A feast for film buffs and nirvana for fans of Brian De Palma (count me among them since the late seventies!) the documentary DE PALMA is a knockout film experience. It's deceivingly simple. Filmmakers Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) and Jake Paltrow (Boardwalk Empire) have become friends with the legendary De Palma. They ask him many questions but the genius of their film is that you never see them or hear their questions. You just sit across from De Palma as he tells riveting stories of every film he's made, along with his background and his battles with the studio system. Hundreds of clips feature his greatest hits and his most obscure works with equal care. As a key member of the seventies Hollywood vanguard alongside George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese, De Palma shares insights into the way they all changed the movies. Digging film by film into revealing stories of interaction with his stars and crew for each film, he lets film buffs peek behind the curtain. I loved his glimpses into stories I had never heard about "Dressed To Kill" and "Carrie". One of my favorite films of his, "Blow Out" with John Travolta yielded funny and dramatic insights into his battle with the studio over a movie I love to this day, but flopped at the time. De Palma is disarmingly frank about doing his biggest hits for money and exposure (Mission Impossible, The Untouchables) while laboring over his smaller, independent films. I love the fact that he addresses the fact that many critics ravaged him for "mimicking" Hitchcock, while other directors copied famous styles and adapted them to applause and support. It's a great and winning argument he offers up. Clips of his very early films with a very young Robert DeNiro are a blast and by the time they circle back decades later for him to appear as Al Capone in "The Untouchables", DeNiro's costs have gone WAY up! This is like a two hour film lecture from one of my generations best, most controversial directors. For anyone that thinks De Palma was done making great films in the 80's, check out the little seen 2002 film "Femme Fatale". It's everything that De Palma's films have oozed for decades, violence, sex, mystery and danger. De Palma still has great films living in him as he approached 70. Kudos to his documentarians for capturing the man and his talent up close and in depth. DE PALMA gets an A.

I went into DEN OF THIEVES expecting very little and it blew me away, a fast moving action thriller in the same vein as on one of my favorite films, the Pacino/DeNiro masterpiece "Heat". Pablo Schreiber (13 Hours) is Merrimen, the highly trained former special serviceman now heading up the boldest gang of bank robbers in the history of Los Angeles. As the film opens, Merrimen and his crew stage an armored car heist. What you realize right away is that the fire power of this movie is going to blow you through the back wall and that writer/director Christian Gudegast (London Has Fallen) brings a strong sense of style with him. He's no Michael Mann, and this isn't "Heat" but there are moments that get in the same neighborhood, and that's pretty damn good. In the opening moments, it even FEELS like "Heat" with the wet streets of LA, drenched in a score by Cliff Martinez that feels lifted from Tangerine Dream's score for Mann's fim. Gerard Butler is in-your-face as "Big Nick" O'Brien, the leader of an elite LA Special Crimes unit. He becomes obsessed with understanding and capturing Merrimen. The lines between the good guys and the bad guys blur as O'Brien and Merrimen begin to respect each other while taking very different sides of the law. When Merrimen launches an audacious plan to rob the impenetrable Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Los Angeles, the film kicks in, giving us an understanding of his ingenious plan while it confuses the hell out of us on who to root for during the heist. O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton) is very good as a bold getaway driver that Merrimen brings aboard. Maurice Compte (Narcos) is strong as Benny 'Borracho' but 50 Cent is pretty weak mumbling his way through his role. Once the caper begins, its non-stop suspense and action. The amount of ammunition unloaded in the final 30 minutes must set some sort of record, with both sides of the heist meeting in a confrontation that spills out over LA in a hail of gunfire. Dripping machismo, Butler and Schreiber make formidable adversaries. Both are focused, both have questionable morals and reprehensible behavior, but both actors know how to play these types of characters for maximum impact, covered in blood, sweat and adrenaline. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Who cares. This is a great action film that far exceeds expectations on the way to an A.

1977's DEMON SEED is a fascinating little Sci-Fi/horror flick from Dean Koontz's novel of the same name. Married but separating doctors Susan and Alex Harris live in an ultra modern home fully automated with a vision of the future from 1977 that looks pretty silly from our viewpoint some 35 years later. Scientist Alex (Fritz Weaver) has invented the ultimate super computer than can think for itself and child Psychologist Susan (Julie Christie) feels completely disconnected from him and his priorities, deciding to stay in their home as he moves out for a few months. Soon, Alex's super computer becomes a bit too self aware and traps Susan in their home with a master plan of mating with her to create a super being. It sounds really stupid, but you have to give director Donald Cammell credit in his only major studio film for steering a smart path through a decent screenplay and keeping it smart, suspenseful and interesting. Some of the "state of the art" computer graphics from 1977 are pretty laughable now, but Christie and Weaver are so good, you forgive the aged setting. The scene in which Proteus, the supercomputer mates with Julie Christie ranks right up with Sean Connery and the giant floating head spaceships of ZARDOZ as the two strangest moments of 1970's Sci-Fi. Clever, dated but riveting adult fun that gets a B.

