From modern programs like Lucifer, The Flash, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Blue Bloods to more classic ones like Law and Order, The Mod Squad, and Hill Street Blues, each of these procedural variants owe their existence in large part to the… Read More ›
crime drama
Now available via the Criterion Collection, director Jules Dassin’s “Brute Force” remains as explosive an indictment of prison reform today as in 1947.
Released June 30th, 1947, Jules Dassin’s (Rififi) Brute Force opened and took audiences and critics by storm. The film, a prison break picture, would startle and terrify as it depicted life inside prisons as one of moral decay, not because… Read More ›
“The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum” explores the price of turning a blind eye to yellow journalism and government surveillance
How often do you read or see something that excites you, titillates you, and perhaps even angers you? As we grow ever closer to a presidential election, it seems almost daily that such an occurrence happens. Articles, photos, and videos… Read More ›
Nothing marks “First Love” like drugs, gangs, and absolute mayhem.
There’s something about first love that can be hard to quantify, even when looking back on it. The simultaneous excitement of being attracted to someone else, the endless internal questions trying to figure out what it means, the unyielding terror… Read More ›
Edward Norton’s passion project “Motherless Brooklyn” is now available on home video.
According to actor/writer/director Edward Norton, his relationship with Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn began before the book hit shelves. As he explains in the featurette “Making-Of: Edward Norton’s Methodical Process,” he was tipped off by a friend about the… Read More ›
Crime thriller “The Irishman” is Martin Scorsese at his most self-assured.
In his recent years, and more specifically in recent months, Martin Scorsese has really stepped away from the spotlight…oh my god, could you imagine if I was serious with that? The argument has been made that Scorsese made the controversial… Read More ›
Despite the trappings of a thoughtful noir, Edward Norton’s “Motherless Brooklyn” adaptation doesn’t seem to coalesce.
The cinematic adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s book Motherless Brooklyn by Edward Norton (Keeping the Faith) possesses all the hallmarks of a great noir: mystery, a dame in trouble, and a gumshoe in over his head. When you add in a… Read More ›
“Motherless Brooklyn” possesses a strong statement on gentrification, which is mired by cliché noir tropes and bland filmmaking. [Film Fest 919]
Being from Durham, North Carolina, I have seen a lot of changes happen in my city over the last few years. Durham kept a large, mostly black, working-class population due to the employment of so many citizens at the tobacco… Read More ›
Sony Classics crime thriller “The Fall of the American Empire” is an emotionally captivating experience.
Oscar-winning director Denys Arcand offers The Fall of the American Empire, an eclectic genre mash-up combining crime drama, a thrilling heist adventure, and a social commentary. This French-Canadian film spoken almost entirely in the beautiful language of French (and subtitled… Read More ›
Chilling and hopeful, director Martin McDonagh’s tragicomedy ‘Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri’ is one of the year’s best.
Writer/director Marin McDonagh is no stranger to tackling difficult or challenging material. His first feature, In Bruges, centered on a hitman having an existential crisis, while his second, Seven Psychopaths, focused on a screenwriter sucked into a world of gangsters… Read More ›
There’s no redemption when you have a ‘Good Time’.
There’s something about watching a film where the main character is scrambling, always on the move, trying to survive in a world that feels like it’s crashing down on them; a world that is out to get them. Sometimes it’s… Read More ›