THE DANMAN CAN

Salvador (1986) is chaotic and a bit muddled, in the same way that some other  Oliver Stone  films are, but here his gonzo guerrilla style fits the subject matter.  James Woods ' character, based on journalist  Richard Boyle , is portrayed as kind of a scumbag (which is fitting), but I'm okay with imperfect protagonists, and there is a sense of realism to many of the scenes. Oliver Stone Feature Films Ranked

A powerful, moving film with strong, earnest performances. Over the years I've come to appreciate Born On The Fourth Of July (1989) as the better film than Platoon  (1986) (which is also excellent). Oliver Stone Feature Films Ranked

One of my early teenage staples,  John Milius '  Conan The Barbarian   (1982) holds up well, 40+ years on, as a lyrical, epic, blood-splattered, at times camp classic with strong performances (particularly a serpentine  James Earl Jones ), memorable dialogue, wonderful costumes, impressive production design by  Ron Cobb , delightful practical effects, and a thunderous and poetic score (one of the greatest ever composed) by  Basil Poledouris . 

Regardless of what you believe and how accurate  Oliver Stone 's JFK  (1991) is, it's a fascinating film. It blends so many different styles and techniques, and it's full of engaging performances by a stacked cast. The film's three-and-a-half hour runtime (in its Director's Cut) flies by each time I've seen it. Oliver Stone Feature Films Ranked

Love it or hate it,  Oliver Stone 's  Natural Born Killers   (1994) is a truly wild and relentless psychedelic-road movie-crime-satire odyssey that demands your attention. I remember well the controversy that surrounded NBK  when it was released. The film is chock full of graphic violence, yes, but I had forgotten just how funny it is.  The style, the sheer amount of filmmaking techniques, the cinematography (thank you,  Robert Richardson ), and, in particular, the editing (thank you, Hank Corwin ) in NBK  is out of this world. A lot of what Stone did here  Terry Gilliam  would do four years later in  Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas   ( review ). The soundtrack —produced by Trent Reznor —is as eclectic and experimental as the film, and has always been a favorite. The performances are fearless and over the top and I love them.  Quentin Tarantino  famously disowned the picture because of the changes that were made to his orig...

8 Million Ways To Die (1986), originally written by Oliver Stone , rewritten several times by other writers, and famously taken away from director  Hal Ashby  after filming completed, is a mess of a movie, but a very watchable mess. It's an odd choice for Ashby to have been involved with, really doesn't feel like one of his films (outside of the large amount of ad-libbing), and it's a shame that it didn't turn out stronger. (Incidentally, my Ashby Double Feature today happened to be his debut,  The Landlord   (1970) ( review ), starring Beau Bridges , and this, his final film, starring Jeff Bridges .) 8MWTD dabbles in violent neo-noir but doesn't hold a candle to pictures like  William Friedkin 's  To Live And Die In L.A.   (1985) ( review ) or  Neil Jordan 's  Mona Lisa  (1986) ( review ). Despite not being terribly great, the film does feature good lead performances, some choice dialogue, and a very '80s head-bobbing synthesized score...

One of my early teenage staples, John Milius '  Conan The Barbarian (1982) holds up well, 40 years on, as a lyrical, epic, blood-splattered, at times camp classic with strong performances (particularly a serpentine  James Earl Jones ), memorable dialogue, wonderful costumes, impressive production design by Ron Cobb , delightful practical effects, and a thunderous and poetic score (one of the greatest ever composed) by Basil Poledouris . 

It's so interesting to see how one views a film at different points in their life or even depending on the mood they're in when they watch it. The last time I watched Scarface (1983) (my review here ), I wrote how it didn't feel much like a Brian De Palma film. Now that it's been just shy of eight years since my previous viewing, I couldn't feel more different. Between the camerawork, the editing, the melodrama and the way De Palma takes the gangster picture to almost cartoonish proportions, it very  much feels like his work. Oliver Stone 's script takes the very basic idea of Howard Hawk 's fantastic original 1932 Scarface , transports the action from Chicago to Miami, switches the ethnicity of the characters from Italian to Cuban immigrants, and changes the means of power from illegal alcohol to cocaine. Stone's dialogue is part of the lexicon of cinema, like it or not.  Al Pacino 's performance is one of over the top bombast, an approach he...

Year Of The Dragon  (1985) is a neo-noir crime drama revolving around Vietnam vet police captain Stanley White ( Mickey Rourke ), on a personal mission to expose and clean up the triads of NYC's Chinatown.  Dragon  plays out a bit like an ‘80s cop version of the  The Godfather   (1972) with Italians swapped out for Chinese mobsters (though Italian gangsters do play a part). The fact that our central character is incredibly selfish, racist, and sexist, along with some of the portrayals of Chinese people, makes for a conflicting viewing experience, but director Michael Cimino (along with co-writer Oliver Stone ) also make an attempt to comment on xenophobia, American expansion by Chinese workers, and, in this viewer's eyes, certainly doesn’t advocate Stanley's rampage. Stanley is one those guys whose fragile masculinity causes nothing but pain and suffering to those that care for him or anyone unlucky enough to work with him. He's a very Walter Hill ty...