|MH Rowe| The most interesting films tend to be those that go all the way into a gnarly little dreamworld. Not that the dreamworld of American Gigolo seems gnarly at first. The story begins by reveling in the easy brilliance of California sunshine. There’s no glare. No one sweats. A breeze… Continue reading
|Penny Folger| Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo, starts out with all the luster and flash of the 1980s though it was actually shot in 1979. Yet, stylistically, it preternaturally defines the decade that was to come. “It’s almost setting the… Continue reading
|Sophie Durbin| “You wanna hire a choir boy, you go back to Grand Rapids.” – Peter Boyle as Andy Mast, private detective. The opening credits of Paul Schrader’s Hardcore are set against a holiday scene in Grand Rapids, Michigan, filled with children sledding and snow-dusted corner… Continue reading
|Penny Folger| Hardcore is an amusing fish-out-of-water story starring George C. Scott as a devout midwestern Calvinist who must plumb the depths of the California porn industry to seach for his missing teenage daughter. It’s also a film that its director, Paul Schrader, is not terribly fond of… Continue reading
|Ed Dykhuizen| Traditionally, if you’re a character in a Hollywood movie, you have to be rich. You don’t always have to be obscenely wealthy, but you must have enough money to never worry about how you’re going to pay for whatever the plot demands you have. Even if you’re in Los… Continue reading
|Lucas Hardwick| **Mild spoilers ahead*** My career as a writer is successful only in the sense that I get to do it; my work is published here and there, and maybe a few hundred people read it, chuckle, and manage to get something out of it—some of it right here on this very blog. But… Continue reading