Inspired by the actual accounts of NYPD Sergeant Ralph Sarchie, DELIVER US FROM EVIL depicts some pretty scary doings in NYC. When a rash of demonic possessions overtakes Manhattan, Sarchie teams with a young priest, Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez) to battle the devil's crimes. There's a lot of talent in front of and behind the camera, including Olivia Munn and a terrific turn by "Talk Soup" host Joel McHale as Sarchie's partner. Anytime you mix demons and call it "real life", you better deliver and for the most part, the film moves quickly, provides some nice scares and some decent chills, but overall leaves you wanting. Writer Scott Derrickson provided a lot more terror in his previous film, "Sinister", but does an adequate job here, earning an R with some solid gore and scary effects. I only wish the screenplay gave Bana and Ramirez a lot more to do. They're both good actors, but stuck with a pretty pedestrian screenplay that never quite delivers enough to earn more than a C.

If you want to go back in time and experience the box office smash action films of the 80's, look no further than 1986's Lee Marvin/Chuck Norris hit THE DELTA FORCE. One of those classic 70's and 80's thrillers with all the casts pictures at the bottom of the poster and our heroes firing blazing guns, the film is surprisingly straight forward. An airliner on its way from Athens to Rome is hijacked by terrorists led by Robert Forster (overacting but in all fairness doing his best with the stereotypical role of "Abdul"). This puts the usual plane full of passengers in peril, including George Kennedy, Joey Bishop, Shelley WInters and Martin Balsam. (You'd think Kennedy would avoid planes by now after 4 Airport flicks....) The Delta Force is called in, providing plenty of excitement and firepower. Some observations from a 2015 perspective: * How in the hell did Chuck Norris become such a huge star. I have seen ventriloquist dolls less wooden than Chuck. He is B A D. * Lee Marvin blows Norris off the screen even when they are both silent on screen. Marvin was a breed of tough movie star that no longer exists and that's a shame! * Some of the stars surprise you with how good they are, including Joey Bishop playing it straight, Bo Svenson as our pilot and Martin Balsam as a Jewish tourist targeted because of his faith. * The music score by Alan Silvestri is very good. He would go on the following year to "Predator", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "The Abyss". * The screenplay is as bad as you'd expect, stuffed with cliches, stereotypes and horrific dialogue But somehow, it rises a bit above expectations as a satisfying example of 80's action. Granted, those expectations are about as big as Chuck Norris's emotional range....so non-existent. Look for Liam Neeson and Kevin Dillon (Entourage) in small roles as members of the Delta team. Dumb, but nostalgic and sprinkled with some surprisingly effective dramatic moments, we'll give THE DELTA FORCE a C.

The world never heard banjos in quite the same way after the 1972 release of Director John Boorman's seminal outdoor adventure DELIVERANCE. With the passing of Burt Reynolds this week, I wanted to go back and watch one of his films. It's easy to forget how good Reynolds could be and he's excellent in his role as Lewis, the cocky, devil-may-care outdoorsman dragging along three other men on a weekend river run from hell. Lewis brings his friend Ed, (Jon Voight) and lesser acquaintances, soft spoken Drew (Ronnie Cox) and Bobby (Ned Beatty) deep into the Appalachian backwoods to run a river that's about to be buried deep under a new dam. For Lewis, its man versus his own limitations. For the rest, its a relaxing weekend gone mad. Director Boorman (Excalibur) translates James Dickey's terrific novel to the screen brilliantly, building creeping unease almost immediately as our friends arrive in small towns that could be on another planet where education, money and a full set of teeth seem like luxuries. When Bobby and Ed are ambushed in the woods by two terrifying hillbillies, the film turns terrifying. Sexually assaulted and fearing death, Lewis puts his crossbow into action and the film flips into a test of survival against the river, the locals and the men's sense of right and wrong. Seeing the film all these years later, the acting holds up across the board, with Reynolds, Cox and Voight all at the top of their game and Beatty suffering one of the most notorious film humiliations of all time. Watching Beatty in the scenes in town toward the end of the film, his reactions are powerful. The river scenes are fantastic, filled with incredible stunts, strong action and real tension. There are ten minute sequences that take place with only the sounds of water and nature in the background, building suspense in slow, subtle twists. Boorman casts all locals in most of the parts, bringing a scary authenticity to these unseen backwater swamps of America not on anyone's list to visit. Reynolds broke his tailbone going over the rapids. That really is Jon Voight climbing the rock wall for the kill. The dance that the old man at the gas station does was unscripted and he's not an actor. If that scene doesn't scare you, I dont know what will. The photography by Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters) is fantastic. Special effects artist Marcel Vercoutere does for broken bones and arrows here what he did so brilliantly with the devil in "The Exorcist" the following year. Reynolds said this was his favorite film he ever made and his best performance. It's hard to argue. At one point as Lewis, Reynolds says "Sometimes you have to lose yourself 'fore you can find anything." By the quiet closing moments of DELIVERANCE, you realize how prophetic those words were. Suspense filled and disturbing, DELIVERANCE gets an A. I never want to hear those damn banjos again....

