Savages Movie Review

Oliver Stone returns to fine form with his latest example of pushing violence to excess in cinema with Savages, the film that Natural Born Killers might have been with a little restraint. Stone exhibits more control of a story that could very easily have run away from itself and of the violence depicted in it.

25 Years Ago This Month: December 1986

In December 1986 I was heavy into my obsession with G.I. Joe action figures and the cartoon series used to promote the Kenner line of toys, so with the approach of my ninth Christmas I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of several new figures and vehicles to complement my growing collection. As such I was hardly aware of, let alone interested in, any of the films released to cinemas that month, although three would become staple viewing on cable television during the following two years and one later became a preferred film during my young adolescence.

25 Years Ago This Month: April 1986

It turns out April 1986 was a rather uneventful month at the cinema in the United States. The two biggest box office money earners were basically flops. First was Ridley Scott's Legend starring a pre-Top Gun Tom Cruise.

The second was the low-budget creature feature Critters starring Dee Wallace and a teenage Scott Grimes.




If we ignore a forgotten film from 1974 and a nearly forgotten horror flick called The Hand, Oliver Stone's first important directorial feature was released this month. Salvador stars James Woods as a journalist who travels to El Salvador to document the 1980 civil war and becomes entangled with both the guerrillas and the right-wing military.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Movie Review

The thing that has made Wall Street a cult classic was Gordon Gekko. Here was a villainwhose thirst for more money kew no bounds, not so much because he wanted more, but because he liked the thrill of the chase. An entire generation of Wall Street has pathetically modeled itself on his balls to the wall attitude toward finance. To take that character and water him down, give him pathos, provide him a reason to repent is not to capture the spirit of the original film, but to capture a wider audience and bigger box office return.

Wall Street Movie Review: A First Look at an 80s Icon

“Greed is good.” So says Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) in Wall Street, in one of the most famous 80s cinematic speeches when he attempts to save his position as an investor trying to leverage more profit out of Teldar Paper. The line is oft quoted, oft cited as one of the greatest or most memorable lines in movie history, but most significantly it’s held aloft as the prime example of what was wrong with corporate America in the 1980s. And Gekko is viewed as the epitome, the representative on the screen of the worst elements of capitalism.