Peter Strempel’s reviews of film, TV, literature, and other cultural artifacts.
The Mysterians: Yankee go home?
Japanese Mysterians film likely carried an anti-imperialist, anti-American message under standard SF cliches of the era.
Reviews
The Glass Key (1942)
Stuart Heisler’s screen adaptation of Dashiell Hammet’s The Glass Key gives us a character study of the noir anti-hero as descended from Eve and the original sin.
Crossfire (1947)
Edward Dmytryk’s 1947 Crossfire courageously attacks the bigotry of antisemitism and, more subtly, homophobia, on a shoestring budget but with outstanding performances.
Citizen Kane (1941)
Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) is not quite the unsurpassed masterpiece often claimed, but it is nevertheless a considerable cinematic achievement.
Laura 1944
Laura (1944) is an entertaining murder mystery melodrama, highly acclaimed in its own time, but not really a film noir as uncritically and widely claimed today.
Spellbound (1945)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound remains captivating, though contexts have changed for genres, subject, and artistic treatment.
This Gun for Hire (1942)
Not the noir some claim, but an outstanding hybrid with a powerful performance from Ladd and impressive mises en scène.
Conspiracy (2001)
The recent emergence of furtive and overt neo-fascism in some Western nations gives this film new meaning and power.
Breaker Morant (1980)
A landmark Australian film made relevant afresh as we consider contemporary war crimes.
Kingdom of Heaven (2005): two very different films
This is Ridley Scott’s most significant film, deserving a re-evaluation after the disaster that was the studio edit.
Ray Donovan (2013–2020)
There’s a rare chemistry in the first few seasons of Ray Donovan that makes the series transcend its more mundane, soap opera storylines.
Fight Club (1999), 20 years later
Fight Club is not quite the celebration of toxic masculinity and anarchic revolt often assumed.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)
If I were pushed to nominate the best television fiction ever made, it would likely be the BBC’s 1979 adaptation of John le Carré’s 1974 novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Scorsese’s The Irishman: sad farewell to an era
Scorsese and the cast of The Irishman say farewell to each other and an entire era of gangster films.
This Storm (2019)
Does Ellroy’s This Storm prove he’s past his brilliant and manic prime? Or just that his editors gave him too much leeway?