Kick ass movies

In "honor," I guess, of the saggy ass Expendables, a ten-film strong list of KA movies, as selected by the men (and women) of Popdose. I wrote up Aliens.

There are two kick ass movie events in New York this week. The press yawned over the "Classic 3D" fest that Film Forum held in 2004 but what a difference an Avatar makes--lots of thumbsucking this week over the already exhausted 3D revolution and what it all means as a similar program gets underway today. What it all means in the now is that you get some nice two-for-one deals (no surcharges!) on some entertaining B-movies, with a few As like the fun Kiss Me, Kate and the dull-in-any-dimension Miss Sadie Thompson thrown at you, along with some (terrific) Three Stooges shorts and a few oddities, like a selection of Harold Lloyd's stereoscopic nudes. Comin' at ya indeed.

Meanwhile, New York filmmaker William Lustig has picked some more down-and-dirty flicks for showcasing at Anthology Film Archives, including a personal favorite, 1967's mean merc movie Dark of the Sun. Quentin Tarantino cast its star, Rod Taylor, in a small role in Inglourious Basterds, and filched the main theme from its score (pictured), too. Rest assured that it kicks major ass.

Summer of '85

I've visited The House Next Door (now the official blog of Slant Magazine) since it opened for visitors, so I was happy to contribute to its ongoing anniversary series. A View to a Kill, a Bond bellyflop, proved a lot more fun to write about than to rewatch, that's for sure.

One-eyed hacks

OK, Fritz Lang, John Ford and Nicholas Ray aren't hacks, but I couldn't resist the lame wordplay, as Anthology Film Archives premieres a series devoted to one-eyed auteurs. It's an amusing idea for the dog days of summer, when everyone's a little cockeyed from the heat. Those monocles and eyepatches were certainly intimidating, sending an unambiguous message about who was in charge of the set. My Cineaste colleague Jared "Jed" Rapfogel gets a well-deserved shout-out in the Onion article. What next: One-armed auteurs? One-legged auteurs? In any event, Lang has his eye--and only one eye--on you.

Brits and other bad guys

Paraphrasing Lloyd Bridges in Airplane!, I picked the wrong week to go on vacation. At Anthology Film Archives, Maniac director and DVD maven William Lustig is screening some gritty gems from the 70s, many of them unavailable on home video, that killer of retrospective programs. Pick hits include The Outfit (1973), with Robert Duvall and Robert Ryan, Elliott Gould and Robert Blake as cops in Busting (1974), and Tommy Lee Jones in the Vietnam-infected Rolling Thunder (1977).

I hope to see some of Film Forum's "Brit Noir" series upon our return. If Film Forum hauling out Dr. Strangelove every other week makes series like these possible, I'm all for it. Most of these are new to me, but the well-cast Hell Drivers and a villainous Peter Sellers in Never Let Go on the weekend of Aug. 21-22 make for an exciting double feature. The series is practically an homage to hell driver Stanley Baker, whose two-fisted career bears closer examination. And any exhumation of the so-called "British Marilyn Monroe," Diana Dors (including her Ruth Ellis-ish turn in Yield to the Night) is worth the price of admission.