Yeah Dude, Okay

Film Collection: Notes on a Scandal

September 26th, 2026

Directed by Richard Eyre
Written by Patrick Marber
2006 | 92 minutes | English
DVD

Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, Andrew Simpson, Tom Georgeson, Michael Maloney, Joanna Scanlan, Shaun Parkes, Emma Williams, Phil Davis, Juno Temple

What it’s about: This adaptation of Zoë Heller’s 2003 novel is narrated from the diary of Barbara Covett (Dench), a self-described “old battleaxe” of a teacher at St George’s, a school in London. Barbara lives a spinsterish life, disillusioned with her job and highly judgmental of those around her but, at the beginning of a new term, her attention is captured by Sheba Hart (Blanchett), the airy new art teacher. The two women become friendly and Barbara worms her way into the life of Sheba and her much older husband, Richard (Nighy), eventually developing an erotic obsession with the younger woman. But one night, at a function, she stumbles upon Sheba being sexually inappropriate with a student named Steven (Simpson), and rather than report what she’s seen, she uses the secret to further gain a disturbing advantage in the pair’s relationship and advance her own agenda.

Reflections: One of the taglines for this was “loneliness can turn one into a monster” and the film rests on the shoulders of its two lead actresses giving us complex portraits of two women forming a connection that cannot overcome the loneliness that turns them both into predators. The film is told from Barbara’s point of view, but Barbara is not a reliable narrator–she constantly projects and assumes, clinging to a fantasy rather than taking responsibility for her own repression, and Dench capably conveys her hardened acidity while allowing a defensive humanity through in her more pathetic or vulnerable moments. Meanwhile, Blanchett embodies the ethereal beauty that keeps Sheba at a distance from the world, while bringing an internal intensity to the entitlement and desperate need to prove something to herself that leads her to ignore the consequences of her actions. The two performances–both nominated for Oscars–are fantastic, and constitute the meat of the film.

The movie around them plays out like a chamber drama that threads a line between elegance and pulp, cozy domesticity and torrid melodrama, but it knows where its heart is. The rest of the cast mostly stays out of the way, with a young-but-fierce Juno Temple being kind of the exception. The visual sense is grounded and ordinary, with neither Eyre’s direction nor Chris Menges’s cinematography being particularly showy. The score by Phillip Glass hits an appropriate tone without standing out. The voiceover readings from Barbara’s diary somewhat belie the novelistic origins, but it works and the (also Oscar-nominated) script keeps things brisk and moving.

This isn’t a film I hear talked about all that much, twenty years later, I suspect because it is sort of quiet and uncomfortable–the taboo subject matter, the fact that there’s not anyone easy to root for, and the somewhat irresolute ending that suggests Barbara hasn’t really changed all make it kind of an icky pill to swallow. But all of those things are also what make it effective. It’s definitely not a feel-good movie, but there is a real empathy threaded into the mundane horror that makes for a solid psychological character drama that left me with a contemplative, if somewhat sour feeling.
Film Collection: Day for Night

September 26th, 2026

Directed by François Truffaut
Written by François Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard & Suzanne Schiffman
1973 | 116 minutes | French, English
Criterion Blu-Ray

Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Dani, Alexandra Stewart, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Jean Champion, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut, Nike Arrighi, Nathalie Baye, David Markham, Graham Greene

What it’s about: This movie follows the making of a fictional drama film, “Meet Pamela,” under production in Nice. Among the stars of the film are Julie Baker (Bisset), an English actress who recently experienced a breakdown, Séverine (Cortese), an Italian diva, her old flame, the aging lothario Alexandré (Aumont), and Alphonse (Léaud), a childish and enthusiastic young actor whose less-interested girlfriend Liliane (Dani) he’s had hired as a script girl. The director, Ferrand (Truffaut), along with his shrewd AD Joëlle (Baye), are forced to marshal the circus of cast and crew, including all the interpersonal drama, various production setbacks, and a constantly evolving script that incorporates elements of true life into the melodramatic story of a woman who runs off with her new father-in-law.

