Monthly Archives: May 2009

I can’t tell if this is another example of the migration of independent film out of the hands of trained artists and into the hands of ordinary people, or if these guys are actually film students: This is not particularly … Continue reading →

I had apparently never seen The Dirty Dozen all the way through. It’s one of those that has slipped through the cracks, somehow. As with The Shining, a movie I finally watched from start to finish only last year, I knew the plot and had seen certain key scenes many times. I knew the characters almost instinctively, probably because they’re epitomes of certain kinds of action movie anti-heroes: John Cassavetes’ loudmouth misfit, Charles Bronson’s quiet tough guy, Lee Marvin’s iron-jawed leader of men, Jim Brown’s dignified black icon. (Only the creepy rapist/religious maniac played by Telly Savalas seems to break out of the box, and even he is purposefully set up as the one member of the group who’s “really” a criminal.) But somehow I had never actually, well, watched the movie.

Continue reading →