Sad Professor
Posts: 2062
Joined: 17/10/2006
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I don't know if people here would remember this or not as I am getting to an age where I'm looking back at issues of empire from a few years ago and remember stuff that you don't see mentioned much these days but here:
I recall Empire's writers liking this one. It got 4stars on the DVD review I think.
Copy paste:
Plot
Toxic waste creates giant spiders in Arizona. People are attacked, cobweb-cocooned, liquidised and eaten. Prodigal son Chris McCormack and Sheriff Sam Parker, advised by the latter's spider-obsessed brat, rally survivors. And so the townsfolk fight back guns, chainsaws, perfume, methane, a mobile phone and raw courage.
Verdict
If you only see one mutated spider movie this summer, you’ll be missing a treat. Having learnt to respect Peter Parker’s inner arachnid, check out Freaks and get ready to squash the little buggers.
Reviewer: Kim Newman
Here
Here's another I remember from that time that was quite good I thought that might have been forgotten by some:
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?DVDID=9098
The long and the short of it is that Affleck and Jackson play characters from very different back grounds and when they crash into each other it sparks a feud that is played out in a decent thriller/drama style genre piece. Real good if it's on the telly and worth picking up on DVD if you happen across it.
The Good Thief
This ain't a fantastic film handled marvelously by a premiere director but Nolte's performance is well worth a watch. It's along a similar vein to movies with heists that seemed to be semi-popular back then - Welcome to Collingwood, Heist, The Score and of course Ocean's Eleven though the latter may have kicked off the trend.
It's a remake of a 50's French film I never saw but as I say, Nolte plays an old washed up grizzled jewel thief who has just kicked heroin and is up for one last job (surprise surprise!).
Back around this time there were a lot of performances like this - old grizzled men playing old grizzled men in a washed up situation. Dennis Quaid in The Rookie, Ray Liotta in Narc and Kurt Russel in Dark Blue also spring to mind. Tarrantino of course made a niche for himself in the 90s doing this but in the early 2000s no one director really took it on but these aul guys put in some good performances I thought. Later these former stars were back vogue when stuff like Sin City came along.
EMPIRE were whistling many songs about this film back when but I just thought I'd stick it up here in case anyone's forgotten about it or hasn't seen it. A small Argentinian film made with money either won in a lotto or from some sort of arts fund, can't remember. It's a movie about two conmen and it's really cool and fun. DVD made it possible for many people to see these kinda films whereas back in the pre-DVD days you'd have to go to an arthouse or pay loadsa money for a VHS.
Another one Empire were raving mad about and perhaps some mightn't have seen or aren't aware of. A Spanish film in which luck can be traded and gambled. Kinda one of those enigmatic sorta pictures.
A bit of a brain fuck from Darren Aronofsky. A sort of paranoid post-modern thriller of a man who thinks he's cracked some secret mathematical code. I've not seen it in years but I remember the black and white picture being so stark. I'm not sure you could get an image like that today on a film like this. Worth a watch anyways.
Probably my favourite Irish film. Many people say I Went Down or Commitments or My Left Foot but I really really enjoyed this.
It was a tough time for westerns before and after Clint's Unforgiven. Before it the western had lost it's guttural sense of veracity and many were fed of the same theme being rehashed. After it no film could possible follow! There were some absurdities like Bad Girls and some curios like Quick and the Dead.
Tombstone came out in the same year as Wyatt Earp though they both originated from the same script - Costner got his hands on Tombstone and wanted the story to be all about Earp. Eventually Kev got his own way and his own inferior movie and Kurt Russel took on the title role and role of Ghost Director to make what I think was a really good western. It might not have that same draw that Unforgiven had and it might look a bit cheap in places and definitely cliched but considering this was the decade that gave us Paul Hogan as Lightning Jack Tombstone I think stands out as one of the best westerns after Unforgiven.
Costner got his own back in 2003 with Open Range which itself was both a really good film and a miracle of sorts since this was the same man behind The Postman!
And a few others that may or may not have already been mentioned:
 
 
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Printable Version
RE: Recommend an unsung gem - 
this came out last year in France and it looks very good 
from Robert Aldrich a very underated director 
i love this movie its one of Walter Hills best
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