{"id":393724,"date":"2026-07-10T18:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393724\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T18:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:45:11","slug":"give-hudson-hawk-another-chance-plus-the-weeks-best-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393724\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Give ‘Hudson Hawk’ another chance, plus the week’s best films"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello! I\u2019m Mark Olsen<\/a>. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.<\/p>\n

One of the big discoveries for me at this year\u2019s Sundance Film Festival<\/a> was the erotic thriller \u201cNight Nurse,\u201d which opens in theaters this week. A remarkably confident feature debut from writer-director Georgia Bernstein, the film is hypnotic and entrancing, with a powerfully sustained sense of mood and menace. Brought to life by two assured lead performances, the story is about a young woman (Cemre Paksoy) who takes a job as an attendant at a senior living community and is assigned to help a man (Bruce McKenzie) who quickly ensnares her into an ongoing phone scam in which he swindles other residents.<\/p>\n

Taking cues from the likes of Catherine Breillat and David Cronenberg, there are moments where you start to feel turned on and then feel weird about feeling turned on. It\u2019s delightful stuff, full of the unexpected and unnerving, with shifting power dynamics that destabilize everything. See it with someone you maybe aren\u2019t so sure about.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hudson Hawk\u2019 will have its day \"Two <\/p>\n

Andie MacDowell and Bruce Willis in the 1991 movie \u201cHudson Hawk.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Columbia TriStar \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Its name has become synonymous with box office bomb, with tales of an out-of-control production leading to terrible reviews and rejection by audiences. Yet 1991\u2019s \u201cHudson Hawk\u201d is one of those movies that over the years has seen its reputation slowly turn around and is now en route to becoming a cult classic in the vein of \u201cIshtar\u201d or \u201cShowgirls.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday at Brain Dead Studios<\/a> there will be a 35th anniversary screening of the film in 35mm with director Michael Lehmann and co-writer Daniel Waters in-person. It could be ground zero for the next stage of the misbegotten movie\u2019s revival.<\/p>\n

The movie is a playful buddy-comedy \/ caper-heist hybrid, starring Bruce Willis as the title character, a master thief newly released from prison who reteams with his old partner (Danny Aiello) as they are drawn into a convoluted conspiracy involving the CIA, a villainous ultra-rich couple (played with maniacal, scene-stealing glee by Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard) and ancient designs by Leonardo da Vinci. Upending action movie conventions, \u201cHudson Hawk\u201d is simply a fun hang.<\/p>\n

On a recent video call together, there is a certain gallows humor shared by Lehmann and Waters over the film, which at the time threatened to derail both of their careers. Waters was already working on the script for Tim Burton\u2019s \u201cBatman Returns\u201d by the time the movie came out, while Lehmann admits he spent some time in director jail \u2014 \u201cI was in director federal penitentiary and death row for a while,\u201d he says \u2014 before going on to direct films such as \u201cAirheads\u201d and \u201cThe Truth About Cats and Dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t escape a big failure in Hollywood,\u201d he adds. \u201cYou have to be good-natured about the fact that you\u2019ve made something that so many people hated when it came out, but that you feel still has some value \u2014 quite a bit of value, I think. And that eventually people would start noticing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project began as an idea between Willis and his friend Robert Kraft that snowballed into having action super-producer Joel Silver attached and a screenplay draft by \u201cDie Hard\u201d writer Steven E. De Souza. Eventually Lehmann became involved to direct and he helped bring on Waters, the two having worked together on the hit black comedy \u201cHeathers.\u201d (Waters had also worked with Silver on \u201cThe Adventures of Ford Fairlane.\u201d) The reunited writer-director team set about subverting what began as a more conventional action movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy intention was to turn that kind of movie on its head,\u201d says Lehmann. \u201cI thought people have seen these things so many times, they must be ready to see the truly odd version of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Olympics you can\u2019t just go up and make any dive,\u201d says Waters. \u201cYou tell the judges what dive you\u2019re going to do and then they grade you. And \u2018Hudson Hawk,\u2019 we never told the judges what dive we were doing. I think people got angry: Wait a minute, you didn\u2019t give us a Bruce Willis action movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading up to the film\u2019s release, there were reports of a shoot hijacked by a star whose ego was getting the better of him as he rode the wave of the success of the first two \u201cDie Hard\u201d movies. Lehmann admits the clash of personalities made for a complicated shoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, when you\u2019re hired by Bruce Willis and Joel Silver to do what is essentially a vanity project of Bruce\u2019s, you\u2019re not going to have the kind of control that you have when you make a piece of personal filmmaking,\u201d says Lehmann. \u201cBut it was really difficult to deal with somebody who, in theory, was one of my bosses as producer on the film and a big star, which is always a thousand-pound gorilla.\u201d<\/p>\n

