Behind the scenes with Hollywood survivor Sylvester Stallone
Say what you will about Sylvester Stallone, but he is one of the great Hollywood survivors. A star since he wrote and appeared in “Rocky” 34 years ago, Stallone’s career has probably had more downs...
View ArticleShould Liam Neeson be playing Jack Reacher?
When I was at the annual international celebration of crime writing in Cleveland earlier this month — the Bouchercon — everyone seemed to be buzzing about the upcoming Tom Cruise picture based on one...
View Article‘Rush’: race car movies still box office poison
Why are movies about race car drivers such a hard sell? Huge stars have flopped in this mini-genre, even at the height of their popularity. Few remember the Steve McQueen picture “Le Mans” — which cost...
View ArticleBad Movies We Love: ‘Staying Alive’ — Broadway hell
Theater fans bitched about the “unreality” of NBC’s 2012 Broadway drama “Smash” and now they’re complaining about the ludicrous depiction of the life of a New York stage actress in the new Kirstie...
View ArticleThe devolution of Mel Gibson
The big male movie stars of the 1980s rarely teamed up together in the same pictures. Whether due to ego or budget issues, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford and Arnold Schwarzenegger were...
View ArticleBad Movies We Love: the goofy & melancholy ‘Blood Beach’
There are bad movies we watch more than once because they are so over-the-top awful (“Valley of the Dolls”) or that capture a slice of society rarely seen on screen (the early 1980s Broadway of “The...
View Article‘The Go Go Boys’: the rise and fall of Cannon Films
The Israeli filmmaker cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were virtually unavoidable during the 1980s. Their company — Cannon Films — seemed to go from 0 to 60 in record time. It covered nearly...
View ArticleOscar forecasts: can’t we just wait & see?
It is somewhat ironic that with more people than ever handicapping the Oscars — often many months in advance — last night’s telecast showed a lot of that buzzing to be pointless. Preliminary awards...
View Article‘Off the Cliff’: the film revolution that wasn’t
Penguin Books is releasing a paperback edition of Becky Aikman’s “Off the Cliff” on August 7. Subtitled “How the Making of ‘Thelma & Louise’ Drove Hollywood to the Edge,” the book is a smart and...
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