cult film freak: matt dillon

Showing posts with label matt dillon. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 9/03/2021 / No comments / ben bolt , bruce dern , diane lane , drama , eighties , fifties-era , gambling , lee grant , matt dillon , neo noir , thriller , tommy lee jones

MATT DILLON SHOOTS CRAP IN 'THE BIG TOWN' WITH DIANE LANE

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBReMcayiqFtpm_2rIxEy1Ume2F6pTFYHG5Bx-8rIXmtJR654T2lfCBQqazsVIyXvcAnmcCbTGihtrXpbtenxM0goO-0wpFpFyNL0E7yLutdpcbhkAC8_er1ZCSioLGmIyY66__-gsra7FGbbGUW9fqCe91IBlb2TBfc0GPziSXgQL8y6nOAeW5SZ4kSqc/s2048/619331616_1589633489349646_2416514309147265633_n.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBReMcayiqFtpm_2rIxEy1Ume2F6pTFYHG5Bx-8rIXmtJR654T2lfCBQqazsVIyXvcAnmcCbTGihtrXpbtenxM0goO-0wpFpFyNL0E7yLutdpcbhkAC8_er1ZCSioLGmIyY66__-gsra7FGbbGUW9fqCe91IBlb2TBfc0GPziSXgQL8y6nOAeW5SZ4kSqc/s16000/619331616_1589633489349646_2416514309147265633_n.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Diane Lane in THE BIG TOWN Year: 1987 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>With a deliberately sparse-pulpy title, THE BIG TOWN is set during the 1950's... 1957 to be exact... and Dillon really looks the part, a kind of throwback B&W-suited actor even in this neo noir's neon green and pink tinged color scheme, playing a young lucky dice player who miraculously hits the right numbers
 each and every time, giving the movie a sort of unintentional TWILIGHT 
ZONE science-fiction vibe, or something delving into fantasy... </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And for a vehicle so 
otherwise grounded and somewhat cliche, predictable and even mainstream, that's alright since Matt's
 urgency (and the film's suspense) doesn't rely on winning but surviving
 the pool of gambling hoodlum sharks who, from Tommy Lee Jones as an underground backroom
 dealer to a mysterious backstory Tom Skerritt, are out to (or seem out to) stop the endless and 
bizarre winning streak...</p><span></span>

ben bolt, bruce dern, diane lane, drama, eighties, fifties-era, gambling, lee grant, matt dillon, neo noir, thriller, tommy lee jones

MATT DILLON SHOOTS CRAP IN 'THE BIG TOWN' WITH DIANE LANE

Diane Lane in THE BIG TOWN Year: 1987 Rating: ***1/2 With a deliberately sparse-pulpy title, THE BIG TOWN is set during the 1950's... 19...

ESSAY ON FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S ARTSY-TOUGH 'RUMBLE FISH'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke doing time in RUMBLE FISH</u></td></tr>
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Beyond the dynamic B&W cinematography by director Francis Ford Coppola, RUMBLE FISH is a different kind of art film as it's both that and a teenage angst flick: The difference is that both main characters... younger brother Rusty James played by Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke's legendary The Motorcycle Boy... want nothing to do with one or the other... <br>
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In other words, the rumble-tough movie is fully embodied by Matt Dillon's character, who walks the walk and talks the tough guy talk while his now passive mentor, who once genuinely ruled those same streets, is dead-set against all the nostalgic street savvy shit while embodying the deep arthouse aspect which, during some of the best scenes, Dillon's character not only loathes but annoyingly doesn't understand (especially drunk dad Dennis Hopper's surreal drunken rambling), much like young audiences who initially rejected what Coppola intended as an "art film for teenagers" (a cerebral b-side to THE OUTSIDERS, both S.E. Hinton adaptations) but eventually grew to, like Rourke's wandering, pondering nomad, embrace as a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience where brothers and genres simultaneously collide onscreen. "Man, what the f--- do the Greeks have to do with anything?" The answer is... Nothing. And Everything.</p><span></span>

arthouse, dennis hopper, eighties, essay, francis ford coppola, matt dillon, mickey rourke

ESSAY ON FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S ARTSY-TOUGH 'RUMBLE FISH'

Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke doing time in RUMBLE FISH Beyond the dynamic B&W cinematography by director Francis Ford Coppola, RUMB...

