Movie: No Country For Old Men. Released: 2007. IMDB rank: 8.5. IMDB link.
Notes: No Country For Old Men was the talk of 2007. It won 4 Oscars this year, with an additional 83 awards and 31 nominations, including a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Javier Bardem as the cold-blooded killer Anton Chigurh. Chigurh goes after $2M in drug money lifted by a hunter, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), from the scene of killing. Tommy Lee Jones is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who goes after Chigurh.
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen. Categories: Crime, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): Joel and Ethan Coen, based on a Cormac McCarthy novel. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson. Runtime: 122 min.
Notes: Unforgiven, which won 4 Oscars (including Best Director and Best Picture) and 30 other awards, has been called by many “the last Western,” a definitive picture to indicate the end of a genre (despite the fact that a few Westerns came after). In this Western, there are no clear good guys or bad guys. Most of the characters live in a gray area.
The movie references characters in classic Westerns but looks at the events that follow retired gunslinger William Munny’s (Clint Eastwood) decision to take one last job.
Director: Clint Eastwood. Categories: Drama, Western. Writer(s): David Webb Peoples. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher, Jaimz Woolvett. Runtime: 131 min.
Movie: Die Hard. Released: 1988. IMDB rank: 8.2. IMDB link.
Notes: Up until Die Hard, Bruce Willis had had mostly bit parts on TV shows, though he was the main character on the TV series Moonlighting. Die Hard - which was nominated for four Oscars and won various other awards - arguably established him as an action star. (Though lately he’s been doing a lot of great bit parts.) As veteran Officer John McClane, he goes to great, heroic lengths to protect citizens when a dozen terrorists take people hostage on the 30th floor of office tower in LA, with the intention of stealing over $600M in bearer bonds. McClane has come from New York to LA to for Christmas to see his kids and sort of estranged wife, who is in the building. With no time to wait for the FBI, McClane plans to stop the terrorists. Of course, if you watch this one, you have to see the rest in the series. Number 4 is now out on DVD.
Director: John McTiernan. Categories: Action, Crime, Thriller. Writers: Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza based on novel by Roderick Thorp. Cast: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia. Runtime: 131 min. Trailer:
Notes: The first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about it. So I can’t tell you much about it, without ruining the story. Yes, it is about guys fighting, but there’s much, much more - about exploring the self, realizing who you really are. Edward Norton and Brad Pitt give great performances, which keep you guessing as to what’s really going on, until the very end.
Director: David Fincher. Categories: Action, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): Jim Uhls, based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Cast: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter.
Notes: Pulp Fiction was Quentin Tarantino’s third directorial effort, following up on the success of Reservoir Dogs (which is loosely connected through characters and settings). The movie received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and received six other Oscar nominations, including Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Supporting Actor (Samuel L. Jackson), and Best Actress (Uma Thurman). As typical with Tarantino movies, there’s a great soundtrack with classic songs mostly from the 60s and 70s, and a scene timeline that jumps back and forth.
Pulp Fiction is a mixed thread of four stories showing the lives of six people, at least four of whom are criminals. Their lives are tied together mostly by crime boss Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), whose directives are the catalyst for most of the events. Like any Tarantino movie, it’s full of colorful characters and colorful dialog. There’s also a great dance sequence with Uma Thurman and John Travolta.
Director: Quentin Tarantino. Categories: Crime, Drama. Writer(s): Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary. Cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Eric Stoltz, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Rosanna Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel. Runtime: 154 min (168 min special edition).
Notes: Despite the mostly static setting, this early directing effort from Quentin Tarantino set the tone for a lot of his later work. Packed with top-notch actors, this violent movie shows the interactions of seven criminals who are strangers to each other and have been codenamed with a color - Mr. Pink, Mr. White, etc. They fight over their color codes, and that gives you a glimpse of what is to come, especially after they realize they’ve been set up on their diamond heist. What ensues is all out paranoia and violence, and the movie ends about the only way it can and still satisfy the movie viewer. As with all Tarantino films, there’s a vibrant soundtrack that adds to the atmosphere.
Director: Quentin Tarantino. Categories: Crime, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary (background). Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Edward Bunker, Quentin Tarantino. Runtime: 99 min.
Movie: Joy Ride. Released: 2001. IMDB rank: 6.5. IMDB link.
Notes: Pranksters, beware who’re screwing with. Watch this psychological horror before you pull your next prank. Fuller Thomas (Steve Zahn) gets out of jail, with little brother Lewis (Paul Walker) driving across the country to pick him up. Not even half a day passes before Fuller is imposing his personality on his brother, convincing him to pull a prank on a trucker, over a CB radio. The prank results in a man’s death, and now the trucker is after the brothers, Fuller’s love interest Venna (Leelee Sobieski), and Venna’s friend Charlotte. It has a B-movie feel, but’s it strangely compelling, and has a twist ending.
Director: John Dahl. Categories: Action, Horror Thriller. Writer(s): Clay Tarver, J.J. Abrams. Cast: Steve Zahn, Paul Walker, Leelee Sobieski, Ted Levine. Runtime: 97 min.
Notes: Natural Born Killers, aka NBK, is director Oliver Stone’s satire (based on a story by Quentin Tarantino) of the violence that permeates American society, particularly on television. This is a deeply disturbing film, and given the ending, probably highly unsatisfying to the average viewer - but that’s probably exactly what Stone wanted.
Stone received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director, but NBK had no Oscar nominations, and the movie was panned as a glorification of violence. If you feel this way, too, upon watching it the first time, then watch it a few more times. It’s a worthwhile film to see, not just for anthropological reasons but also for Woody Harrelson’s portrayal of the psychopathic killer Mickey Knox, and excellent supporting performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Downey Jr.
Director: Oliver Stone. Categories: Action, Crime, Drama, Romance, Thriller. Writers: David Veloz, Richard Rutowski, and Oliver Stone, based on a Quentin Tarantino story. Cast: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Rodney Dangerfield, Tom Sizemore, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones. Runtime: 118 min ( 122 min director’s cut).
Movie: The Matador. Released: 2005. IMDB rank: 7.0. IMDB link.
Notes: Pierce Brosnan proves that he can go beyond his suave James Bond persona to this lecherous, cold-hearted but lonely and comedic hitman. Or as he calls it, “a facilitator”. This hitman is impotent, as far as his job requirements go. He’s fainting on jobs, face first into piles of donkey poop. He can’t seem to get himself to fire a weapon anymore, and tries to recruit help from an unwilling friendly stranger (Greg Kinnear) that he met in Mexico.
Director: Richard Shepard. Categories: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Thriller. Writer(s): Richard Shepard. Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis. Runtime: 96 min.
Notes: What would you do to protect your family? Would you change your identity? Sean Archer (John Travolta) is an undercover agent trying to take down a “brilliant criminal mind”, Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). While Troy is in a coma, Archer takes his face, using a new surgical procedure. He does this because there’s a bomb set to destroy Los Angeles, and the only way he can find its location is to go deep undercover - as Troy. When Troy comes to, he takes Archer’s face, and the result is a movie that might have you saying, “how did they do that; how did they swap faces.” At least until you remember it’s just a movie. (The answer, in case you didn’t know, is that Cage and Travolta studied each other’s mannerisms so that they could swap roles.)
Director: John Woo. Categories: Action, Crime, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller. Writer(s): Mike Werb, Michael Colleary. Cast: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola, Gina Gershon, Dominique Swain, Colm Feore. Runtime: 138 min.