Author David Hughes recently published \u201cThe Unmaking of Hudson Hawk,\u201d a book on the film\u2019s production, reception and afterlife. Calling from England, Hughes thinks the critical reappraisal and resuscitation of the movie has gained a bit of momentum \u2014 and is in danger of slipping.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like any day there\u2019s going to be a headline that says, \u2018Nope, despite what you\u2019ve heard, \u201cHudson Hawk\u201d is still s\u2014.\u2019 The pendulum is about to swing back the other way and people are going to start saying that it\u2019s bad again. And when that happens, I think that will be the most perfect life cycle of the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for now two of the key people behind making the film in the first place want to enjoy a moment they have rarely been allowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are finally laughing with the movie, not at the movie,\u201d says Waters.<\/p>\n

Celebrating a fallen friend \"A <\/p>\n

Harry Dean Stanton, photographed in Los Angeles in 2013.<\/p>\n

(Jordan Strauss \/ Invision \/ AP)<\/p>\n

To celebrate the centennial of the birth of the beloved character actor Harry Dean Stanton, Vidiots <\/a>will screen the 2013 documentary \u201cHarry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction\u201d on Tuesday. Director Sophie Huber will be joined in conversation by actor Logan Sparks for an evening hosted by Cherry Jones.<\/p>\n

The film is a tender portrait of Stanton, who found relative fame later in life with roles in films such as \u201cAlien,\u201d \u201cParis, Texas,\u201d \u201cRepo Man\u201d and \u201cPretty in Pink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe makes it look really easy,\u201d said Stanton\u2019s friend and frequent collaborator David Lynch<\/a> around the time of Stanton\u2019s death in 2017<\/a>. \u201cBut it\u2019s not that easy to be looking like it\u2019s easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

A flaky love story \"Two <\/p>\n

Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel in the 1971 movie \u201cMinnie and Moskowitz.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Michael Ochs Archives \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

One of my most memorable moviegoing experiences of the last few years was seeing John Cassavetes\u2019 1971 \u201cMinnie and Moskowitz\u201d for the first time. The movie has a joyful, unpredictable energy thanks to the openhearted, dynamic performances of its two leads, Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel, as two mismatched strangers who find temporary solace in each other. Romantic, funny and with lots of great L.A. locations and moments \u2014 I often think of a perilous U-turn across La Brea by Cassel \u2014 this is a singular gem.<\/p>\n

It was just announced that a new restoration of the film will premiere later this year at the Venice Film Festival, but there is no reason to wait. The movie is showing tonight at the Philosophical Research Society<\/a> as part of its \u201cYesterdayLA\u201d series celebrating the city. On Saturday there will also be a rare theatrical screening of 1972\u2019s \u201cColumbo: \u00c9tude In Black,\u201d starring Cassavetes as an L.A. symphony conductor who may have committed the perfect crime until he catches the attention of Peter Falk\u2019s rumpled detective.<\/p>\n

On the road again \"Three <\/p>\n

Maribel Verd\u00fa, left, Diego Luna and Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal in the movie \u201cY Tu Mam\u00e1 Tambi\u00e9n.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Criterion Collection)<\/p>\n

Playing as part of the American Cinematheque\u2019s \u201cSummer Breakdown\u201d<\/a> series, which, true to its name, features movies about car trouble, Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s 2001 \u201cY Tu Mam\u00e1 Tambi\u00e9n\u201d is showing tonight and tomorrow at the Los Feliz Theater in 35mm.<\/p>\n

It stars Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal and Diego Luna as two teenage best friends who set off on a road trip with an alluring older woman (Maribel Verd\u00fa) they don\u2019t know particularly well. Emotions fly fast and furious among all three of them, as the film seems at times like a horndog teen comedy and at others like a subtle exploration of class and sexual dynamics. Of course, it is all of those things, made with a fresh sense of style.<\/p>\n

As Kenneth Turan put it in his 2002 review<\/a>, \u201cNominally a simple road movie about two Mexican teenagers taking off to look for a mythical beach in the company of a suddenly available woman of 28, \u2018Y Tu Mam\u00e1\u2019 manages to be comic, dramatic, erotic, sociological and even political, all without breaking a sweat.\u201d<\/p>\n

New this weekAmy Nicholson calls the new movie \u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass\u201d<\/a> a \u201cscrewball joy \u2026 a sex comedy that\u2019s as innocent as a Labrador puppy.\u201dLess positively, Amy reviewed the live-action adaptation of \u201cMoana,\u201d<\/a> noting \u201cEvery one of Disney\u2019s remakes and spinoffs of its animated hits has been a naked cash grab.\u201dThe new \u201cEvil Dead Burn\u201d<\/a> is brutal and not much else, per our reviewer Joshua Rothkopf: \u201cThe gore comes like a tide, shockingly for a mainstream studio wide release.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello! I\u2019m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9628,9629,9631,2790,2242,9630,9632,5686,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,9626,4287,425,9627,1791,8074],"class_list":["post-393724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-angelina-jolie","tag-barry-jenkins","tag-david","tag-dead","tag-drama","tag-evil","tag-good-work","tag-killing","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-lovers","tag-movie","tag-series","tag-short-film","tag-times","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}