Cinema Basement

(Repost of previous entry: A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahmann It's so serendipitous that I would be running ragged this week and be writing this up literally ON FRIDAY. Especially in a week with the Jussie Smollett news breaking. You see if for whatever reason you are reading this and live outside of the U.S, race relations here are not exactly in a good place. I find it strange that we are living in a time where no one wants to talk about it but it reminded me of what makes Inside Man a surprisingly important film. Heist films are normally face value films that talk about the filmmaking process or are a reflection of human desperation. Inside Man is a film about race relations and race revenge. But you wouldn’t know that at its onset. If you are unaware of Inside Man the film is about a bank robbery and the hostage negotiations that take place during the robbery. It never shows its full hand and if I were to give anymore of a description it would definitely ruin the film. A...

A review by Brooks Rich Man do I love this movie. I should have covered this one for Forgotten Film Friday in the blog's first year. Sneakers is a endlessly entertaining film with one of the most insane casts every assembled. The cast include such legends as Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, River Phoenix, and Ben Kingsley. The film plays like a techno thriller but has a tinge of old political espionage films of the '70s, ironically like Three Days of the Condor, which stars Redford. We don't get movies like this anymore and there's a sort of tragedy to that. Redford plays Martin, who leads a team of misfits who are hired by companies to break into their buildings to find faults in security. They are hired by two men from the NSA to steal a "black box" from a quirky mathematician. Well of course things don't go well and there's more than meets the eye. I am not saying anymore because I don't want to spoil a single b...

A review by Brooks Rich I was surprised this film didn't win Best Picture and lost out to the far inferior Green Book. I think this is Spike's best film in years and one of his most fun watches, despite the heavy subject matter when it comes to the Klan. He still treats the Klan as the villains they are but he's aware of the somewhat absurdity of the situation, a black cop posing as a white supremacist. John David Washington plays Ron Stallworth, who in 1972 becomes the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department. One day on a whim he contacts KKK leader David Duke through an ad in the newspaper and strikes up a repor with him. Seeing that they have an in with the Klan, Stallworth leads an operation where they put a man undercover. Of course they need a white cop so they enlist fellow officer Philip "Flip" Zimmerman, played by Adam Driver, who continues on his quest of becoming the most interesting man in Hollywood. Like I said this film is...

A review by Brooks Rich It took way too long for this film to be covered on the blog. I love movies about filmmaking and this might be my favorite one of all time. A creepy but at times hilarious satire of doing everything for the craft and getting the film made, today we look at the forgotten 2000 masterpiece, Shadow of the Vampire. John Malkovich plays real life German Expressionism director FW Murnau who in 1921 is on location with his cast and crew in Czechoslovakia to shoot an unsanctioned adaptation of Dracula called Nosferatu. He has the mysterious Max Schreck, an Oscar nominated Willem Dafoe, playing the film's vampire Count Orlock. Unbeknownst to everyone but Murnau, Schreck is a vampire in real life and Murnau has promised him a human sacrifice for appearing in his film. The film turns the making of Nosferatu, in my opinion the greatest silent film of all time, into a Faustian deal with the devil. It's clear from the outset that Murnau is in way over his head bu...

A review by Brooks Rich Starting Summer of Spike off with a film I think is not quite in the pantheon of his most well known films like Malcolm X , Do the Right Thing , and most recently BlackKKlansman . I kind of separate Lee's early works into two categories, before Malcolm X and after Malcolm X , which I think was his big breakout. Do the Right Thing put him on the map and Malcolm X made him big. Mo' Better Blues is a solid film in between them. Denzel Washington plays Bleek Gilliam, a trumpet player and the leader of a jazz group called the Bleek Quintet. The group is managed by Bleek's friend Giant, played by Lee himself. The other group members want to fire Giant as they feel he isn't negotiating for them properly. Bleek finds himself constantly defending his friend, eventually getting involved with Giant's gambling problem. He is also in a feud with Shadow, a member of the quintet, played by Wesley Snipes, who is fantastic in this film, who wants to go...

It is about time we have a director who isn't a white dude on the blog. For the rest of June and all of July we will be highlighting the filmography of one of the most important black voices in film, Spike Lee. I'm sure most people know films of his like Malcolm X, Black Klansman, and Do the Right Thing but we'll also go beyond those with films ice Mo' Better Blues, Crooklyn, and Inside Man. Spike is one of the most important American directors working today and I'm thrilled we will be covering him. 

A review by Brooks Rich  I imagine at one point John Carpenter will get his own month on the blog. He is one of my favorite directors and is a good example of a director having an incredible run for awhile and then completely tanking, producing critical failure after critical failure. Rob Reiner is another example of a director like this. But I'm not here to talk about one of Carpenter's failures. I'm here to talk about his fantastic science fiction drama from 1984, Starman.  Karen Allen is a women mourning her recently deceased husband, played by an Oscar-nominated Jeff Bridges. One day an alien arrives in her house and takes the form of her husband. He has to make it to Arizona from where they are in Wisconsin in three days or he'll die. Of course, the government is hot on their trail. But instead of being a chase film, Starman is much more than that. It's really about the connection created between the two main characters and how we come to terms with our place i...

A review by Brooks Rich A new segment starting here on the blog today where any film from the early days of silent cinema to the current big budget blockbusters can be reviewed if any of us writers haven't seen it. Kicking off the retro reviews with Oliver Stone's 1988 film Talk Radio, starring Eric Bogosian, Alec Baldwin, John C. McGinley, Ellen Greene, and Leslie Hope.  Bogosian is Barry Champlain, a Jewish late night radio personality in Dallas, Texas. Against his wishes, his show is about to go national and he is being pressured to tone himself down. Champlain refuses as he is known mostly for his caustic attacks on callers. The film explores Barry's personal and professional life and the impact they have on each other.  (I am purposefully being vague in my description,  as there are going to be people who enjoy this film and I am not a spoiler.) I wanted to love this movie. I am a huge fan of Eric Bogosian and the screenplay is based off his 1987 play of...

A review by Brooks Rich I have discussed the musical biopic before and my aversion to the genre as a whole. But today I want to discuss the straight forward biopic, which I still am picky about. I normally don't like a film depicting someone's life from birth to death.I often find them dull or exaggerated to a ridiculous degree. I prefer the biopics that are about how a certain moment in time defined the person of interest. Today's film, Hollywoodland, tells the story of Superman actor George Reeves, delivering a portrait of the man, in flashbacks, from his apparent death by suicide. Adrien Brody is a private investigator in 1959 Los Angeles. He becomes involved in the investigation of the suicide of Superman actor George Reeves, played brilliantly by Ben Affleck. Trying to make a name for himself through his efforts to answer the questions surrounding Reeves’ death, Brody’s character notices parallels between his own life and Reeves. I like the way this film tells its stor...