busy churning out thrillers (and mostly bad comedies) in the 1980s, Quentin Tarantino was busy figuring out how he would define the next era of cinema. Tarantino proved himself to be a master of the unexpected here, as his gangsters brushed existential elbows with a boxer, a sex worker, an actor, an army vet, and desperate criminals all looking to make it through another day in California. Formative for children of the 2000s, Shawn Levy’s film is still a whole lot of fun and a great pairing for Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Another film that gave the genre a new language, Double Indemnity is a confession by shotty insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) told mostly in flashbacks, detailing his involvement with a killing and cover-up that saw him pose as the dead man on a train. While retrospective scenes were not new to cinema (having been used in the 1939 adaptation of Wuthering Heights to great effect before), this was one of the first instances in a crime story. Impeccably acted and paced, the film launched Wilder to success, paving the way for his future classics like The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959). The adaptation of Robin Moore’s non-fiction book sees two detectives try to bring down a drug kingpin with complications arising at every turn. Countless films have tried to emulate its greatness since, but The French Connection is the modern blueprint of the genre for a reason. To make a crime movie is to flex both dramatic chops and stylistic muscle — and that confidence can be rewarded if, and only if, everyone and everything is working together.
There’s a reason prestige directors like Antoine Fuqua, Steve McQueen, David Fincher, Jane Campion, and Martin Scorsese have all been drawn to the genre, which absorbs the fingerprints of creators and is almost cartoonishly easy to screw up. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s film feels like a good novel, with art, crime, love, and squalor all intersecting in a cohesive story that manages to astonish. The cast was largely without acting experience, but it’s hard to parse that as a viewer since there’s a real naturalism to their performances, which creates a sense of freedom and discovery. Photography plays a large part in the story, with photos serving as both a means of expression and a running narrative device, and the way it connects to Seu Jorge’s “Knockout Ned,” the film’s heart and soul, is beautiful in every instance.
In the tradition of classic crime movies, Frank’s ambitions are complicated by love and parenthood, and when his life away from work is threatened by criminal boss Leo (an in-the-pocket Robert Prosky), he moves everyone to safety and blows up his own house. The image remains a stark and evocative metaphor for characters caught at a crossroads between one dark road and a dimly-lit path out of trouble. The film that gave us everything from True Romance to Queen & Slim, this Arthur Penn caper follows Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) as criminal lovers destined for tragedy. Made toward the tail end of a romance boom we wouldn’t see again until the ’90s, Bonnie and Clyde perfected the intoxicating motif of two young people in love with each other and destruction. There’s incredible chemistry between Beatty and Dunaway, who elevate a relatively straightforward movie into something that seems alive, as if the actors and the real historical characters are one and the same.
A story about friendship may seem simple, but careful and acute chemistry is required to pull it off, and Davis and Sarandon manage to seem like true friends as they find pockets of fun in their bleak situation. Harvey Keitel and Stephen Tobolowsky round out the cast, while Brad Pitt enjoys his breakout role here. The Coens would follow this odd template to success throughout the better part of their careers as co-directors. James Stewart is incredible as Nietzsche-obsessed teacher Rupert Cadell, but he’s far from the most impressive aspect of Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking film.
Here, violence and death are daily occurrences, and getting ahead feels impossible but is always top of mind. In the poor, neglected, and overpoliced Watts and Crenshaw neighborhoods of L.A., Tyrin Turner’s Caine Lawson and Larenz Tate’s Kevin “O-Dog” Anderson (not to mention a brilliant turn from Jada Pinkett Smith) are just trying to hustle — even if that means bodies have to pile up. October 17, 2023 • Sometimes there’s a time and place for a long movie — whether it’s because you’ve got an afternoon off, or you just aren’t in the mood to flip from one entertainment to another. Martin Scorsese’s latest movie Killers of the Flower Moon clocks in at over three hours, so today we’re recommending other great movies over three hours long.
With a script so violent and disgusting that it was called “evil” by multiple A-listers, Se7en defied Hollywood conventions and was a perfect match for David Fincher, who was then known for directing Alien 3 (1992) along with gritty and inventive music videos. Emerald Fennell’s frothy take on revenge films smartly squares Carey Mulligan as a confident, too-smart-for-the-room woman who avenges her friend’s assault and pretends to be drunk at bars so that she can shame and terrify creepy men when they bring her home. Adam Brody, Bo Burnham, Max Greenfield, Sam Richardson, and Chris Lowell play various shades of terrible people, and the intricate plot moves along at a clip, wasting no minutes in its sub-two-hour runtime.
October 18, 2023 • In the complex and compelling French film Anatomy of a Fall, a husband is dead and his wife is the chief suspect. The investigation and trial expose the many rifts in their marriage, as the couple’s young son yearns to understand what happened and why. Directed by Justine Triet and starring Sandra Hüller, the film won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
It’s ambitious, dogmatic, and insanely neglectful of everything but the pursuit of justice, a perfect metaphor for the film itself. October 19, 2023 • Growing up, Lee recognized herself in the “really big, muscular performances” of Kilmer and Nicolas Cage. (And, a pretty good premise for a movie.) Emily Blunt stars opposite Chris Evans as a high-school dropout who gets herself involved in the deadly drug happenings.
Then there’s Sam Rockwell, Danny DeVito, and Rebecca Pidgeon, who all turn in serviceable performances for the leads to bounce off of like tennis balls. October 20, 2023 • The compelling new film Killers of the Flower Moon is a sweeping three-and-half-hour-long crime saga, romance and Western. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it’s told through the lens of a marriage in 1920s Oklahoma.
While the cast won’t include AHS regulars like Emma Roberts, Sarah Paulson, or Billie Lourd, Petra Collins will be directing an episode of internet dating gone wrong with Raúl Castillo and Emily Browning as the leads. The three additional episodes include “Bestie,” “Tapeworm,” and “Daphne” in a very Black Mirror–esque season. We all like a horror movie that’s more fun and silly than it is scary, but if Five Nights at Freddy’s left you hungering for some genuine horror, it’ll be hard to beat When Evil Lurks, now streaming on Shudder. The latest from Argentinian director Demián Rugna, When Evil Lurks might be the scariest movie of 2023, and it follows the residents of a small town once they discover that a demon is about to be born. Their attempts to flee or to prevent the demon from entering the world don’t, ah, go well. A brawl at the end of an early screening of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie in a London theater is caught on camera.
