Paul Schrader has had the privilege of being associated with some of the most important and prestigious films in history. Dog Eat Dog is not one of them. That, in just the slightest of paraphrases, was the introduction Schrader provided to his movie in remarks before its screening at the 2016 London Film Festival. The film rolled shortly thereafter, proving him absolutely correct. Dog Eat Dog is simultaneously nothing special and somewhat fascinating, the latter due to the enormous amount of talent associated with the project, starting with Schrader, but extending to a cast that features Willem Dafoe and Nicholas Cage as well as the source material for the script, a novel penned by Edward Bunker, an ex-con who starred as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs and wrote the screenplay for Runaway Train. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Willem Dafoe’
Dog Eat Dog Review
Posted: October 21, 2016 in 2016 London Film Festival, Action, ReviewsTags: Christopher Matthew Cook, Nicholas Cage, Paul Schrader, Willem Dafoe
Welcome to New York Review
Posted: January 13, 2015 in Drama, ReviewsTags: Abel Ferrara, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Gérard Depardieu, Jacqueline Bisset, Pasolini, Willem Dafoe
Abel Ferrara’s long, idiosyncratic career as a director has taken an interesting turn of late as the cult favorite who made his initial mark with two legendary exploitations films in the late 1970’s, The Driller Killer and Ms. 45, and who also brought us a landmark in crime movies with the 1990 King of New York, now seems bent on inventing a new genre. Call it the psychosexual micro-biopic for lack of a better expression. In last year’s Pasolini and in his most recent effort, Welcome to New York, Ferrara elevates a particularly virulent form of carnality to the level of Shakespearean tragic flaw by showing contemporary great men undone by their physical appetites. Toward achieving that goal, he is far more effective in the former film than the latter. (more…)
Meet Mr. Karma 