Reflections: Making a movie is an odd undertaking–a large group of disparate personalities thrown together in intense collaboration, with actors exposing vulnerability pretending to be other people and crew being forced to perform and build all kinds of absurd things, a constant environment of hurry-up-and-wait, endless repetition and fragmentation, and the intense bonds that last for a shooting schedule before dissipating again to the wind. This, Truffaut’s 13th film, is a love-letter to that process and to the kind madness and belief that goes into that craft. The result is an energetic, warm-hearted, kaleidoscopic ensemble piece that sprawls out and constantly feels like it could go of the rails but, through some kind of alchemy, never does.

Truffaut performs a clever trick of seeming to pull back the curtain on the artifice of filmmaking–the movie begins within a shot of the fictional film before pulling out to the crew around it, has characters pull off wigs, or moves the camera to the exposed back of setting pieces–while keeping the larger film feeling naturalistic and grounded. His mis-en-scene is rich with color and ’70s style, and Georges Delerue’s score is sentimental but never sappy. The cast are all doing fine work–long-time collaborator Léaud captures an adolescent petulance that isn’t over the top, Baye is luminous and no-nonsense, and Bisset has a hard-earned determination to keep herself and the project together. And Graham Greene (the English author, not the Canadian actor) makes a surprise cameo as an insurance agent.

The main draw of this film though, which is hard to describe, is the way in which it captures a sense of the creative spirit–watching it makes one want to make things. It’s kind of loose, plot-wise, and no part of it particularly stands out in terms of craft, but it somehow comes together in a cohesive whole despite itself. And it’s a pretty clever thing, to be able to show the secrets of a magic trick and still leave the audience even more enchanted with the magic–no wonder this is often considered one of the director and legendary cinephile’s best films.
Film Collection: Demolition Man

September 25th, 2026

Directed by Marco Brambilla
Written by Daniel Waters and Robert Reneau and Peter M. Lenkov
1993 | 115 minutes | English
DVD

Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne, Benjamin Bratt, Dennis Leary, Bill Cobbs, Bob Gunton, Glenn Shadix, Troy Evans, Steve Kahan, Andre Gregory, Jesse Ventura, Jack Black, Rob Schneider, David Patrick Kelley

What it’s about: In the year 1996, rogue LAPD officer John Spartan (Stallone) is put into cryogenic sleep as a prison sentence after a number of civilians are killed during his apprehension of psychotic criminal Simon Phoenix (Snipes). In 2032, the also-frozen Phoenix escapes, wreaking havoc in the fascistic pseudo-utopia society has become, and contemporary cops–more used to dealing with curfew violations and curbing foul language–are unequipped to deal with his kind of chaotic violence. Lt. Lenina Huxley (Bullock), obsessed with the 20th century, suggests reawakening Spartan to deal with the menace, and partners up with him to help him find Phoenix while adjusting to an unfamiliar world of enforced civility and politeness. Phoenix’s escape was engineered by the dictatorial Dr. Raymond Cocteau (Hawthorne) as a means of eliminating Edgar Friendly (Leary), leader of a group of rebels who reject his new world order. But Cocteau may have unleashed a weapon he can’t control, and it’s up to the primitive “Demolition Man” to uncover the truth and save the future.

Reflections: The first two words that come to mind for this movie are “gloriously stupid.” It’s clearly intended to be satire, but it’s so broad and unsubtle, it’s difficult to say that it really lands. But in a way, that’s kind of what’s fun about it, watching it from nearly the future in which it’s set–the exaggerations of the anxieties of early ’90s culture feel sort of quaint, which makes it funnier now than it was even when I saw it several years after it came out. There is also an odd prescience to some of it–for example, the reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming president was intended to metatextually play on the rivalry between him and Stallone, a decade before he actually became governor of California.

The plot hits all the expected beats with little apparent interest in being surprising, and none of the characters have much to them, but the actors seem to be having fun. Stallone is in meathead-with-a-heart-of-gold mode, Bullock is playing up the perky naivete and grinning through her character’s frequent malapropisms, and Snipes is clearly relishing cartoonishly chewing the scenery at every turn. The supporting cast is sort of wild: did I expect to ever see Wesley Snipes beating up Andre Gregory? No, but it happens. Jack Black has an early, non-speaking background role. Dennis Leary tells Glenn Shadix he looks like a couch. Rob Schneider is… there. The action is about what you’d expect from a movie of this era, with a few particularly cool moments–Phoenix’s inevitable death scene, for example–and the effects hold up reasonably well, with a certain practical charm and ’90s dirtiness to them, even amidst the sleek sci-fi designs of the ultra-clean and tidy city.

