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
J.G. Ballard: Kingdom Come
Posted in Reading, Real Men with tags book-review, books, fascism, Fiction, J.G. Ballard, Kingdom Come, politics on June 14, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
I thought it was time to pay him a visit and see if he could freak me out like he used to.
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J.G. Ballard: Kingdom Come
Posted in Reading, Real Men with tags book-reviews, books, Crash, David Cronenberg, Empire of the Sun, Fiction, Five Books, J.G. Ballard, Jeff Buckley, Joyce Carey, Kingdom Come, Marquis de Sade, reading, Robert Plant, Running Wild, Steven Spielberg, The Atrocity Exhibition, writing on June 5, 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 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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‘The Men Who Came Too Late and Stayed Too Long.’
Posted in Film, Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags Bryan Dorries, David Fincher, Pauline Kael, Peckinpah, Roger Ebert, The Wild Bunch on March 25, 2023 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
What I like about Peckinpah is that you never know what you’re going to get. You’re certainly not there to be ‘entertained’. Like David Fincher says, it’s going to leave a scar.
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‘The Men Who Came Too Late and Stayed Too Long.’
Posted in Film, Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags Apocalypse, Billie Eilish, COVID, hip replacement, Ocean Eyes, Point Break, Sam Peckinpah, Straw Dogs, Surgery, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Wild Bunch on March 19, 2023 by Jarrod Boyle
1.
Surgery is a major life event. I had a hip replacement, which means full derailment; it’s a paradigm shift quite unlike any other. And most of the time, paradigm shifts find you stranded in a world that’s changed and requires that you develop new skills in order to cope. In my case, I return to the world with a certain ability that I had lost, namely, the ability to walk and stand square and strong, without pain.
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Theme Park at its Darkest 