We live in an odd world where the Lars Von Triers and Gaspar Noes come under degrees of attack for the overt depictions of violence and anti-humanity portrayed in their pictures while Steve McQueen receives almost universal praise for offering imagery that’s no less brutal and discomforting. This isn’t, by the way, an attack on … Continue reading
You’ve probably never heard of Charles Bronson– not the real Charles Bronson, but rather Michael Peterson, who adopted the name of the famous action icon on the advice of his fighting promoter as a way of inflating his own icon and bolstering his status as a man not to be trifled with. His story is … Continue reading
Suggested alternate title: Donnie Yen’s Wide, Wide World of Butt-Kicking. Donnie Yen is the kind of real-deal martial arts maestro who, by an unjust stroke of fate, never caught on as a mainstream kung-fu cinema hero for American audiences in the way that performers like Jet Li and Jackie Chan have. Arguably, Yen has no … Continue reading
Forget, if you will, the Jesus metaphor brought to bear in so many discussions of The Wrestler that you’ve undoubtedly engaged in or observed across the web and in personal discussions of the picture’s finer merits (which are many). Yes, there’s some weight to the idea that Mickey Rourke’s over-the-hill wrestling champion of old, Randy … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 