John Cox

Blogs · @wyome

Tagged film · everything

www.mentalfloss.com

The 30 Greatest Action Movies of All Time

This article traces the evolution of action cinema from its roots in early silent films to the present day, arguing that action emerged as its own standalone genre rather than merely serving as set dressing for Westerns, spy thrillers, and sci-fi adventures. The piece presents thirty essential action films spanning from 1953 to 2018, organized chronologically, with the caveat that it focuses primarily on movies made after 1970 when action truly crystallized as a primary genre, while briefly acknowledging influential precursors like *The Wages of Fear* and *Seven Samurai*. Each entry describes how the film either pioneered specific action techniques, influenced subsequent filmmakers, or achieved a perfect balance between visceral spectacle and emotional or character-driven storytelling that defines great action cinema.

Permalink filmrecommendationsentertainmentaction

www.mensjournal.com

Dick Van Dyke Shows Off Dance Moves in New Coldplay Video

At 99 years old, Dick Van Dyke dances barefoot in a new music video for Coldplay's "All My Love," demonstrating the physical vitality that has defined his seven-decade career in comedy and entertainment. The video serves as a retrospective of his iconic performances, from *The Dick Van Dyke Show* to *Mary Poppins*, while capturing his signature ability to blend physical comedy with self-deprecating humor. Van Dyke's continued dancing and willingness to appear goofy in the project illustrates why he remains a beloved figure in American entertainment—his enduring commitment to joyful, energetic performance.

Permalink musicfilmentertainmentnostalgia

www.looper.com

Underappreciated Netflix Gems You Need To Watch

This article is a curated guide to overlooked films and shows worth watching on Netflix, organized as short reviews that explain what makes each title distinctive. Rather than simply listing popular titles, the piece highlights underrated gems across genres—from international sci-fi like *The Wandering Earth* to horror films like *Apostle* and *Gerald's Game*—explaining their unique angles and why they deserve attention. The summaries are designed to help viewers distinguish between similarly-titled works and understand what made each film worth saving to a watchlist.

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www.inverse.com

The oral history of 12 Monkeys, Terry Gilliam's time travel masterpiece

Based on the French experimental film *La Jetée*, screenwriters David and Janet Peoples, along with producer Charles Roven and director Terry Gilliam, crafted *12 Monkeys* as an ambitious, deliberately confusing time-travel narrative that studios initially deemed unfilmable—yet it became a critical and commercial success, grossing $168.8 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. The piece chronicles the film's chaotic production through interviews with key collaborators, revealing how Gilliam assembled Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt (both of whom took pay cuts for the opportunity), navigated treacherous filming locations including an asbestos-laden power plant and haunted penitentiary, and survived creative conflicts and production disasters to deliver a film that rewarded repeated viewing in ways unusual for mainstream cinema.

Permalink filmsci-fidirectors

www.indiewire.com

Bong Joon Ho’s Favorite Movies: 47 Films the Director Wants You to See

This article is a comprehensive guide to Bong Joon Ho's favorite films spanning from 1936 to 2021, compiled from interviews, awards ballots, and public statements the director has made throughout his career. The selections reveal Bong's cinematic influences and aesthetic priorities, ranging from canonical works by Hitchcock, Welles, and Bergman to contemporary pieces by emerging filmmakers, with particular emphasis on Asian cinema and socially conscious storytelling. The piece demonstrates how Bong uses film curation as a form of criticism and cultural advocacy, repeatedly championing underrepresented directors and highlighting how specific films inspired his own directorial choices and thematic preoccupations.

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www.the-independent.com

Best movie twists: The 31 most mind-blowing moments in film history, explained

This piece catalogs 31 films celebrated for their plot twists, explaining each film's setup and the surprise revelation that distinguishes it. The selections span multiple genres and decades, from classics like *Psycho* and *Planet of the Apes* to contemporary films like *Get Out*, demonstrating how effective twists can fundamentally recontextualize everything that came before them. The article serves as both a reference guide for twist enthusiasts and a spoiler-filled exploration of what makes certain narrative reversals so memorable and impactful.

Permalink culturefilmmoviescinema

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the 50 Best Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

This essay introduces a curated list of the 50 best films of the 21st century so far, compiled by a team of six critics using a voting system that required unanimous enthusiasm for each selection. The authors explain their methodology, acknowledge significant omissions (notably works by Scorsese, Spielberg, and Tarantino), and attribute gaps in mainstream genre representation to a perceived creative impoverishment in commercial filmmaking over recent decades rather than deliberate gatekeeping. They position the list as a reflection of both their genuine love for cinema and the systemic inequities within the film industry itself, inviting readers to challenge both their choices and the broader landscape of voices getting major platform support.

