Posts Tagged ‘Eric Stoltz’
Thursday, July 23rd, 2026
July 13, 1996
DON’T LOOK BACK is a straight-to-HBO movie, but I thought it might be worth watching because it’s directed by Geoff Murphy (THE QUIET EARTH) between his two great sequels, UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY and FORTRESS 2, and it’s written by Tom Epperson & Billy Bob Thornton & William Petrowitch. The latter doesn’t have any other credits, but the first two of course wrote ONE FALSE MOVE (and later THE GIFT, CAMOUFLAGE and JAYNE MANSFIELD’S CAR). Thornton (DEAD MAN) is also in the movie as one of the villains, and this was his last movie before making SLING BLADE and becoming famous and shit.
Jesse Parish (Eric Stoltz, THE FLY II) is an L.A. deadbeat and heroin enthusiast who carries around a guitar case and occasionally strums. One night while broke and in withdrawal he witnesses a drug deal going sour in a parked car. Skipper (Dwight Yoakam, RED ROCK WEST) shoots at a guy and then chases after him, leaving a flung-open briefcase spewing money unattended. Jesse sneaks over, scoops it up, runs off. I like how Skipper yells “Hey! What the fuck are you doing?” like he caught somebody keying his car or something. Jesse escapes using Donkey Kong tactics (rolling garbage cans down a hill at him), but Skipper hears somebody yell his name. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amanda Plummer, Annabeth Gish, Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, Eric Stoltz, Ethan Suplee, Geoff Murphy, John Corbett, Josh Hamilton, M.C. Gainey, Mickey Jones, Peter Fonda, R.G. Armstrong, Tom Epperson
Posted in Reviews, Crime | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, June 20th, 2018
also June 5, 1998
This review series has swerved off in an unexpected direction. Usually I do these summer movie retrospectives to experience/revisit the big expensive blockbusters of past eras, and I throw in some of the other stuff for variety and historical context. But with the early part of summer ’98 dominated by big movies as bad as LOST IN SPACE and GODZILLA, but given personality by smaller ones as good as WILD THINGS, HE GOT GAME and FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, I caught on that it was in my own best interest to be a little more completist than usual. So I went back to my list and added THE OPPOSITE OF SEX and a few other more modest comedy and arthouse type movies that are coming up, and then I realized that this MR. JEALOUSY that I had assumed was some generic studio comedy was actually the second feature by writer/director Noah Baumbach. So here we are.
This is the story of Lester (Eric Stoltz, ANACONDA) and Ramona (Annabella Sciorra, FIND ME GUILTY) during some months they spend together as a tenuous New York City couple. Lester is Mr. Jealousy because, as we learn from narration, he caught his first ever girlfriend cheating on him, and then in college he spied on one and saw her getting it on with a previous boyfriend, so now he’s extremely suspicious of anyone he dates and lives his life cripplingly paranoid about their exes. Some kids have an experience that makes them grow up to be Batman, some have this. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Annabella Sciorra, Carlos Jacott, Chris Eigeman, Eric Stoltz, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Noah Baumbach, Peter Bogdonavich, Summer of '98
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 20 Comments »
Tuesday, September 29th, 2015
David Cronenberg’s remake of THE FLY was and is something special. There’s nothing else like it. But you know how us humans are, we tried to put it in a box, treat it like a regular hit movie. Hollywood said “Hey Cronenberg, it’s your lucky day, we got TOP GUN for you.” And the world of horror movies said “Let’s get the guy that did the special effects to direct a sequel!” For her part, Geena Davis said “You know what, find some other actress to play my character dying in childbirth and redub my lines over the re-used video footage of Goldblum.” And thus humanity embarked on the journey of THE FLY II.
I don’t remember thinking too much of this one when I saw it in the 1980s as a double feature with I’M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA. And for years I would joke about the true fact that people didn’t want to buy THE FLY on DVD because it came with THE FLY II. That they could charge more for it if it was just the first one.
But I realize now that I was too close. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready for it yet. But now, after a quarter century of experiencing life in a world where there is a FLY II, no matter our moral objections… shit, I enjoyed this one. It’s kind of like The Fly himself. It shouldn’t exist, but it does, so what’s it supposed to do? It makes a go at it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Walas, Daphne Zuniga, Eric Stoltz, Frank Darabont, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat, Mick Garris, sequels to remakes
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 13 Comments »
Thursday, October 10th, 2013
This may surprise you, but I have always wanted to see ANACONDA. It’s a theatrically released, pre-SyFy Channel, early CG giant snake movie with an all star (more so now than then) cast, and I heard pretty good things about it, including a description of the best part of the movie (a famous scene involving Jon Voight) which was convincing. But somehow in all these years I never rented it. And then all the sudden last month Seattle’s S.I.F.F. Uptown screened it in a remastered DCP. The kind of thing I was hoping would happen to make up for all the theaters being forced to switch to digital. You take away our 35 mm, you better give us theatrical re-releases of ANACONDA and shit like that.
Maybe that’s why I never watched it. I was waiting for it to come back to the big screen. Maybe dreams do come true. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Danny Trejo, Eric Stoltz, giant snake, Hans Bauer, Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez, Jon Voight, Jonathan Hyde, Kari Wuhrer, Luis Llosa, Owen Wilson, Vincent Castellanos
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 59 Comments »
Friday, March 4th, 2011
Today I’d like to give a little nod to one of the undervalued sidekicks of cinema, the Steve James of filmatists. Roger Avary shares with Quentin Tarantino the best original screenplay Oscar for PULP FICTION. I always thought he was supposed to have just written the Bruce-Willis-lays-around-in-bed-talking-cute-with-a-French-lady portion, but Wikipedia says the accidental shooting of Marvin (SPOILER) and The Miracle of the Bullets That Totally Miss both came from an earlier screenplay by Avary. The two worked at a video store together (and also as production assistants on Dolph Lundgren’s MAXIMUM POTENTIAL workout video) and collaborated alot when they were coming up. For example Avary’s script was rewritten by Tarantino into TRUE ROMANCE, then Avary came in later on when Tony Scott was making the movie and wanted rewrites. He also wrote a little bit of NATURAL BORN KILLERS and the shit Steven Wright says on the radio in RESERVOIR DOGS and Tarantino was credited as executive producer on this one.
By the time of JACKIE BROWN Tarantino and Avary didn’t really seem to be working together anymore, so to people who haven’t paid attention to him since then it would be easy to think he might’ve just been a lucky buddy of Tarantino’s, riding in on the ol’ ’70s TV show referencing coattails. I think he’s since proven himself capable of standing on his own, it’s just that all his movies end up being misunderstood or underappreciated: he wrote and directed RULES OF ATTRACTION and wrote SILENT HILL and BEOWULF. All movies I like that a whole lot of people hate.
It’s gotta be hard living under the shadow of Tarantino, because #1 nobody can really live up to him and #2 the chin part of the shadow is just gigantic (wocka wocka). But I think Avary’s got some talent.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Eric Stoltz, heists, Julie Delpy, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, vikings
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 73 Comments »
