Posts By Barry Wurst

In Brian De Palma’s “Carlito’s Way,” Al Pacino plays the “JP Morgan of the smack business.”

Carlito Brigante has been a criminal for 25 years and has spent five years …
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When Robert Altman died on November 20, 2006, I was a few hours away from teaching a class on his life and works.

A number of students called me that …
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Imagine being a young film buff, working in a video store and writing a screenplay that tapped into your every cinephile fantasy.

The script provided a celluloid alternate life in …
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Don Coscarelli’s “John Dies At The End” begins with a fantastic opening shot.

The camera glides across a snow-crested lawn to reveal, just in the distance, a horrible murder is …
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The news that Gus Van Sant planned a “shot-by-shot remake” of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” was, for most film buffs, akin to finding out a dear friend had popped up in …
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When we meet the Brinson family in “Wildlife,” Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Jeanette (Carey Mulligan) are sharing a tender moment.

Their only son, Joe (Ed Oxenbould) watches his parents, visibly …
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Writing about Orson Welles is like being the last cop to show up at a crime scene.

Coming up with fresh insights is nearly impossible when there are film scholar …
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“Dragnet” may not be the ultimate ’80s comedy, but it screams 1987 in ways that were unintended and quite intriguing.

Here are the facts.

Dan Aykroyd stars as Joe Friday, …
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I want to go easy on writer/director Scott Martin’s “Big Kill.”

It’s an earnest western that is clearly in love with the genre and its cinematic lineage. Unfortunately, evoking the …
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The freakiest urban legend I’ve ever heard is the one known as “The Hippie Babysitter.”

According to “The Encyclopedia of Urban Legends” (written in 2002 by Jan Harold Brunvand), the …
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