Bob Hoskins didn’t exactly have “movie star looks.” Yet, anyone who watched him perform for more than five minutes could easily understand what a gifted actor he was and why his film career lasted almost forty years. Hoskins was a multi-faceted talent who was capable of embodying brutish intensity, working class likability, and infectious joy. From his Oscar-nominated turn in 1986’s Mona Lisa, to his surprisingly underrated work in 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as well as being a welcoming presence in 1990’s Mermaids, 1991’s Hook and the colossally awful 1993 Super Mario Brothers, Hoskins was always captivating and universally respected. And for my money, he was the best Iago I ever saw in

One of my favorite moments at DragonConAtlanta this year was getting to see The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance previews, courtesy of the panel moderated by Brian Henson that included several creators of the show. Like most kids born in the 1980s, I loved Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal movie, even though it terrified me. One of the first things I did when I got home from DragonCon was to watch the original movie, so I could be fully prepared to watch season one of the Netflix series. After refreshing myself with the tale of Jen and Kira restoring the dark crystal to positive power, I came into the new Netflix TV show, which serves as a prequel to the 1982 classic movie, with high expectations

One of the most simultaneously rewarding and frustrating things about living in the golden age of easily-accessible media is the phenomenon known as "the queue." Formerly just a fancy way for Brits to say "line," the queue has taken on new resonance in the era of streaming media and the 'bottomless bowl' that is Netflix. Or Hulu. Or YouTube. Or your drug of choice. In my case, that drug is the ever-growing stack of cheap, probably deteriorating DVDs that I've collected over the years. From $5 bins at superstores, from closing Blockbuster Video stores, from Cyber Monday sales, and who even knows where else. This new review series is an attempt to work through a list of 107 DVDs that I own but

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I was raised on the James Bond films. The fantasy of being a secret agent, with endless charm, inventive gadgets, and romancing dangerously vivacious women was very hard to resist. But the Bond films tended to be light and superfluous when it comes to the hard-boiled world of international espionage. A good Bond film may be as enjoyable as fast food, but a good espionage film is the real meal and potatoes. Films that I would include on a list of so-called “Meat and Potatoes” espionage films would be The Third Man, Notorious, North by Northwest and perhaps my favorite, The Day of the Jackal. These are the kinds of films that took time to develop characters, put them

The box office success of 1977’s Star Wars and 1979’s Alien didn’t just lead to respective billion-dollar franchises: they both became inspiration for Hollywood to find any reason to take audiences into outer space. In the case of Star Wars, it inspired the producers of the James Bond pictures to put off For Your Eyes Only until 1981 and move forward with the 1979 space adventure Moonraker (Fun Fact: at the end of 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me it specifically states 007 will return in For Your Eyes Only). As for Alien, it inspired a whole decade of creature features like Horror Planet and Galaxy of Terror. Strangely enough, it also inspired one of director Peter Hyams most ambitious films. 198

The career of Chuck Norris would never be mistaken for “high art.” Following in the footsteps of Bruce Lee, he took a karate championship background and parlayed it into a successful string of B-action flicks in the late 70’s/early 80’s like Good Guys Wear Black, A Force of One, The Octagon, and An Eye for an Eye. He always carried himself with a solid screen presence and provided plenty of high-kicking excitement in the numerous fight scenes that his films were built around. What you may missed among the “chop socky” films was Norris’ best film, as well as the catalyst for the successful career of director Andrew Davis. On paper, 1985’s Code of Silence may look like standard cops versus mob

Back in the day, Roger Ebert would often be dismissive of sequels and remakes. I could imagine the intensity of his eye rolls in a 2019 that includes sequels to First Blood and The Terminator as well as the live action remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King. By no means did he dislike every sequel and remake on face value. He actually enjoyed his fair share like Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Lethal Weapon 2 as well as 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven and 2004’s The Manchurian Candidate. Ebert was just always looking for originality, which was not an unreasonable request considering the 150-200 films that he viewed in any given year. Ebert also had an interesting suggestion for Hollywood: instead of remaking go