There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense: references to Spartan having a daughter who might still be alive never pay off, a lot of the apparent laws and technologies raise serious logistical questions, the reference to Rambo in a movie starring Stallone is… confusing. But this is not a movie for thinking about that kind of thing, or much else. This is a movie for turning your brain off, watching stuff blow up, and laughing at the bizarre and, at this point, nostalgic retrofuturism. I haven’t seen it since I was a teenager, but I had a good time with it and some genuine laughs. And I kind of want some Taco Bell now, so I guess it got me.
Film Collection: The Deer Hunter

September 25th, 2026

Directed by Michael Cimino
Written by Deric Washburn
1978 | 183 minutes | English, Vietnamese, French
DVD

Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, Meryl Streep, George Dzundza, Pierre Segui, Shirley Stoler, Chuck Aspegren, Rutanya Alda, Paul D’Amato, Amy Wright, Joe Grifasi, Somsak Sengvilai, John McBeth

What it’s about: Mike (DeNiro), Nick (Walken), and Steven (Savage) are three steelworkers in a small western-Pennsylvania town in 1968. Steven is marrying Angela (Alda) and the others are going on one last hunting trip with their other friends before the three of them ship out to Vietnam. Once in country, they are captured by the Viet Cong and forced to participate in games of Russian Roulette before escaping, but during the escape, Steven is injured and Nick becomes separated from the others, eventually going AWOL and disappearing. Returning home, Mike is forced to wrestle with how the war has affected both him and Steven, negotiates a complicated relationship with Nick’s girlfriend/fiance, Linda (Streep), and eventually returns to Vietnam to try and find his missing friend.

Reflections: Winner of 5 Oscars in 1978, including Best Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor (Walken), this is a big, epic, lumbering movie that’s almost as interesting for the stuff going on around it as for the film itself. There’s the conflict over the script between Cimino and Washburn, and murkiness about who authored what. There’s the controversy over the ahistorical use of Russian Roulette as a major narrative device. There’s Meryl Streep, in her second film role and the first of her 21 (to date) Oscar nominations, taking the role to be with John Cazale, who was dying of cancer as the film was being made (and the poignancy that adds to the final scene, in which she mourns the loss of Walken’s character with Cazale next to her). There’s the fact this was one of the first major American films to deal with the aftereffects of the Vietnam war. There’s a lot going on in the context here that adds to the fascination of the film as a historical artifact.

The movie itself is a long, slow burn, spending about an hour setting up the lives of its protagonists in the few days before their deployment. Indeed, much of the contemporary criticism was directed at the length and pacing, favoring atmosphere over incident. But that’s sort of the point, also–to be absorbed and enmeshed in the world of these characters, Mike in particular, in order to feel the way that world shifts after the experience in the war as he tries to hold on to the things that used to give him meaning. Cimino feels meticulous as a director, lingering in long scenes and letting things be quietly observed rather than stated outright. He’s helped in this project by Vilmos Zsigmond’s gorgeous cinematography which draws out the gritty, chilly beauty of the Allegheny mountains, and by a set of fantastic, quietly-tortured performances, particularly from DeNiro, whose deeply held principles are shaken but not completely shattered, Walken, whose cheery breeziness breaks completely into nihilism, and Streep, juggling a complicated and conflicting set of desires as her Linda grows closer to Mike in Nick’s absence.

It is also a very dour experience, ending on an ironic and bitter note as the characters break into “God Bless America” after a funeral, and it asks a lot in terms of patience. But there is a sweep to it, and if one takes it more as trying to capture a mood and feeling rather than represent a historical event in a more literal way, it is moving, even if it’s not exactly the most fun way to spend three hours. There is some top-tier talent at work here, and taken on its own terms, it’s easy to get lost in it, even if it’s not without its flaws.
Film Collection: Orlando

September 23rd, 2026

Directed by Sally Potter
Written by Sally Potter
1992 | 94 minutes | English
Blu-Ray

Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, Lothaire Bluteau, John Wood, Charlotte Valandrey, Heathcote Williams, Quentin Crisp, Peter Eyre, Thom Hoffman, Kathryn Hunter, Ned Sherrin, Jimmy Somerville, Dudley Sutton

