2.
The golden rule of commercially successful narrative art is that the writer has to push their characters into insoluble situations, and have them find their escape. Those escapes are the watermark of quality.
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Black Rabbit
Posted in Film, Netflix, Real Men with tags Abel Ferrara, Black Rabbit, book-review, books, Catholic, Fiction, Jason Bateman, Jude Law, Martin Scorsese, Netflix, New York, reviews, writing on January 22, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle
Black Rabbit
Posted in Film, Netflix, Real Men with tags Abel Ferrara, Anora, Benny Safdie, Black Rabbit, Jason Bateman, Jude Law, Netflix, New York, Sean Baker on January 16, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle
The eponymous Black Rabbit is a restaurant, a ‘nightclub for grownups’, to quote protagonist Jake Friedkin. While the business is a hit, proprietor Jake (played by Jude Law) is painfully over-extended.
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Carldav13 Writes:
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags Barack Obama, Betsy, gun reform, Iris, Martin Scorsese, Rambo: First Blood, Robert De Niro, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Taxi Driver, The Wild Bunch on August 2, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
Technology, specifically the railroad and the telegraph, is shrinking the West into a place where bandits can no longer freely operate. The Bunch are trying to make one last score so they can afford to retire, but the brutality central to their existence is catching up with them.
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Carldav13 Writes:
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading, Real Men with tags Dionysus, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, Iris, Jesus, Joseph Campbell, Martin Scorsese, Mithras, Narcissus, Odysseus, Orpheus, Paul Schrader, Peter Attia, podcast, Robert De Niro, Sam Peckinpah, Siddhartha, Taxi Driver, Terry Real, The Drive, The Hero of One Thousand Faces, The Tim Ferriss Show, The Wild Bunch, Tony Soprano, Travis Bickle on July 31, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle
Pussytown: Denis Villeneuve punks out on Blade Runner 2049
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags Anais Nin, art, Blade Runner 2049, books, Denis Villeneuve, Dune, education, Film, Hans Christian Andersen, K, Kafka, Peckinpah, Replicant, Sara Stewart, Simone De Beauvoir, Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Castle, Vanity Fair, Verhoeven, writing on April 25, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle
‘You’ll love the new Blade Runner – unless you’re a woman.’
- Sara Stewart, New York Post, Oct 4, 2017
There was much ‘feminist’ criticism of Blade Runner 2049. I found it almost as astonishing as the pissweak rejoinder from its director, Denis Villeneuve in Vanity Fair, November 25, 2017:
“Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it’s about today. And I’m sorry, but the world is not kind on women.”
My question is: what the fuck kind of film did Sara watch? And why doesn’t Villeneuve have the balls to stand up and defend the film he made?
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The Substance
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Brian De Palma, Coralie Fargeat, Demi Moore, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kafka, horror, I Spit on Your Grave, Margaret Qualley, metamorphosis, Revenge, surrealism, The Night Porter, The Substance on October 6, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Posted in Film, Real Men with tags bath, Dickie Greenleaf, Jude Law, Matt Damon, mirror, Narcissus, Patricia Highsmith, psychoanalysis, reflection, The Talented Mr Ripley, Tom Ripley on August 30, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle
Part of what makes The Talented Mr Ripley so effective is the casting of Matt Damon in the lead. Most of us have been in his position; awkward, insecure and in awe of someone like Dickie Greenleaf, played by the never better Jude Law.
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Americans, Scorpions and Ants
Posted in Fiction, Film with tags A Farewell to Arms, a Revolution in Hollywood and the making of a Legendary Film, ants, Camille Paglia, Coppola, De Palma, Emilio Fernandez, Ernest Hemingway, Pike Bishop, Sam Peckinpah, scorpions, Scorsese, The Wild Bunch, The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, W.K. Stratton, Warner Brothers, William Holden on June 30, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
The governing metaphor of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is impressed on both protagonist and audience alike in the first moments of the film.
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Americans, Scorpions and Ants
Posted in Fiction, Film with tags A Farewell to Arms, A Mouthful of Stones, Americans, ants, Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Frederic Henry, Hadji Murat, Leo Tolstoy, scorpions, War and Peace on June 20, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle
1.
“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
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Maestro
Posted in Film, Netflix with tags Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Edna St Vincent Millay, Ely Cathedral, Hollywood, Killers of the Flower Moon, Leonard Bernstein, LGBTQI+, Maestro, Mahler, Martin Scorsese, Netflix, Tar on January 1, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle
Watching a narrative film made in Hollywood is a lot like riding a skateboard downhill; you look to find your point of balance and once that’s established, gravity will do the rest. That said, I found Maestro a difficult film to find my balance on.
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Theme Park at its Darkest 