Albert Brooks is the closest thing we have to another Woody Allen in my book. Intelligent, humorous and constantly self effacing, Brooks delivered one of his best films with 1991's DEFENDING YOUR LIFE. After a fatal accident in his brand new dream BMW, Daniel Miller (Brooks) finds himself in a way station afterlife, Judgement City. Miller rides a Universal Studio Tour life tram to his middle of the road Holiday Inn type hotel. Perfectly comfortable but nothing very special, Daniel is taken to a large office complex where he will review his life and see if he's earned the right to go on to the next level, or if he has to back to Earth and try again. From beginning to end, this is a hilarious take on how we look at our lives. Buck Henry, who had a similar role welcoming Warren Beatty to the pearly gates in "Heaven Can Wait" is drop dead funny as a legendary defender without much to say. Rip Torn (The Larry Sanders Show) is LOL funny as Bob, Daniels main defender arguing his side in front of two judges. Lee Grant (The Landlord) is perfect as the prosecutor trying to convince the judges that Miller is not over his fears and is not ready to move on. Meryl Streep is terrific as Julia, another recent arrival in Judgement City who seems to be the perfect match for Miller. Too good to be true? Bad timing? It's hilarious watching Brooks realize that he's got 9 days of trial and Julia's only got a few. When he sees her Ritz Carlton like hotel, he realizes that maybe he hasn't led his best life. Daniel Miller: What is this? Julia: It's my hotel. Daniel Miller: This is your hotel? Julia: Yeah. Where are you staying? Daniel Miller: Obviously at the place for people that weren't very generous and didn't adopt anybody. I'm at the Continental. Come over one day; we'll paint it. _____________________________ Beautifully shot by Allen Daviau (ET, Empire of the Sun, Bugsy) and smoothly directed by Brooks himself, its a constantly smile inducing blend of observation and comedy. The courtroom scenes in which Daniel is made to look back at his life are so perfectly played it feels like Woody's flashbacks in his best films. Grant's grillings of Daniel are a thing of beauty. Lena Foster: What did you finally invest in, Mr. Miller, do you remember? Daniel Miller: [under his breath] Um, uh... cattle. Lena Foster: And what happened to the cattle? Daniel Miller: I don't know; I never got a straight answer. All I know is that their teeth fell out. ________________________ Beneath the laughs, there are plenty of powerful ponderings on how we live our lives to the fullest. Streep and Brooks have real chemistry and their quick romance never feels forced, thanks to Brooks flawless delivery. I could watch Buck Henry and Rip Torn all day, there are few supporting actors in history that can deliver punchlines like these two classic actors. With Brooks screenplay in their hands, its a showcase. Beatty and Christie's final scene in "Heaven Can Wait" is in my all time Top 5 best movie endings. While Brooks and Streep can't quite match that magic, the final moments here are pretty damn perfect and a sweet coda to a very fun ride. DEFENDING YOUR LIFE is comic heaven for smart audiences, earning a halo topped A.