What it’s about: Loosely adapted from Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, the story follows the eponymous Orlando (Swinton), beginning with his life as young English nobleman in 1600. The sensitive, poetry-loving young man becomes a favored attendant of Queen Elizabeth (Crisp), who commands him “Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old.” And as time passes, Orlando seems inexplicably able to honor this request. He falls for the Muscovite ambassador’s daughter Sasha (Valandrey) and befriends writers such as the poet, Nick Greene (Williams), eventually becoming ambassador to the Ottoman Empire for many years. But around 1800, Orlando wakes up to find she has suddenly become a woman, and is soon facing legal challenges to her property as a result. She meets a kindred spirit in the roguish Shelmerdine (Zane), and eventually arrives in the modern era, now with a young daughter, revisiting the ghosts of her past.

Reflections: In case it wasn’t obvious from that description, this is a very loose, dreamlike film, less about following any kind of propulsive plot than observing the changing world through the lens of its enigmatic central character. Despite the lack of momentum, it’s nonetheless compelling thanks to three primary factors. One is a smart script that draws out a kind of coming-of-age tale across 400 years of English culture and history, investing it with a kind of mythic quality, frequently breaking the fourth wall, and poking at questions of art, gender, and the contradictions of society while still remaining open-ended and interpretive. Second, is Potter’s lush, sensual visual style that plays with color, light and shadow, lingers on rich sensory details and textures, and creates an atmosphere of spectacle without ever being loud about it. And the third is, simply, Tilda Swinton.

It’s hard to imagine anyone else being able to pull this difficult material off. Never an actress to shy away from a fascinatingly weird performance, she gives the younger, male Orlando a kind of plucky naivete that slowly fades as he becomes more acquainted with the complexities of the world, and the older, female version, a kind of knowing confidence and ease, pushing against expected norms in both directions. The two… sides? versions? incarnations?… are different but still identifiable as an evolution of the same person, and both with a slightly distant quality that adapts to the world but never quite belongs in it. The rest of the cast doesn’t have as much to carry, although Crisp’s turn in drag as the Queen stands out for its subversive dignity and Zane stands out a bit–feeling the most modern and American–but in a way that suits his role here.

This is not gonna be a movie for everyone–it’s often languid and difficult to pin down and it asks a lot of its audience in figuring out what it’s trying to communicate. But its unique (and queer) sensibility, often sharp wit, and the richness of its style end up weirdly moving if you can catch its wavelength, even if it still defies clear explanation. There is a quiet lust for life, a deep appreciation of art and beauty, and an earthy sensuousness that belie its challenging nature. A hypnotic, fascinating trip if one can let it in.
Film Collection: Dishonored

September 21st, 2026

Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Written by Daniel N. Rubin
1931 | 91 minutes | English
Criterion Blu-Ray

Marlene Dietrich, Victor McLaglen, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Warner Oland, Lew Cody, Barry Norton

What it’s about: In Vienna, 1915, Marie Kolverer (Dietrich), a war widow and talented pianist, now working as a streetwalker, is recruited by the Chief of the Austrian Secret Service (von Seyffertitz) to gather evidence on Von Hindau (Oland), a traitor in the army, responsible for leaking intel and causing recent defeats. She succeeds, and in the process, is put onto the grinning, dashing Colonel Kranau (McLaglen), himself a more experienced Russian spy infiltrating Austria undercover. Kranau escapes her grasp, but learns of her next assignment, rooting out attack plans from a town on the Polish front, and pursues her there, furthering an eroticized game of cat-and-mouse with deadly consequences.

Reflections: In Laura Mulvey’s landmark 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” she specifically calls out Josef von Sternberg–in particular, the cycle of six films he made with Marlene Dietrich, of which this was the third–arguing that he “produces the ultimate fetish, taking it to the point where the powerful look of the male protagonist (characteristic of traditional narrative film) is broken in favor of the image in direct erotic rapport with the spectator.” This was a first-time watch and, having seen it, she’s absolutely right. And that is still kind of the magic of this movie.

