Here once again is HE’s best spitball roster of 2025’s strongest, most distinctive films…40 in all. This is not about the likelihood of big box-office but about films that people may feel riveted, disturbed, challenged, gobsmacked or turned on by, or might even feel compelled to nominate for awards. HE readers went to sleep on … Read more
I don’t know where to begin a loose-shoe study of the likeliest 2025 hotties (critically approved, Oscar-nominated), but you have to start somewhere…anywhere. Right now this is a very half-assed rundown, but I’ll build it as the comments come in and things move along. Call this HE’s first half-assed stab. I’ll begin to fix it … Read more
35 years ago, these were the best of the best…no boxoffice considerations…no likey-likey popcorn faves…no “pretty goods but no Cuban cigar”…just the films that shine the strongest and brightest according to HE’s smarthouse standards of 2025. I’m not saying these are the absolute pick of the litter, but they’re definitely the 1990 films have have … Read more
Wanting to become a Catholic deacon is “better” than wanting to become a heroin addict or an Islamic terrorist, but in the realm of Shia LeBeouf it’s the same basic dynamic — an inability to trust his own mystical realm and an urge to submit to a stronger external current. Meanwhile we all want to … Read more
There’s this idea that the woke virus didn’t really manifest in the liberal bloodstream until the George Floyd riots of late May and early June 2020. No — it was well underway by mid to late ’17. It was significant enough that I wrote an Invasion of the Body Snatchers satire of this poisonous phenomenon … Read more
I’m sorry but this is my idea of a Thanksgiving movie. I haven’t re-watched it in 32 years. Gotta do that today or at least over the weekend. Wiki excerpt: “Abel Ferrara’s King of New York was shot entirely in and around New York City. According to Ferrara, then-owner Donald Trump gave him permission to … Read more
What sensible, fair-minded person would look you straight in the face and insist that Stanley Kubrick‘s Eyes Wide Shut is the best film of the ’90s? Think about that. EWS is many things — curious, dreamlike, flat, anti-realistic, visually commanding, mesmerizing in its own weird way. But a film this clenched and constipated and covered … Read more
I’m watching the Critics Choice Awards right now and thinking, “This is a nightmare…we’re all immersed in a benign, thumbs-up, positive-energy horror film…the seed pod wokey-wokes are everywhere and too terrified to think, comment or behave otherwise, and only a few of us have escaped the takeover syndrome — playing it cautiously out of fear … Read more
For mostly sentimental reasons, I can’t stop telling myself that the 1992 Cannes Film Festival (5.7 to 5.18) was my absolute personal best. Because it was my first time there and therefore it felt fresh and exotic and intimidating as fuck. I had to think on my feet and figure it out as I went … Read more
In HE’s humble opinion the most engrossing and ravishing X-rated or NC-17 film ever released is Lindsay Anderson‘s If…, closely followed (most of us have this list memorized) by John Schlesinger‘s Midnight Cowboy, Pedro Almodovar‘s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Bernardo Bertolucci‘s Last Tango in Paris, Louis Malle‘s Damage, Nicolas Roeg‘s Performance, David Cronenberg‘s … Read more
28 years ago this scene from Abel Ferrara‘s Bad Lieutenant was par for the course. Harvey Keitel‘s bad cop is just another felon, etc. The little girl might report the details to her father (or grandfather) when he returns, but Keitel will skate regardless. Could anyone make such a film today? Probably not. If they … Read more
In Abel Ferrara‘s Tommaso (Kino Lorber), Willem Dafoe plays the titular character, an American indie director living in Rome — obviously based on Ferrara himself. The film was shot in Ferrara’s own apartment there, and it costars his wife, Cristina Chiriac, and the couple’s three-year-old daughter, Anna Ferrara. From Owen Gleiberman’s 5.22.19 review: “Given the … Read more