Looking for your next binge watch and love crime thrillers? Run, dont walk to Apple TV+'s DEFENDING JACOB, a powerful 8-part adaption of the hit crime novel by William Landay. Chris Evans (Captain America) is Boston assistant DA Andy Barber. He's a respected attorney, with a terrific wife Laurie (Michelle Dockery) and teenage son Jacob. When a classmate of Jacob's is found brutally murdered in the park near their high school, their son is soon implicated and charged with the crime. Evans is terrific as a father torn between his passion for the law and his sudden confusion on being on the on the other side of the charges. He's had ample opportunity in the Marvel movies to show his range. Between his role in "Knives Out" last year and his performance here, he rises to another level. Dockery (The Gentlemen, Downton Abbey) delivers a tightly wound, painful performance as a mother who begins to question everything about her son. Martell (young Bill in "IT") is an impenetrable mystery as an awkward teen dealing with bullying, the pressures of social media and being thrust into the media spotlight. Cherry Jones (Signs, 24) is fantastic as Jacob's defense attorney Joanna Klein. Tamara and I were fortunate enough to see her on Broadway in "Doubt" and she's one of the best actresses on the planet. She's jaw-dropping as a brilliant attorney torn between her friendship with Andy and the family torn apart by increasingly ugly truths. JK Simmons (Whiplash) is excellent as well as Andy's estranged father. The less you know going in the better on the elder Billy Barber, the better, so I'll all say is Simmons disappears into the character, he's reliably great. Pablo Schreiber (Den of Thieves) is also very good as Andy's fellow attorney Neal. He's featured in a story framing device that weaves through all eight hours so cleverly that you only realize its true purpose in the final episode. Creator/Director Mark Bomback manages to adapt the novel with more than a few twists that will surprise the millions that read the novel. The 8 hour structure gives him a lot of room to breathe and the space to present a lot of characters, suspects, tragic figures and red herrings into the mix, but he always maintains focus. The final episode is a roller coaster for the Barber family and for any viewer that's flown through episodes 1-7 to find out whodunit. It's a clever, smart and emotional ending that I never saw coming. DEFENDING JACOB should be your next binge watch and gets an A.

Director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg delivered us two very good films in 2016, "Patriots Day" and DEEPWATER HORIZON. Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams, Chief Electrical Engineer on the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon. Along with his boss Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell), he has deep concerns about the sloppy set up procedures on the rig, seemingly rushed by the BP Oil Executives in a rush to the bottom line. Jimmy and Mike push again and again that the behind schedule rig is not ready to begin tapping into the massive oil bed in the sea bottom three miles below. When they're forced to begin anyway, a massive explosion of oil and then fire engulf the giant platform and all aboard are forced to fight for survival. The film cleverly provides you with enough basic information about how the platform works that you understand the action when it happens. Kate Hudson is terrific as Mike's wife Felicia, Gina Rodriguez is very good as a young engineer and Mike's right hand person and the always terrific John Malkovich is perfectly Cajun and slimy as the head BP executive on board who witnesses the results of his directives to cut corners. The special effects are fantastic and scary as hell, the explosions of oil and fire that tear apart the rig are stunning in scale and their after effects are depicted so realistically that you feel like a camera crew was actually there. DEEPWATER avoids the traps of traditional disaster films (long exposition and introduction of bland characters, silly escapes) by being true to the events in 2010 that resulted in the biggest oil spill in history. Wahlberg and a strong cast do a great job of portraying everyday people doing their job and trapped in a massive inferno. How anyone escaped is a miracle. Kurt Russell is very good in his role as the lead man on the rig trapped between doing the right thing and his limited power at the feet of the BP execs. Berg and his writers just show the facts, they don't paint stereotypical portraits of the execs as mustache twirling bad guys, just as men who must face the startling consequences of their decisions. As he did in "Patriot's Day", Berg bookends the film with audio and video clips of the actual people depicted, upping the human stakes of all the action within. Suspenseful, visually stunning, fast moving and dramatic, DEEPWATER HORIZON gets a B.

A good old fashioned disaster movie with state of the art effects (at least for 1998) DEEP IMPACT is a fun, exciting two hour ride. Reporter Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni) discovers the story of the approaching meteor by mistake when drilling a senator on what she thinks is an affair. Suddenly she is in front of the President (the impeccable, rock solid Morgan Freeman) who is guaranteeing her the first question when he announces the comet's impending arrival to the unsuspecting US public. There is the requisite mission by a Soviet/US team to divert the meteor using nuclear weapons in space, but as we know from every other asteroid movie (Meteor, Armageddon) and the poster, that just ain't gonna work. Soon the country is bracing for impact and an all star cast meets varying fates. Leoni is the only lightweight in the cast, she seems way over her head in the starring role. Everyone else is terrific, including Robert Duvall as an aging but heroic astronaut, Vanessa Redgrave as Tia's mom, a young Elijah Wood as the amateur astronomer that discovers the comet and Maximillian Schell as Leoni's father. Not sure how two actors of Redgrave and Schell's capabilities gave cinematic birth to Leoni, but they blow her off the screen. Of course, we're all just waiting for that big old rock to hit and the moment doesn't disappoint, making sure to destroy every major landmark in the eastern US. The screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) does a far better job of introducing us to people we actually care about than a traditional disaster flick, making the conclusion more than just a bunch of explosions and tidal waves. Although those are pretty cool too......! Deep Impact is an enjoyable disaster movie of the first order, and pounds it's way into the earth with a solid (and explosive) B.