It hinges entirely on observing Dietrich’s carefully unknowable presence. She announces at the start of the film that she fears neither life nor death, and her ultimate downfall reads like a triumph against the (masculine) characters and forces that would exploit, control and categorize her. But her true feelings and motives are hidden behind this intentionally beguiling artifice. The way her eyes dart around or how she draws out her “yeeeess” when she responds to questions feels studied, in a way that flattens actress and character. Sternberg envelops this disaffected, evasive portrait in shadows and gauze, dressing her in amazing outfits–the costume ball scene is what I’m referring to here–and letting her fill the frame, in full or in close-up pieces. The spy-thriller narrative (conceived by Sternberg and realized on the page by Rubin) is interesting enough a framework to put this all on. And the other actors do fine jobs reacting to and reflecting her–McLaglen is all condescending, rakish grins, granting her power as if despite himself, safety and adversary rolled together. And Seyffertitz conveys a mixture of paternal fascination and disgust that’s ripe for interrogation. But this is a star vehicle and therein lies its fascination nearly a century later.

The artifice and melodrama are part of the point–this is a film meant to exude glamor and style, and it does. There’s some spies doing cool spy stuff, but the experience of watching it isn’t about the particulars of the plot; it’s about the plight of the tragic heroine, both doomed by the narrative and coolly transcendent of it, infused with a pre-code implied sexuality and dripping in Old Hollywood glamour. And that is a rich and enjoyable cocktail, if it’s what you’re prepared to get.
Film Collection: Duel

September 20th, 2026

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Richard Matheson
1972 | 90 minutes | English
DVD

Dennis Weaver, Carey Loftin, Jacqueline Scott, Eddie Firestone, Lou Frizzell, Eugene Dynarski, Lucille Benson, Tim Herbert, Charles Seel, Shirley O’Hara, Amy Douglass, Alexander Lockwood, Dick Whittington

What it’s about: One morning, David Mann (Weaver) sets out on a trip from L.A. to meet an out-of-town client for his unspecified business. Already a little on edge and emasculated after not standing up for his wife (Scott) at a party the previous night, and impatient to get the important meeting finished, he gets cocky and passes a rusted-out tanker on one of California’s back-country desert highways. This sets off a cat-and-mouse game, as the unseen driver of the tanker refuses to let the incident go, hunting David down the road with increasing aggression. Unable to lose his pursuer or summon help, David is forced to rely on his wits and his engine to escape the relentless, unfathomable assault.

Reflections: This film, adapted by Matheson from his own short story, started life as an ABC Movie of the Week in November 1971, before being slightly expanded by about 16 minutes and released theatrically the next year, making it the official film debut of Steven Spielberg. While that’s the main reason it’s notable, it’s a showcase for the hotshot’s talent, wringing an effective psychological horror out of a minimalist premise and shoestring budget. Even though 75% of the movie is the same two vehicles driving through drab, brown landscapes, the camera setups and edits keep things fresh, relaxing and escalating tension seemingly effortlessly. And it’s not hard to see the self-insert kid from The Fabelmans crashing his trains, all grown up here and having a blast hurling around the big, muscular machines.

More on Matheson’s end of things, the story’s horror revolves around a particular kind of male anxiety. David’s insecurity is made manifest in the truck–a larger, more powerful, more masculine vehicle. This embodiment of toxic masculinity (literally, spewing smoke) cannot be reasoned with, placated, even truly identified, but it can do things he can’t, such as rescue a trapped schoolbus, leaving him useless and defenseless. There is also a reversal taking place–he tries to brush off his wife’s concern that a colleague “practically tried to rape me at the party,” only to then find himself targeted by predator who will not take no for an answer. And Weaver quietly leans into this thematic aspect in his performance, playing David as physically timid and with an almost effeminate whine to his internal monologues. (Also, his last name is Mann. Just saying.)

More than just a historical curiosity, this is a great example of the kind of petri-dish stuff that was happening in the New Hollywood era: a young director being given a shot on a modest B-picture TV movie and knocking it out of the park. I don’t wanna oversell it–it is what it is, but if you’re a fan of that kind of grindhouse-adjacent vibe (less sleaze here, but a lot of sweat and oil and dust and grime) or of ’70s-style paranoid/psychological thrillers, this is definitely worth tracking down.
Film Collection: Weird Science

September 20th, 2026

Directed by John Hughes
Written by John Hughes
1985 | 93 minutes | English
DVD

Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Kelly LeBrock, Bill Paxton, Suzanne Snyder, Judie Aronson, Robert Downey Jr, Robert Rusler, Vernon Wells, Britt Leach, Barbara Lang, Michael Berryman