MATT DILLON'S KILLER ROLE IN 'THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Year of Capture and Release: 2018</u></td></tr>
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THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT isn't quite sure when it's good since the good parts don't last long enough, or connect to the movie as a whole, intruded upon by annoying off-screen conversational narration (i.e. colorless commentary) between Matt Dillon and a mysterious, vocally-grating Bruno Ganz... <br>
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As a Serial Killer Movie, the most interesting scenes are the deaths, and there are five "situations" in total, warned up front by title cards. But overboard director Lars von Trier throws in so many video clips (Nazis, etc) that in trying to connect with the "ultra violence" on screen, the story and character become secondhand as opposed to second-nature for Matt Dillon's Jack, made up like someone who'd be teased about dressing like "a serial killer" including awkward glasses and uncomfortably looking "nice clothes." In fact, his first victim in Matt's BEAUTIFUL GIRLS co-star Uma Thurman bags on his threads while literally begging to be murdered.  <br>

2018, bruno ganz, crime, lars von trier, matt dillon, new, serial killer, thriller, uma thurman

MATT DILLON'S KILLER ROLE IN 'THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT'

Year of Capture and Release: 2018 THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT isn't quite sure when it's good since the good parts don't last ...

BEFORE BULLYING WAS A CRIME THERE WAS 'MY BODYGUARD'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Matt Dillon & future Flashdance Jennifer Beals YEAR: 1980</u></td></tr>
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A classy teenage high school bully movie opening with what sounds like a classical music piece and a young kid riding a ten-speed bike through grainy Chicago...<br>
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Enter Chris Makepeace, also picked-on then befriended in the previous year's <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2010/03/kristine-debell-meatballs.html">MEATBALLS</a>, a fantastic little actor when he was little. But another semi-newcomer, Matt Dillon, steals the show as Moody, the high school's kingpin despite his being what seems like a sophomore.. anyhow, they ain't seniors: The only "kid" who looks like an adult and/or college student is future <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2016/02/4FMj.html">FULL METAL JACKET</a> stud Adam Baldwin as Ricky Linderman and, like every town has a haunted house, every school has a kid with a violent yet mysterious background. The plot of MY BODYGUARD is all in the title — alas, the corniest scenes occur in the middle as Makepeace's Clifford Peache... whose father runs a Hotel despite his mom/Cliff's grandma, Ruth Gordon, flirting with any and all male guests/residents... bonds with and rides a motorcycle with Ricky in a prolonged "feel-good" sequence of campy After School Special fare...<br>
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adam baldwin, bully, chris makepeace, eighties, high school, jennifer beals, martin mull, matt dillon, ruth gordon, teen

BEFORE BULLYING WAS A CRIME THERE WAS 'MY BODYGUARD'

Matt Dillon & future Flashdance Jennifer Beals YEAR: 1980 A classy teenage high school bully movie opening with what sounds like a c...

OLD VERSES THE BRAND NEW METHOD FOR 'GOING IN STYLE'

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Karen Montgomery says bye to Art Carney in 19 79 version</u></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">For a website covering new movies while being all about old and semi old classics, the difference between two eras of filmmaking and/or storytelling can be summed up pretty quick and fairly easy, right here and now, with a single motion picture that's been remade... </span><br>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The Martin Brest 1979 laidback comedy caper GOING IN STYLE starred two celebrity icons, George Burns and Art Carney, as well as acting guru Lee Strasberg (Hyman Roth from THE GODFATHER II), and centered on three old-timers who rob a bank:</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> In movies back then, protagonists didn't need a reason to be angry about society in order to pull off a heist since, at the end of the 1970's Renaissance, while films were becoming less independent and more mainstream, so this movie combined both with a story catered to an audiences and a plotline and structure that only meant something for the characters within... The polar opposite of the GOING IN STYLE remake from 2017. </span><br>

2017, alan arkin, art carney, george burns, heist, karen montgomery, lee strasberg, matt dillon, michael caine, morgan freeman, new, seventies

OLD VERSES THE BRAND NEW METHOD FOR 'GOING IN STYLE'

Karen Montgomery says bye to Art Carney in 19 79 version For a website covering new movies while being all about old and semi old classi...

