The performances of all the 'old guys' in the film are really good. Calfa talking to Clu Gulagar about the 'rabid weasels' could really be played for laughs, but it comes across as really tense. Another scene that Calfa plays really well is when he calls poison control, or whatever, about the two guys gassed by…

It's really true. James Karen just absolutely sells the SHIT out of this little story here. He has no reason to be so good in these scene, but he makes it ominous as hell and really sets up the stakes, backstory, and 'ground rules' for pretty much the whole movie. https://www.youtube.com/wat…

I think we all read that in college, thus giving us dreams of becoming respectable critics writing about shitty movies, forever and ever and ever.

This movie is pretty much terrible, but the scene where Stretch coos and 'Flirts' with Leatherface is pretty interesting and deserving of all the analysis it gets. https://www.youtube.com/wat…

That really took a turn. Wouldn't you be combining Risk with a little bleak Russian literature there at the end? Or am I just not playing Risk correctly?

Jesus, Leo Gordon had been through some BUSINESS, at least according to sourced wikipedia: "…he and a cohort attempted to rob a bar and its patrons with a pistol. He was shot in the stomach by one of the patrons.[2] He was arrested for armed robbery and served five years in San Quentin Prison, where he furthered his…

What a good scene though, right? What a fun subversion of the "get the good guy vulnerable and intimidate him/his girl/kid/dog/friend". To intimidate the protagonist, the bad guy and his goons strip down and show some skin, and, then the bad guy beats up his OWN girlfriend.

"And you, I don't even like!"
Featuring a naked Arnold with a mustache! Great scene. Creepy as hell, really great scene to show "this is a guy to not be fucked with"

True. If you've seen Thief, he uses a M1911 unbelievably well. Reloads before the mag is out, and just…well, check out how well he cycles. It's really impressive. http://www.youtube.com/watc…

Who else joins the club of "movie heavies who seemed legitimately tough?"
When Lee Marvin tells the milquetoast guy "I suggest you shut your MOUTH", I get the feeling he's….maybe said that a time or two before, know what I mean?

The boiling sound of the coffee is fantastic. The foley artist really did a good job. It sounds like they're boiling vegetable soup there, good lord.

That's a Jim Lee punisher, ain't it?
Great comparison! Man, I love Punisher comparisons, thanks!

Say what you will about Lovecraft's prose, the final line of that story is evocative and haunting.
"We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.

I've heard the thing about it being the girl from the truck, but I always though it was the girl from the camp (Glasha?). That echoed line of hers is shattering "To fall in love, to have children."

That car is too slick, good call. It has a nice intro where it shows off hydraulics and whatnot.

Other than having an awful, awful jazzy/blues score, the Kurt Russell movie DARK BLUE is great. Once you realize James Ellroy wrote the story, it makes much, much more sense.

What do you mean Dre is shockingly believable as a cop? He seems like a rough but realistic Detective (or whatever Alonzo's little crew was….man, I wanted to see more of their adventures…)

YES! That is something that Caan talks about on the commentary, right? That he speaks clearly because he has lost so much time and can't waste it on confusion or re-stating what he says.

It really isn't like that. It is about an extremely principled thief who is forced to compromise his internal ruleset.

So DeNiro was an ex-Marine, seems likely that he did time in Vietnam, so its extremely likely he knew small-squad firefight tactics. These aren't super-complicated tactics (certainly not Seal Team six level combat, as mentioned below), but you'd have to imagine McCauley maybe takes them to the desert a couple of times…