What it’s about: Gary (Hall) and Wyatt (Mitchell-Smith) are nerds. They don’t have friends, have no luck with girls, get pantsed and otherwise tormented on a regular basis. But one weekend, when Wyatt’s parents are away, Gary gets the idea to use Wyatt’s computer to construct a simulation of the perfect woman. Some Frankenstein lightning later, and the result is Lisa (LeBrock), a knockout babe whose sole purpose in existence is to boost the pair’s confidence and show them a good time. But even though Lisa is loyal, she’s not exactly controllable, and her ability to alter reality quickly begins to run amok, creating an escalating disaster that the boys must resolve before Wyatt’s parents get home.

Reflections: I haven’t seen this since I was about the age of the kids in it. On the one hand, there is a lot that is–let’s say, problematic–about this movie. On the other hand, a tale of adolescent male fantasy fueled by uncontrollable technology wreaking havoc on the world has a certain ring to it in the present moment. I don’t know how I feel about it, afterwards: whether everything is too easy and too celebratory of its insensitivity, or whether that’s the point, because it’s ultimately a kid’s movie and a kind of fairytale, where characters act in broad dumb ways explicitly so they can learn a lesson. And it is a fantasy–it leans far more on the “weird” part of the title than the “science” part, and logic is well and gone out the window by the time Wyatt’s sadistic older brother Chet (Paxton, having a hoot) gets turned into a farting sludge monster in an awesomely-cheesy ’80s practical effect. This is the world of a Reagan-era teen boy daydream, for better or for worse.

If one were inclined to be academic about it, there is some anxiety about that Reagan era at work in the subtext here. The same new-fangled, unfathomable technology that conjures Lisa from a Barbie doll also summons a warhead from a Time magazine cover. We watch as status-symbol cars she creates for the boys vanish into empty nothing in order to make things right. For as neat and tidy as it all turns out, ending with a literal wink to the camera, the film seems plainly aware of the unreality of that and consistently, if quietly, expresses discomfort with the “yuppie tough-guy chick magnet” image the boys are trying to imitate. That unreality is embraced on every level. The boys all mug for the camera, the adult figures are all exaggerated caricatures of disapproving dowdiness, the visuals embrace slapstick fantasy at every turn. This is Hughes at his most absurd. But RDJ gets to play a twitchy meathead and LeBrock makes her weird part work surprisingly well, considering. And the Oingo Boingo theme song rules.

The crux of what made John Hughes successful as a creator was that he took young people seriously in a way that not much film storytelling had before him–he was willing to tackle subjects in a way that wasn’t a squeaky clean, Andy Griffith version of childhood, but had more real emotion in it than, I dunno, Porky’s or whatever. With that in mind, I think it makes sense that a lot of aspects of his movies haven’t aged well, culturally. The process of forming an identity starts from seeking connections in this very primal, clumsy place, and the lesson here is ultimately that human connection requires vulnerability and that no technology can shortcut that, which I think is still very much worth something. Just bring a hefty grain of salt.
Film Collection: Project A

September 19th, 2026

Directed by Jackie Chan
Written by Jackie Chan & Edward Tang
1983 | 105 minutes | Cantonese
DVD, English-dub version

Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Kwan Hoi-san, Dick Wei, Lee Hoi-san, Mars
(David A. Thomas, Fred Tatasciore, Jennifer Paz, Danny Trejo, Michael Sorich, Tom Konkle, Keith Ferguson)

What it’s about: Sgt. “Dragon” Ma Yue Lung (Chan) is an officer with Hong Kong’s Marine Police around the turn of the 20th century. Upset by corruption in law enforcement, he quits his official job, but hooks up with his old friend Zhou “Fats” Yifei (Hung), a small-time thief, to intercept a load of weapons being sold from the military, through local gangsters, to leader of a notorious pirate crew, Lor Sam Pao (Wei). The incensed pirates take hostage the passengers of a ship, including an important official, and demand the rifles back as a ransom payment, but Ma convinces Captain Chi (Kwan Hoi-san) to reinstate him and let him pose as a gangster, leading a squad of cops to infiltrate the pirate’s hideout and perform a rescue operation.