PROANTAGONIST: THE ECLECTIC NEO NOIR OF MATT DILLON

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Matt Dillon in the Noir remake A KISS BEFORE DYING</u></td></tr>
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<u>THE RUMBLING OUTSIDER</u>: Matt Dillon as the kind of face that seems perfectly suited for Black & White, even in color...
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Rumble Fish Blues</u></td></tr>
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For example, when he looks into the hospital mirror during the riskiest of many risky heists in DRUGSTORE COWBOY, his slick black hair contrasts dramatically to pale white skin and then, with the turn of his head, the blood red along his forehead accents the fevered heat of the moment... The sudden contrast is reminiscent of the actual Chinese fighter fish i.e. RUMBLE FISH, the only colored objects (red) in an otherwise completely B&W film, steals the picture in Coppola's first of the two S.E. Hinton collaborations beginning with THE OUTSIDERS as the James Dean/Marlon Brando hybrid: A rogue rebel completely idolized by the two young central characters played by C. Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio... But to everyone beyond the gang, being a outright criminal as well as a charmer, if anyone of the cast of future teen heartthrobs (including Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze) makes this otherwise teen gang melodrama, it's his character, Dallas Winston, who, unlike his ambitious RUMBLE FISH little brother character, Rusty James, doesn't want to be a leader <i>or</i> a follower...<br>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>RITCHIE: "A kid who tells on another kid, is a dead kid."</u></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Lighting up The Outsiders</u></td></tr>
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And, behind the scenes according to the Coppola commentary track of THE OUTSIDERS; while it took days, even weeks, for some of the other actors to be cast, Dillon walked in and got the job right away (both RUMBLE FISH and OUTSIDERS will be reviewed on their own territory with an upcoming "Coppola Does Hinton, Twice"). The former OVER THE EDGE "post child actor" was fourteen in his first role in 1979 where his bike riding, chain smoking Ritchie White is the Dallas Winston of the suburban outskirts, again leading the underdogs (whether he's present or not) to victory. But it was MY BODYGUARD the following year that proved Dillon could really act, and it took the second Coppola/Hinton flick to underline that fact...<br>

andrew mccarthy, bruce dern, charles bukowski, diane lane, eighties, francis ford coppola, harry northup, matt dillon, neo noir, nineties, remake, retrospective, seventies, suspense, tens, thriller, zeroes

PROANTAGONIST: THE ECLECTIC NEO NOIR OF MATT DILLON

Matt Dillon in the Noir remake A KISS BEFORE DYING THE RUMBLING OUTSIDER : Matt Dillon as the kind of face that seems perfectly suited...

COMEDY FILM CHARACTERS WHO TAKE THEMSELVES SERIOUSLY

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Only one of these two USED CAR actors made the cut</u></td></tr>
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This List, originally conceived as THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS A COMEDY, involves ten actors who didn't have to "hit the right comedic marks" to fit neatly inside a comedy vehicle...<br>
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Which doesn't mean the actors or actresses were somehow misdirected or misguided into being overly headstrong, determined, melodramatic and, while in a project where laughs are estimated before the production even begins, the ultimate goal of audience-reaction pretty much counts for everything, and yet, these (sometimes Method) Actors stick to their guns, loaded with a natural style, either hot or cold, laid-back or edgy, and are never throwing a proverbial wink to the audience that says, "It's all for fun" — separating an actor playing for a laugh (which <i>is</i> an art-form in itself) to those simply playing the role outright, and just happening to be in a comedy film: An extremely fine line...<br>

art metrano, christopher guest, eighties, harry nothup, jan-michael vincent, jerry reed, joe pesci, june chadwick, list, matt dillon, peter sellers, seventies, sixties, vic morrow, walter matthau

COMEDY FILM CHARACTERS WHO TAKE THEMSELVES SERIOUSLY

Only one of these two USED CAR actors made the cut This List, originally conceived as THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS A COMEDY, involves ten...