Permalink filmdrama2020s

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Violence and the Future of Marvel

Kevin Feige confirmed that Black Widow will remain PG-13, continuing Marvel Studios' decade-long commitment to family-friendly ratings despite fan speculation about an R-rated shift following Disney's Fox acquisition. The piece argues that while rating distinctions are more about directorial vision than comic book accuracy, Marvel has built its entire franchise around all-ages accessibility—a successful formula that differs from DC's willingness to experiment with R-rated films like Joker and Birds of Prey. With Netflix's mature Marvel shows cancelled and Disney+ planned as exclusively PG-13, the MCU appears unlikely to embrace R-rated content in its core theatrical universe, though R-rated properties may appear elsewhere under Disney's umbrella.

Permalink filmdisneymarvel

www.gamesradar.com

The 32 greatest sci-fi movies

This is a ranked list of 32 essential science fiction films spanning from 1927's *Metropolis* to 2022's *Nope*, selected for their influence, innovation, and enduring impact on cinema. The selections range from celebrated classics like Kubrick's *2001: A Space Odyssey* and Scott's *Alien* to more recent entries like Villeneuve's *Dune*, with entries representing diverse subgenres including cyberpunk, time travel, AI thrillers, and alien invasion narratives. The list emphasizes both Hollywood blockbusters and international works, recognizing key films that shaped sci-fi's visual language and thematic concerns across nearly a century of filmmaking.

Permalink filmrecommendationsanimesci-fi

www.eamesinstitute.org

Toys & Eames Design Philosophy | Eames Institute

The Eameses collected and studied toys not as frivolous objects but as windows into design principles and universal human truths—toys exemplified "good design" through anonymous authorship and perfect execution of their essential purpose, whether a kite's ability to fly or a top's "spin-ness." They systematically analyzed toys across cultures and time periods both as functional objects to be played with and as intellectual artifacts, using this understanding to inform their groundbreaking work in everything from furniture to educational films, ultimately recognizing that toys served as the most effective medium for communicating complex ideas to audiences of all ages.

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www.nytimes.com

Is Gen X Actually the Greatest Generation?

I was born in 1976 and this essay argues that [[Generation X]] — the cohort whose members recall the shared, broadcast-TV moments of the late twentieth century — made outsized cultural contributions, as epitomized by the watershed year of 1994, which included the deaths and headlines around [[Kurt Cobain]] and [[O.J. Simpson]]’s white Ford Bronco chase, the presidency of [[Bill Clinton]] and the coming into force of [[NAFTA]], and the debut of shows like [[Friends]] and [[ER]]. The author situates personal memory (after‑school aloneness, wood‑paneled basements) alongside a cascade of influential films and albums to interrogate where Gen X begins and ends, how its boundaries are contested, and why its artistic output and collective experience warrant reconsideration as a defining cultural force, and its generational legacy in politics and the economy.

Permalink culturetelevisionhistorymusic

www.buzzfeed.com

The Best International Movies To Stream Right Now

A curated list of 35 acclaimed international films available for streaming on Hulu, spanning from 1958 to 2019 and including works from directors like Bong Joon-ho, Claire Denis, and Hirokazu Koreeda. The selection emphasizes overcoming subtitle barriers to access diverse cinema from around the world, positioning international films as essential viewing for anyone seeking fresh perspectives and artistic experiences.

Permalink filmstreamingmoviesdirectors

www.bbc.com

Did American History X foreshadow the resurgence of white nationalism in the US?

Released in 1998, *American History X* dramatized white nationalist recruitment and violence by centering the story on a white family where racist ideology takes root through economic anxiety, parental influence, and the search for belonging—a bold choice that shifted focus from pathologizing black families to examining how white families incubate extremism. The film's portrayal of how charismatic demagogues exploit alienated young men, leverage internet connectivity, and weaponize racial grievances proved prescient for the rise of the alt-right and movements like the Proud Boys, though experts note it failed to anticipate how these fringe ideologies would eventually enter mainstream Republican politics. While the film's unflinching critique of white supremacy was ahead of its time in the 1990s, critics argue it ultimately reproduced racist stereotypes about black people and centered white redemption rather than addressing the systemic nature of racial inequality.