Reflections: As a rule, I prefer watching movies in their original language, but I picked this up in a thrift store not long ago out of a sense of nostalgia. When I was a teenager, my mom went through a phase with Jackie Chan and Hong Kong cinema and watching this–the dubbed version in particular–brings up a lot of that nostalgic charm. The dubbing is generally not great (although Danny Trejo’s chilled-out take on Wei’s pirate lord kind of rules) and I think it does muddle the storyline somewhat, but the strengths of a Jackie Chan movie are in the physical comedy and inventive stuntwork and those shine through, regardless.

The plot, indeed, does feel like a boys-own-adventure mashup of martial arts action and pirates, which was a rather novel idea at the time. As a director, Chan has a lot of fun with the period style–watching Hung beating up guys in a top hat on floating timber, or the elaborate bicycle chase and clock-tower fight all make the most of the roughly Victorian/Edwardian colonial era atmosphere. And the action itself finds Chan at a confident point in his career–already a massive star in Asia and beginning to make Hollywood inroads. He throws himself off buildings, swings from chandeliers, and delivers wild gags, surrounding himself with other stars of the Hong Kong action scene, capturing it all with an efficient flourish and solidifying himself with an international hit.

This is a movie made for Saturday afternoons–a lot of high energy fun that isn’t trying to take itself very seriously. If one isn’t in the mood for that kind of thing, there’s nothing here that transcends that, but there’s still a lot to be said for the prowess, joy of movement, spectacle, and imagination on display. It’s one of the better Jackie Chan movies I’ve seen and a good time kicking back to for some escapist laughs.
Film Collection: Jackie Brown

September 19th, 2026

Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Written by Quentin Tarantino
1997 | 154 minutes | English
DVD

Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, Robert DeNiro, Michael Bowen, Chris Tucker, LisaGay Hamilton

What it’s about: Returning from her regular route between L.A. and Cabo, worn-down flight attendant Jackie Brown (Grier) is busted by ATF agent Ray Nicolette (Keaton) carrying an undeclared $50,000. The owner of that money, a small-time weapons dealer named Ordell Robbie (Jackson), hires world-weary bail bondsman Max Cherry (Forster) to get Jackie out because he needs her to get his half-million in profits from Mexico to the US. Now under pressure, Ordell and Jackie concoct a scheme which involves his twitchy old partner Louis (DeNiro) and wily stoner “surfer girl” Melanie (Fonda) to get the money through under the nose of the cops. But Jackie and Max form an unexpected bond and he helps her with an alternate plan to play both sides and finally walk away with something for herself.

Reflections: His third feature and follow-up to the smash success of Pulp Fiction, this is the only one of Tarantino’s mainline films to be an adaptation of an outside work, in this case Elmore Leonard’s 1992 novel Rum Punch. And it’s my favorite of his films because having that boundary to work with curbs some of Tarantino’s more obnoxious instincts and ends up delivering his most emotionally grounded filmmaking, centered around a powerhouse performance from Pam Grier. She oozes cool in every frame, but gives Jackie dimension and depth beyond Tarantino’s usual comic-book aesthetic–the scene in which she and Max talk over coffee about aging and starting over is one of the most heartfelt moments in any of his movies.

Everything around her is a talented filmmaker doing what he does best. The whole thing is an homage to ’70s crime and blaxploitation films, but is filled with other cinematic nods and references (eg: the opening sequence mirroring The Graduate). The music is fantastic, with Johnny Cash and The Grass Roots peppered into classic soul. The dialogue is sharp and witty, and the other actors are all luxuriating and chewing on it–Jackson’s jovial menace, Forster’s man of deep feelings and few words, and DeNiro giving an off-balance, restrained, and somewhat unexpected side turn. The pace is breezy, but the structure is interesting, weaving through a complex plot and showing the final money-exchange sequence three times from different points of view.

It is still very much a Tarantino movie, with all that entails–the long running time, casual violence, awkward racial elements, Boomer-era pop culture obsessions, new-wave inspired editing, and so on. But it’s the least show-offy, the one where he’s out of his own way the most, and is worth watching even for those who aren’t fans of his more indulgent and more heavily-discussed movies. A cool, sophisticated thriller with a melancholy edge and a lot of badass personality, a self-aware, career-best performance from Grier, and a willingness not to underestimate its audience, this stands out not only in its director’s oeuvre, but as one of the best crime films of the ’90s.