LOOKING INTO THE WAYWARD PINES PILOT EPISODE

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2015 Grade: C+</td></tr>
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Matt Dillon stars in WAYWARD PINES, and how. There’s little left for any other character since his Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke is so desperately alone, and beyond LOST... No not on an island but an idyllic small town ala Norman Rockwell; a sort of Mayberry existing in THE TWILIGHT ZONE. And with genre producer M. Night Shyamalan at the helm, you would think a few surprise elements would appear out of the woodwork – but the twists in this adaptation of someone else’s novel are already built in from the get-go…<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Outsider</td></tr>
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PINES has been compared to TWIN PEAKS since its very conception, but the Neo Noir aspect of David Lynch’s bizarre mystery is nowhere to be found, really, other than a guy in a stiff suit out of his element. Just a 45-minute setup where we met a few strange people – especially one particular nurse who provides the sole indication that M. Night is involved beyond the pilot’s meticulous direction: she could do a horror movie wonders, and Melissa Leo seems to be having a blast unveiling her creepy, campy, old fashion Alpha Female role.<br />
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The pilot WHERE PARADISE IS HOME cuts back and forth with an injured Dillon… involved in a car crash on the way to investigate missing Secret Service agents, waking up in a sparse hospital without a cell phone… to his hometown where a brooding son and perfect wife stress on the news, while the Agency tries locating his whereabouts, in vain… <br />
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But what only seems to matter, while a bleeding, bruised Dillon trudges around and finds no resources... except for Juliette Lewis's port in the storm... is the final establishing exterior shot that the show’s very own promotion and description already gave away, blunting any mystery that should still be lurking around every shady corner. For in a town as openly strange as WAYWARD PINES, where else is there to go? It almost feels like the magician revealed the trick too soon.

m. night, matt dillon, suspense, TV

LOOKING INTO THE WAYWARD PINES PILOT EPISODE

2015 Grade: C+ Matt Dillon stars in WAYWARD PINES, and how. There’s little left for any other character since his Secret Service Agent E...

Written by James M. Tate / 1/02/2011 / No comments / comedy , drama , ensemble , matt dillon , michael rapaport , nineties , romance , timothy hutton

BEAUTIFUL GIRLS

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJUMU0MwYhC-6W0jUqxZSJaXIPqWZMpquC2cPDFGDRvbaF5JZ4j2kC8VFXIT6uP_TsbgI2J3_2StFwgQ98j3pDK3SN20zcShaBswKzwUvdmLzi-RdDORJ0shwEORkCzu6SEeCq0Xo-Ok/s1600/images.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557704060652495634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJUMU0MwYhC-6W0jUqxZSJaXIPqWZMpquC2cPDFGDRvbaF5JZ4j2kC8VFXIT6uP_TsbgI2J3_2StFwgQ98j3pDK3SN20zcShaBswKzwUvdmLzi-RdDORJ0shwEORkCzu6SEeCq0Xo-Ok/s200/images.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 126px;" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">title: </span>BEAUTIFUL GIRLS<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">year: </span>1996<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">cast: </span>Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon, Michael Rapaport, Uma Thurman, Noah Emmerich, Natalie Portman<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">rating:</span> ****<br /><br />Timothy Hutton, back in a role worthy of his talents, is an undefined city-dwelling piano player in his late twenties, returning to his small town and quickly getting back into the swing of things: consisting of drinking and hanging-out with old pals Matt Dillon, who's having an affair with a married woman; Noah Emmerich, a faithful dad and husband; and scene-stealer Michael Rapaport, who not only refuses to grow up but has a theory: the fantasy of the perfect woman (aka supermodels) exceeds the promise of<span style="font-style: italic;"> true love</span>. Uma Thurman plays the quintessential <span style="font-style: italic;">beautiful girl </span>who, along with a cute, intelligent thirteen year old neighbor Natalie Portman, helps Hutton not only realize what life and love are about: but if they can be one in the same. Funny without being silly; serious without pretentiousness... this is the epitome of an "uplifting" movie where every character shines.

comedy, drama, ensemble, matt dillon, michael rapaport, nineties, romance, timothy hutton