The Stop Button

An appreciation of amusements.

The Stop Button random header image

Entries Tagged as 'Roy Scheider'

Last Embrace (1979, Jonathan Demme)

November 13th, 2007 No Comments

Last Embrace goes a long way in showing what’s wrong with Hitchcock homages. Most of Last Embrace isn’t even a real Hitchcock homage–it’s a Niagara homage and Niagara was Henry Hathaway–but Embrace is supposed to be Hitchcock, down to Miklos Rozsa’s score (but he never did any Hitchcock). So it’s kind of a second-hand Hitchcock […]

Recommend on Mahalo

Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)

April 24th, 2007 No Comments

The first half of Jaws–before the boat, when it becomes a different film–might be the most perfectly made film ever. The second half isn’t less perfectly made, but it’s its own thing, not easily comparable to any other film; that first half deals in traditional filmic standards and does so with singular success. Verna Fields’s […]

Recommend on Mahalo

The Seven-Ups (1973, Philip D’Antoni)

February 27th, 2007 1 Comment

The Seven-Ups is a fascist daydream beyond almost any cinematic compare, certainly American cinema (except maybe a Charles Bronson movie from the 1980s or something). And it’s not a cheap, 1970s exploitation picture either. Yes, to some degree it’s cheap (Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco are the only two recognizable principals), but producer and […]

Recommend on Mahalo

The Rainmaker (1997, Francis Ford Coppola)

January 4th, 2006 No Comments

The Rainmaker’s got some beautiful stuff in it. My history with it is somewhat sorted… I discovered it on DVD, then abandoned it–and have now rediscovered it. I can’t remember what my last problem with it was–probably the same as my current one–but I was selling DVDs and needed cash.
It’s not perfect and has some […]

Recommend on Mahalo