The Stop Button

An appreciation of amusements.

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Entries Tagged as 'Brian Dennehy'

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005, Jean-François Richet)

July 1st, 2008 No Comments

Assault on Precinct 13 doesn’t remind of an early 1990s action movie because of Dorian Harewood, Kim Coates or Brian Dennehy showing up–or even because of the movie specific end credits song (by KRS-One no less). It doesn’t even remind of that genre because it lifts the icicle shamelessly from Die Hard 2. Even the […]

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First Blood (1982, Ted Kotcheff)

June 5th, 2008 No Comments

Maybe if it weren’t for the Stephen J. Cannell television techniques (cars flying through the air or exploding on impact), the asinine, comedic banter between the deputies, some poor writing and Richard Crenna, First Blood might have been okay. Ted Kotcheff isn’t a good director though, so maybe not. Kotcheff shoots exteriors well (the stuff […]

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Perfect Witness (1989, Robert Mandel)

January 25th, 2008 No Comments

Perfect Witness is a standard TV movie, even if it was on HBO (I’m not sure what got it on HBO even… language, maybe?), even if it does have a great cast. During the opening credits, it’s names like Brian Dennehy, Stockard Channing, Delroy Lindo, Joe Grifasi, and Aidan Quinn. Robert Mandel directed it. It […]

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F/X (1986, Robert Mandel)

October 31st, 2007 1 Comment

About ten minutes in to F/X, I got wondering how the film was going to deal with being a special effects-filled film about a guy doing special effects for films. I suppose they didn’t have to deal with that relationship, but it kept seeming more and more like they were going to need to address […]

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Ratatouille (2007, Brad Bird)

July 2nd, 2007 No Comments

While Ratatouille features Pixar’s finest three-dimensional CG, it also features their worst two dimensional characters. The problem’s apparent from the start–the main character has one conflict and it turns out to resolve itself quite easily in the end. There are other conflicts in the film, but they’re all external to the main character, Remy–whose name […]

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The Stars Fell on Henrietta (1995, James Keach)

May 11th, 2006 No Comments

I wonder if, in the early 1970s, anyone could tell Robert Duvall was going to end up playing the scruffy-looking, ne’er do-well with the heart of gold over and over again. He doesn’t particularly act in The Stars Fell on Henrietta. He just shows up and does his thing. His scruffy-looking thing. There’s some attempt […]

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