"Ever been porked? Or had a man smoke your pole?" says Paul Sorvino to Al Pacino early in William Friedkin's infamous, 1980's film Cruising. Such an exchange is, in a sense, comical. Yet it also highlights the crassness of Friedkin's film, not to mention its devil-may-care mentality. Depicting the hunt for a serial killer who…Read more Film Review: Cruising (1980)
Rocky
On Creed, Sylvester Stallone and Why Now is the Time to Make “Poe”
This Thanksgiving, Sylvester Stallone returned in Ryan Cooger's Creed to play the iconic palooka Rocky Balboa for the seventh time. Standing easily as one of the greatest performances of his career (it's hard to top the original Rocky), the film beautifully bookends the man's work up to this point. Even better, it opens up new,…Read more On Creed, Sylvester Stallone and Why Now is the Time to Make “Poe”
The Expendables 3: On the Grim Acknowledgement of the Action Hero’s Setting Sun
Sylvester Stallone's stubborn, borderline insane refusal to surrender to the normal human aging process is by now well-known. It has been well publicized for years, and the musclebound star has been communicative about it. In fact, a good majority of his work since 2006's Rocky Balboa has dealt with his rapidly advancing age in some…Read more The Expendables 3: On the Grim Acknowledgement of the Action Hero’s Setting Sun
On Gwen Stacy and The Amazing Spiderman 2’s Dubious Feminism
Scott Mendelson, a contributor at Forbes and owner of one of the creepiest profile photos of all time, wrote a piece recently on The Amazing Spiderman 2 and the problems inherent to its most iconic scene. As anybody with even a passing interest in Spiderman comics knows, Gwen Stacy is one of the Web Head's…Read more On Gwen Stacy and The Amazing Spiderman 2’s Dubious Feminism
Film Review: Save the Tiger (1973)
Early on in John G. Avildsen‘s 1973 feature Save the Tiger, Phil Greene (played by the great Jack Gilford) laments to the main character, despondent businessman Harry Stoner (the inimitable Jack Lemmon), that “they” (the film industry) haven’t made a “…good movie in 30 years.” This casual disparagement of an industry comes across almost as…Read more Film Review: Save the Tiger (1973)
Adam Mohrbacher 