Film #60: Sophie's Choice

Alan J. Pakula, the man who produced To Kill a Mockingbird and directed, among others, All The President's Men and The Parallax View, wrote and directed this majestic, extremely faithful adaptation of Pulitzer-Prize-winner William Styron's stunning semi-autobiographical novel. In it, Peter MacNichol endearingly plays Stingo, a young 40s-era Southerner who journeys to "a place as strange as

Film #59: Of Unknown Origin

Greatest rat movie ever made? Forget Willard! Fuck Ben! Don't even think about mentioning Ratatouille! Check out Of Unknown Origin, the rat extravaganza to beat all! George Pan Cosmatos (Tombstone) directed this 1983 Canadian production starring Peter Weller as a successful white-collar executive with a hot wife (Shannon Tweed), a little tyke, a new brownstone, and a helluva problem. When

The beginnings of my Web TV career

Well, since it's now history, I should include the three clips of me on The Latest Show on Earth, Joe Hendel's now kaput web TV program. Joe, it turns out, just didn't have the energy for an almost daily talk show (it IS a lotta work), so it's permanently on hold. It's too bad, but I'll continue onward, and probably launch a web TV thing of my own soon enough. RIP The Latest Show on Earth. But

Film #58: Foolin' Around

One of the ultimate "Saturday Afternoon" movies for me is what looked to me to be a waste of time at first glance--and this was when I was 15 or so! I know. Foolin' Around looks terrible. But I was quite smitten with HBO back in 1981 or so, and would watch anything they showed. And I'm glad because I love Foolin' Around. It's a dumb li'l movie following Texas architechture student Gary Busey

Film #57: The Verdict

Paul Newman delivers a career-best performance in this comeback film from director Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Prince of the City, Network). In it, he plays Frank Galvin, an alcoholic, ambulance-chasing lawyer whose recent string of lost cases has put him in a desperate situation. He's given one last chance at a moneymaker by a working class family who're suing a powerful, Catholic-run hospital

Film #56: They Live

Scaremeister John Carpenter called the shots on this massively entertaining (and overlooked) variation on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers theme. World Championship Wrestling staple "Rowdy" Roddy Piper stars in They Live as an L.A. drifter who uncovers an alien takeover of earth after stumbling upon a pair of glasses that allows the wearer to see both the aliens and the Big-Brother way they've

Film #55: Sharky's Machine

All Atlantans of a certain age have a soft spot for this Burt Reynolds movie that, like it or not, remains one of the best ones ever shot in the ATL. I think it's a lotta fun and probably Reynolds' finest directorial outing. It's adapted from Georgia author William Diehl's best sellerabout Tom Sharky, an Atlanta homicide detective obsessively tracking a local mobster (a slimy Vittorio Gassman).