By Lee Pfeiffer
Stories about troubled cops or ex-cops still have a foothold in movies and TV shows -- almost to the point where you wonder why so these emotionally vulnerable men and women chose a stressful career in law enforcement in the first place. Private eyes, on the other hand, are almost an extinct species on the screen, after great media popularity in the 1950s and intermittent periods of audience demand since then. Maybe, as fantasy figures who embody power, personal integrity, and social conscience, trenchcoated PIs have been displaced and replaced by superheroes. The hero of Hal Ashby’s “8 Million Ways to Die” (1986), Matt Scudder (Jeff Bridges), begins as a policeman but becomes an unlicensed, free-lance gumshoe in the course of the story. A detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, Scudder serves a warrant on a suspected drug trafficker in the opening scenes of the film.
Stories about troubled cops or ex-cops still have a foothold in movies and TV shows -- almost to the point where you wonder why so these emotionally vulnerable men and women chose a stressful career in law enforcement in the first place. Private eyes, on the other hand, are almost an extinct species on the screen, after great media popularity in the 1950s and intermittent periods of audience demand since then. Maybe, as fantasy figures who embody power, personal integrity, and social conscience, trenchcoated PIs have been displaced and replaced by superheroes. The hero of Hal Ashby’s “8 Million Ways to Die” (1986), Matt Scudder (Jeff Bridges), begins as a policeman but becomes an unlicensed, free-lance gumshoe in the course of the story. A detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, Scudder serves a warrant on a suspected drug trafficker in the opening scenes of the film.
- 8/17/2017
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Tonight on ‘movies we really want to like’ we have Hal Ashby’s final feature, an L.A.- based crime saga with a great cast and spirited direction and . . . and not much else. It isn’t the train wreck described in Kino’s candid actor interviews, but we can see only too well why it wasn’t a big winner when new. Any day that a Jeff Bridges picture doesn’t shine, is a dark day in my book.
8 Million Ways to Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1986 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 115 min. / Street Date June 20, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, Andy Garcia, Alexandra Paul, Randy Brooks.
Cinematography: Stephen H. Burum
Film Editor: Robert Lawrence, Stuart H. Pappé
Original Music: James Newton Howard
Written by Oliver Stone, David Lee Henry (R. Lance Hill) from the book by Lawrence Block
Produced by Steve Roth
Directed by Hal Ashby
Well,...
8 Million Ways to Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1986 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 115 min. / Street Date June 20, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, Andy Garcia, Alexandra Paul, Randy Brooks.
Cinematography: Stephen H. Burum
Film Editor: Robert Lawrence, Stuart H. Pappé
Original Music: James Newton Howard
Written by Oliver Stone, David Lee Henry (R. Lance Hill) from the book by Lawrence Block
Produced by Steve Roth
Directed by Hal Ashby
Well,...
- 6/16/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
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