Angels with Dirty Faces

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, The Dead-End Kids. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cagney and O'Brien play childhood friends who end up going in different directions as adults -- Cagney becomes a notorious gangster, and O'Brien becomes a priest. They still love each other though, and when Cagney gets in a shoot-out with police, O'Brien steps in to try to save his life. The disc features copious Extras, including a Warner Night at the Movies and commentary on the film. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B   

Rififi

Rififi (1955) starring Jean Servais, Carl Mohner, Magali Noel, Robert Manuel, Jules Dassin. Directed by Jules Dassin. French crime noir in which four jewel thieves pull off an incredibly lucrative heist -- only to find that a slip-up by one of them endangers not only the take from the robbery but the life of one of their sons. Dassin is actually an American director who was blacklisted during the early 1950s, and had to go to Europe in order to be able to make films. This movie is actually a pretty great crime film. Of particular note is the actual heist scene itself, in which the four men go about the business of breaking into a jewelry store and cracking the safe with no soundtrack -- no dialogue or music -- except the incidental sounds of the break-in and safe-cracking. The actors were not well known, even in France. An entertaining and involving movie. In French, with English subtitles. Grade: B+   

American Hustle

American Hustle (2013) starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence. Directed by David O. Russell. The acting is excellent in this retelling (with variations) of the Abscam scandal of the late '70s and early '80s. Of course the film's producers have gone to town with the period detail, period music and late-'70s-early-'80s fashions in clothes. That's half the fun of the movie. Bale and Adams play a con-man and -woman who team up to rip off clients, then get busted by FBI agent Cooper, who co-opts them into helping him in a sting operation, in which several high-ranking politicians are induced into taking bribes and then arrested. The movie is based on fact, but there is a lot of wiggle room allowed by the script, with several important departures from real people and events. It's a very entertaining movie that got Oscar nominations in all four major acting categories. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, and are highly legible.) Grade: B+   

The Anderson Tapes

The Anderson Tapes (1971) starring Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, Ralph Meeker, Alan King, Margaret Hamilton, Christopher Walken. Right after being released from prison, Duke Anderson (Connery) starts organizing another heist, this one of the apartment building where his girlfriend (Cannon) lives. What he doesn't realize is that his every move and every utterance is being taped by various authorities. When it comes time for the robbery to go down, a veritable army of cops is waiting to bring Anderson and his cohort to justice. This movie really has the look and feel of the '70s captured, from the typeface of the titles to the cheesy soundtrack by Quincy Jones. This is not one of Connery's finest films. (English subtitles are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B- 

Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) starring Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, James Broderick, Chris Sarandon. Directed by Sidney Lumet. Sonny (Pacino) and Sal (Cazale) team up to try and rob a bank, and it turns into a media circus when all the police show up. It turns out that Sonny is doing it to try and get money for his homosexual lover's (Sarandon) sex-change operation. Durning and Broderick play cops who try to negotiate with Sonny for the release of hostages that Sonny and Sal are holding in the bank. It's a pretty entertaining movie, thanks to Pacino's performance as the conflicted Sonny. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+ 

The Woman in the Window

The Woman in the Window (1944) starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Dan Duryea. Middle-aged psychology professor (Robinson) kills a man in self-defense, then tries to cover it up instead of calling in the authorities. One of his friends (Massey) is the prosecutor, and the bodyguard (Duryea) for the dead man tries to blackmail the professor. Tension-packed film concludes with surprise ending that totally changes things. Very enjoyable entertainment. (Subtitles in English are offered for the hearing-impaired, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+

Wolfen

Wolfen (1981) starring Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Gregory Hines, Edward James Olmos. A previously unknown species of predator is prowling the streets of New York City, and detective Dewey Wilson (Finney) is on the prowl trying to find out what's going on. Suspenseful, occasionally gruesome horror flick has its moments, but fails to fully capture the spirit of the book (The Wolfen, by Whitley Strieber) on which it is based. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B   

White Heat

White Heat (1949) starring James Cagney, Myrna Loy, Edmond O'Brien. Cagney plays a gangster named Cody Jarrett with serious mommy issues. When he goes into the joint, his ma gets killed trying to protect him. But he escapes and continues his life of crime. Pretty standard hard-boiled gangster movie has a historical place on the cusp of the '50s, but offers little beyond the rantings and ravings of Cagney as the unhinged bad guy who suffers from serious headaches. This film didn't really do much for me, and seems to have lost something with the passage of time. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B-  

2 Days in the Valley

2 Days in the Valley (1996) starring Danny Aiello, James Spader, Eric Stoltz, Greg Cruttwell, Jeff Daniels, Terry Hatcher, Charlize Theron. Tangled crime comedy throws together a variety of lesser-known actors who would later become famous. The cops are incompetent and the crooks are incompetent, so it all makes for a dark comedy of errors, with lots of blood. For a low-budget movie, it's surprisingly entertaining. (Subtitles in English are offered on the disc, as well as closed captions.)Grade: B+

Thieves Like Us

Thieves Like Us (1974) starring Keith Carradine, Shelley Duvall, John Schuck, Bert Remsen, Louise Fletcher, Ann Latham, Tom Skerritt. Directed by Robert Altman. In the 1930s, three career criminals (Carradine, Schuck and Remsen) escape from prison in Mississippi and go on a crime spree, mostly robbing banks. One of them, Bowie (Carradine) falls in love with a simple-minded girl named Keechie (Duvall) and they pair off. Unfortunately, he can't break away from his partners in crime, and that fact leads to his downfall. This movie is basically a remake of They Live by Night, and it doesn't improve much on the original. (The subtitles are good, and closed captions are also available.) Grade: B+