When it comes to water based thrillers, DEEP BLUE SEA is way out of its depth. On the cusp of a scientific discovery that will end Alzheimer's, a group of scientists working with Shark's brains finds themselves bending the rules to get the results they need to continue funding. Saffron Burrows is Dr. McAlester, better with a motivational speech than following moral guidelines. She is seen escorting drug company owner Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson) back to their ocean set research facility as the film opens. I've seen Jackson excel in nearly ever role ever handed him, but I have to say he is horrible here, badly miscast and unable to save a poorly written character. They should have harvested the super sharks brains for screenwriting ability as this is one of the worst written films I've ever seen. The punchlines are groaners, the serious dialogue is filled with eye-roll worthy duds and the everyday dialogue will be foreign to most humans as we really dont talk like these stock characters act. Thomas Jane looks the part but is rather bland as bad boy hero Carter Blake, Stellan Skaarsgard is wasted as a troubled scientific genius and LL Cool J is best in cast as a preacher/cook with a gift for swimming faster than these huge predators. The film doesn't make a point that he can swim that fast, it just appears so due to bad continuity errors. In one scene the massive sharks move 100 yards in less than two seconds to attack but when they are chasing our troubled clergy/chef, they swim in a leisurely doe-see-doe that barely generates suspense. Renny Harlin has made some decent, brainless action pics, including a few I've really enjoyed, like "Die Hard 2" and "Clifhanger". There are a couple great scenes, including Jackson's last speech so rudely interrupted, a "Poseidon Adventure" climb up a vertical shaft with sharks circling beneath and a tragic helicopter evacuation. Think about "Jaws". Spielberg barely showed you the shark for the first hour plus, and when he did, it was in glimpses. Harlin beats you over the head with his massive killer beasts, letting one of his characters RIDE ONE in the first ten minutes. Kind of takes the edge off.... Harlin is no Spielberg, that's painfully obvious. But you have to give the man credit, he stages some of the best explosions I've ever seen here, topping his Lighter/gasoline/exploding 747 in Die Hard 2 and equaling the Nakatomi Tower blasts from "Die Hard" and even Largo's yacht explosion at the conclusion of OO7's water bound adventure, "Thunderball". Unfortunately, when the smoke clears after those massive fireballs, there's very little to see. Deep Blue Sea gets a painfully shallow D.

This summer, on the 40th anniversary of it hitting theatres in 1977, I went back and revisited the underwater thriller THE DEEP. After Peter Benchley's novel "Jaws" had been adapted into an all-time box office smash by Steven Spielberg, studios were battling to bring his next novel THE DEEP to the screen. They even brought Robert Shaw (who starred as Quint in Jaws, The Sting) aboard as Romer Treece, a famous treasure hunter in Bermuda who's become a well known expert on the shipwrecks of the area. When young vacationing couple David (Nick Nolte) and Gail (Jacqueline Bisset) discover a huge stash of morphine ampules aboard a wreck, they go to Reese for help. They also attract the attention of Haitian bad guy Cloche played by Louis Gossett Jr (An Officer and a Gentleman) who knows the value of the drugs on US streets. David and Gail suffer threats on their lives and escalating attacks as they continue to dive on the wreck. With great underwater photography by Al Giddings (Titanic, For Your Eyes Only) and a lush music score by John Barry, The Deep is beautiful to look at and listen to, but those underwater scenes can get a little sleepy after an hour or so. There are some well executed battles on land, especially between David and Cloche's thug on a beach-side elevator and a violent face off between Slake and Kevin, the massive right hand men protecting Shaw and Gossett. Director Peter Yates (Bullitt, Breaking Away) keeps things suspenseful but those looking for Spielberg/Jaws type thrills were surely disappointed. Nolte is very good and Bisset is terrific & stunning, stealing the movie every time she's on screen underwater or on dry land. Produced by Casablanca Filmworks, they grabbed 1977 superstar Donna Summer for a song you can hear in the island club. Casablanca released one of the coolest albums of the decade with an ocean blue soundtrack, one side of which was a long suite of Barry's music score for the film. Quite a collector's edition back in the day. With some interesting treasure dive history, plenty of explosive action and a killer moray eel thrown in for good measure, THE DEEP still holds up as solid summer fun and a slower, pure popcorn cousin of JAWS. We'll splash it a nostalgic B-.