Looper (2012) Review
May 12, 2026
Rian Johnson's time travel thriller. Joseph Gordon-Levitt transforming into Bruce Willis through accumulated choices.
Tag: American Decay (Page 18)
2000sThe Babysitters (2007) Review
May 11, 2026
The pacing is genuinely good. Some critics and marketing materials have positioned it as dark comedy, which is the wrong genre frame.
1980sAngel (1984) and the Franchise Review
May 11, 2026
Donna Wilkes, Rory Calhoun, Susan Tyrrell, and pre-gentrification Hollywood Boulevard. Exploitation cinema that survives in spite of itself.
1980sFerris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) Review
May 11, 2026
Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, and John Hughes's most ambitious teen film. Ferris narrates Cameron's story.
1980sFast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) Review
May 11, 2026
Sean Penn as Spicoli, Cameron Crowe's undercover research, Amy Heckerling's first feature. The 9 reflects what those viewings have confirmed: the film is the founding document of the modern American teen comedy and one of the most influential teen films…
1990sDie Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
May 11, 2026
Jackson, John McTiernan returns to direct, Jeremy Irons as Hans Gruber's brother. It is the best Die Hard sequel and the closest the franchise ever came to matching the original.
2000sLive Free or Die Hard (2007) Review
May 11, 2026
The film is held back from a 9.5 or 10 by the studio's decision to cut the theatrical release to PG-13 and by the inevitable franchise-fatigue cost of being the fourth entry. Olyphant's Thomas Gabriel is the franchise's third great…
1990sShowgirls (1995) Review
May 10, 2026
Read as a Verhoeven satire of the American Dream, the film makes sense. The 7 accounts honestly for execution problems that remain even when the satirical reading lands.
1980sVice Squad (1982) – Review
March 21, 2026
Wings Hauser's Ramrod is one of genre cinema's genuinely frightening villains, casual, flat, and relentless across a single Hollywood night. That's not a bad place for a genre film to land, it means the ambition outpaced the execution in specific,…
1970sHardcore (1979) – Review
March 21, 2026
Paul Schrader grew up in a strict Calvinist household in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's a hard film to watch, not because of what it shows, which is less explicit than its reputation suggests, but because of what it understands about…
1980sRoboCop (1987) Review
March 20, 2026
RoboCop is a better film than its premise suggests and a more subversive one than its marketing implied. Paul Verhoeven made a corporate satire inside a violent action film, and the two registers enhance each other instead of competing.
1980sThe Running Man (1987) Review
March 20, 2026
The Running Man is a better idea than film. The concept, a death sport television show operating as the primary mechanism of social control in a dystopia.