They Live by Night

They Live by Night (1949) starring Farley Granger, Cathy O'Donnell, Howard da Silva. After a successful bank robbery, Bowie (Granger) gets in a car accident. His partners leave him behind, and the next day he and Keechie (O'Donnell) go on the run together. The rest of the movie is about Bowie and Keechie and their adventures running from the law. It's a surprisingly well acted, well scripted and well directed movie. Although an unhappy ending is guaranteed, the film still hangs together and makes for compelling viewing. (The subtitles supplied are somewhat hard to read. Closed captions are not available.) Grade: B+

Stray Dog

Stray Dog (1949) starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Tokyo homicide detective Murakami (Mifune) loses his gun, goes on search throughout city to try and find it. Old hand Sato (Shimura) helps him out in his quest. When Murakami learns that his gun has been used in a homicide, the search intensifies. The story gives Kurosawa an opportunity to explore post-war Tokyo and the underbelly of society in the late '40s; it's a Japanese film noir. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Grade: B

Se7en

Se7en (1995) starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey. Pitt and Morgan play two homicide detectives investigating a series of killings based on the Seven Deadly Sins. Paltrow plays Pitt's wife, Tracy, who has second thoughts about their recent move to the big city. Spacey is chilling as the serial killer. Although this movie has a gut-wrenching climax, almost to the point of being sickening, it is perfect in its own way. Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions. Grade: A

Serpico

Serpico (1973) starring Al Pacino. In a story based on a true life cop, Pacino plays Frank Serpico, the only honest police detective in New York City. Because he is a nonconformist, and because he refuses to take bribes, Serpico becomes alienated from his police colleagues. As we learn at the very beginning of the film, he ends up getting shot -- but not to death. Frank Serpico is a true American hero, and this movie does no harm in portraying his struggle. Pacino is very good in this role. The disc has English subtitles, as well as closed captions (which are easier to read). Grade: A-

Salvatore Giuliano

Salvatore Giuliano (1961) starring Frank Wolff, Salvo Randone, Federico Zardi. Between 1945 and 1950, Salvatore Giuliano was the most wanted criminal in Sicily. In 1950 he was killed, and this documentary-like drama starts from that point and looks backward at his career as an outlaw. At first supposedly fighting for the independence of Sicily, he later becomes just a criminal in the streets -- although he is a folk hero to many Sicilians. In Italian, with English subtitles. The subtitles are gray against a black-and-white background. Very hard to read. Grade: C

Scarface

Scarface (1932) starring Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, George Raft, Boris Karloff. Directed by Howard Hawks. The "grandaddy of all gangster films" tells a fictionalized version of the criminal career of Al Capone, though the names are changed. All kinds of politics went into the making and distribution of this movie, which was produced by Howard Hughes, and they are explained in an Introduction and an Alternate Ending. For film buffs this is a must-see movie, although the 1932 production values leave much to be desired. The subtitles included on the disc are pretty good. There are no closed captions. Grade: B

Runaway Train

Runaway Train (1985) starring Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay. Convicts Manny and Buck (Voight and Roberts) escape from a maximum-security prison. With the dim-witted Buck in tow, Manny jumps a freight train -- only to find that the engineer has died of a heart attack, and the train is a runaway train. Manny and Buck's only hope is Sara, the engineer's assistant (De Mornay), who is still on the train with them. The action scenes and special effects are pretty darn thrilling. As Leonard Maltin says, it's an existential action movie. Voight and Roberts were both nominated for acting Oscars. The subtitles are good. Grade: B+

Mad Max (DVD)

Mad Max (1979) starring Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel. In "near future," Australian cop named Max (Gibson) battles road crazies who wander around in gangs making trouble for law-abiding folks. When his best friend is brutally murdered, he gets scared and quits the force. But when motorcycle crazies run down his wife (Samuel) and son, Max goes on a personal crusade to get revenge. That's about it for the plot of this low-budget movie, which I found somewhat disappointing. It was interesting to see a young, pre-crazy Mel Gibson (this was his second film), although he doesn't do much acting in this movie. The disc has available subtitles in English, as well as closed captions -- which I found essential in trying to penetrate the thick Aussie accents. Grade: B

Road to Perdition

Road to Perdition (2002) starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stanley Tucci, Daniel Craig. After his son Michael follows him and sees him at "work," hit man Mike Sullivan (Hanks) is forced to go on the run. His surrogate father, crime boss John Rooney (Newman) hires another hit man (Law) to go after Sullivan. Set in 1931, this crime drama has plenty of gun play to spice up the action, and also a father-son story that keeps the viewer emotionally involved. I, however, found the motivations behind the gangland machinations a little hard to parse out. The revenge story was clear enough, but why did Sullivan's wife (Leigh) and other son have to die? This film leaves out some important little chunks of the story, and I think that's why it is not mentioned today as one of the great films. It does have good subtitles, as well as closed captions. Grade: B+

Reservoir Dogs (DVD)

Reservoir Dogs (1992) starring Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. Gang of bad guys try to pull off a diamond heist, but things go terribly wrong. Tarantino's first film is a low-budget movie with more talk than action, but it's still chock full of remarkable scenes. Although this film made Tarantino's reputation, however, it doesn't stand up very well upon repeat viewing. No subtitles, but closed captions are available. Grade: B-