dustin hoffman | Made in Atlantis

Little Big Man: He is no hero at all but merely a survivor.

Arthur Penn’s “Little Big Man” is an endlessly entertaining attempt to spin an epic in the form of a yarn. It mostly works. When it doesn’t — when there’s a failure of tone or an overdrawn caricature — it regroups cheerfully and plunges ahead. We’re disposed to go along; all good storytellers tell stretchers once in a while, and circle back to be sure we got the good parts.

Midnight Cowboy at 50: Why the X-rated best picture winner endures

October 20, 2019October 20, 2019

Midnight Cowboy was the first and only X rated movie to win the Oscar for best film, it’s really helpful to know what happened during a lightning party, but that should otherwise be accompanied by five or six asterisks . The MPAA (Film Picture Association of America) knows how to qualify the film “R”, then turn it into X for the representation of prostitution and homosexuality, then convert it to R only two years later, a tacit recognition that the advice is good the first time. See the movie today, 50 years later, the controversy over ratings seems to be more curious than the nude scenes and nudity scenes are relatively shy and there is a tumult in a Times Theater Square to uncomfortable looks and implications.

Straw Dogs: Everyone has a breaking point

September 7, 2011May 7, 2018

Straw Dogs is a remake of the 1971 Sam Peckinpah thriller that starred Dustin Hoffman. The original revolved around a young American and his English wife who move to rural …