Permalink historyfilmunited statespolitics

stolenholiday.substack.com

Lana Turner

Piece traces Lana Turner's arc from studio-manufactured glamour girl to genuinely daring actress, arguing her three peak performances—Postman Always Rings Twice, The Bad and the Beautiful, and Imitation of Life—reveal a psychologically precise, instinctive talent hidden beneath the "cream puff" image MGM built around her. It weaves in the lurid biography (her father's unsolved murder, the Stompanato killing by her daughter Cheryl) to show how scandal shadowed but didn't define her, and closes with a close reading of Imitation of Life as a film that implicates Turner's own racial cluelessness even as she plays it with real feeling. Worth keeping for its sharp scene-by-scene case that Turner's best acting was intuitive rather than technical, especially the analysis of her unscripted breakdown in The Bad and the Beautiful.

Permalink filmhollywood1940s

collider.com

10 Movies From 1966 That Are Now Considered Classics

This is a Collider ranking of the ten best films from 1966, a year the piece frames as a hinge point between fading Old Hollywood and the more experimental, globally adventurous cinema that followed. It runs through titles like Django, Tokyo Drifter, Cul-de-Sac, Fahrenheit 451, The Battle of Algiers, Andrei Rublev, Blow-Up, A Man for All Seasons, and Persona, before crowning The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as the year's most influential film. Worth keeping as a quick reference list of underrated and canonical 1966 releases with brief context on why each still matters.

Permalink westernfilm1960sclassics

movieweb.com

The Best Revenge Westerns of All Time, Ranked

A MovieWeb ranked list counting down ten essential revenge westerns, arguing that vengeance-driven plots showcase the genre's best qualities—complex antiheroes, moral ambiguity, and violent reckonings. It moves from Netflix's The Harder They Fall and Tarantino's Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight through Eastwood classics like Unforgiven and The Outlaw Josey Wales, topping the list with Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Worth keeping mainly as a quick watchlist/reference for standout entries in the revenge-western subgenre across decades and styles.

Permalink westernfilmquentin tarantinospaghetti western

movieweb.com

The 20 Most Underrated Movies of the 1980s

A ranked rundown of 1980s films the writer thinks deserve more love than they got, spanning ten entries from Weir's "The Mosquito Coast" through De Palma's "Body Double" and Parker's "Angel Heart," each judged against its box-office haul, critical reception, and star power (Ford, Cruise, Rourke, De Niro, Bigelow's directing debut era, etc.). The throughline is that quality filmmaking and strong casts often didn't translate into ticket sales or contemporary acclaim, leaving these titles as cult favorites rather than recognized classics. Worth keeping as a watchlist of genre-spanning deep cuts—horror-Western, neo-noir, sci-fi, gangster drama—from a stacked decade.

Permalink underratedfilmdrama1980s

movieweb.com

8 Modern Sci-Fi Movies That Will Someday Become Cult Classics

A roundup piece nominating eight 2010s-2020s sci-fi films — including The Martian, High Life, Godzilla (2014), Underwater, Annihilation, Edge of Tomorrow, The Invisible Man, and M3GAN — as future cult classics, arguing each blends genre conventions with distinctive artistry, divisive tone, or emotional depth that could earn devoted fandoms over time. It's less a ranked list than a case for why each film's particular weirdness or ambition (from Mark Watney's potatoes to M3GAN's sassy menace) sets it apart from typical studio sci-fi. Worth keeping as a watchlist with actual arguments attached rather than just titles.

Permalink film2010ssci-fia24

kottke.org

Tarantino’s Fan Fiction: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Kirby Ferguson's video essay traces how Tarantino's signature remix technique evolved past overt film-quoting (à la Kill Bill) into something subtler in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where he remixes real historical events, figures, and Hollywood lore rather than other movies' footage. The argument is that the copying habit never stopped—only the source material shifted from cinema to reality itself. Worth keeping for the reframing of Tarantino's "originality" as a continuation, not abandonment, of his remix ethos.

Permalink filmvideoquentin tarantinomovies

screenrant.com

10 Best International Superhero Movies That Rival Hollywood

This roundup surveys ten non-Hollywood superhero films—from Japan's grim Devilman and India's mythic blockbuster Krrish to Korea's satirical Psychokinesis, France's noir-inflected How I Became a Superhero, and Britain's deadpan SuperBob and iBoy—to argue that the genre's core themes of power and identity translate distinctly across cultures rather than belonging to Marvel and DC alone. It's essentially a curated watchlist making the case that grounded, low-budget, or culturally specific takes (an Australian office worker's imagined vigilantism, an Indonesian goddess rooted in Javanese folklore, retired heroes in an Irish care home) often dig into loneliness, aging, and morality more intimately than mainstream blockbusters do. Worth keeping as a reference for genre films that use superpowers as metaphor rather than spectacle.

Permalink filmsuperheroindiafrance