Cast a Deadly Spell (dir. Martin Campbell, 1991) Witch Hunt (dir. Paul Schrader, 1994) HBO was not always the prestige powerhouse it is now. It used to be a slightly disreputable cable network that showed the same movies repeatedly and broadcast such original programming as The Hitchhiker  and Dream On. Sure, there would be the … Continue reading Cast a Deadly Spell (1991) and Witch Hunt (1994)

Blow Out (dir. Brian De Palma, 1981) It could be a lot of things. Why the fuck does everything have to be a conspiracy? Jack Terry (John Travolta) is a sound technician whose prior credits include Blood Bath, Blood Bath II, Bad Day at Blood Beach, and Bordello of Blood. He’s currently working on another … Continue reading Blow Out (1981)

Winter Kills (dir. William Richert, 1979) Branch is stuck all right. He has abandoned his life to understanding that moment in Dallas, the seven seconds that broke the back of the American century. He has his forensic pathology rundown, his neutron activation analysis. There is also the Warren Report, of course, with its twenty-six accompanying … Continue reading Winter Kills (1979)

The Conversation (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) While Alan J. Pakula’s 1970s trilogy is pivotal, I consider The Conversation to be the best entry in that decade’s peculiar genre of paranoid thriller. There are more more exciting films and more pressing films, but for capturing the emotion of paranoia itself, The Conversation has no equal. … Continue reading The Conversation (1974)

Klute (dir. Alan J. Pakula, 1971) The Parallax View (dir. Alan J. Pakula, 1974) All the President’s Men (dir. Alan J. Pakula, 1976) Dubbed in retrospect the Paranoia Trilogy, the three films directed by Alan J. Pakula and shot by cinematographer Gordon Willis between 1971 and 1976 do not share any characters, continuity, or even … Continue reading Alan J. Pakula’s Paranoia Trilogy

Suddenly (dir. Lewis Allen, 1954) The president is scheduled to travel by train through a small California town of Suddenly. John Baron (Frank Sinatra) is the man hired by unknown parties to kill him. He and his team, disguised as FBI agents, take a family hostage to use their house as a sniper’s nest for … Continue reading Suddenly (1954)

Sharky’s Machine (dir. Burt Reynolds, 1981) I have known about Sharky’s Machine since watching The Venture Bros. episode “Careers in Science” in August 2004. In the show’s storied mythology, Sharky’s Machine was supposed to play as the Movie Night selection on the space station Gargantua-One until a tragedy results in the deaths of most of … Continue reading Sharky’s Machine (1981)

Hustle (dir. Robert Aldrich, 1975) Phil Gaines (Burt Reynolds) is an LAPD detective, who along with his partner Louis Belgrave (Paul Winnfield), is assigned to investigate the death of a young woman named Gloria Hollinger (Colleen Brennan), whose body washed up on the beach. She was a sex worker who had apparently overdosed on barbiturates, … Continue reading Hustle (1975)

Mojave (dir. William Monahan, 2015) Inside Llewyn Davis is one of my favorite films of the last decade, so you can imagine how excited I was to learn that Oscar Isaac and Garrett Hedlund were in another film together. Sure, it was something that I had never heard of before and only found on Netflix … Continue reading Mojave (2015)

he Pope of Greenwich Village (dir. Stuart Rosenberg, 1984) It must have been spring or summer in the year 2001. I turned on Comedy Central one late night and saw an episode of TV Funhouse, the short-lived spinoff of Robert Smigel’s animated sketches on Saturday Night Live. The series version incorporated animation with live action … Continue reading The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984)