Written by Larry Cohen Considering Larry Cohen’s ability to coax strong performances out of his casts at the same time that he embraced the absurdity of his often ridiculous, lurid plots, it’s not a surprise that his scripts, when directed by others, would result in the occasional bad movie. That Sidney Lumet, one of the […]
Tag Archives: Larry Cohen
Screen Story by Larry Cohen How many film adaptations of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers are needed? By the time Body Snatchers was released in 1993 (after sitting on the shelf for roughly two years), there had been two official adaptations and numerous films that had taken inspiration (ripped off) from Finney’s yarn about alien […]
Written, Produced, and Directed by Larry Cohen Larry Cohen’s first excursion into the blaxploitation genre (unlike many people, I don’t consider 1972s Bone to be a blaxploitation film), Black Caesar is a solid morality tale with gangster film trappings. If not for the profanity, nudity, and graphic violence on display, it could be a Warner […]
Written and Directed by Larry Cohen I first saw Special Effects in the early ‘90s when I was still discovering my affection for Larry Cohen’s films. At the time, I had only seen the “big” Cohen films (It’s Alive, Q). I found the film to be interesting, but something felt off about the tone that […]
Written, Produced, and Directed by Larry Cohen For how much he has dabbled in various genres (horror, science fiction, blaxploitation, mystery, thriller), Cohen has largely steered clear of straight forward comedies. There is plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor in films like The Stuff, Q, and his script for Maniac Cop, but for the most part, he […]
Written, Produced, and Directed by Larry Cohen I’m going to spend a lot of time on this blog writing about the films of writer/producer/director Larry Cohen. Unfairly brushed aside by mainstream critics and many film historians as merely a cheesy B-movie director, his output has been admittedly uneven, but the highs far outnumber the lows […]
What’s next? Coming off the end of The Parallax Review, I found myself asking that question. I made plans to step back from film criticism and concentrate on my screenwriting and short fiction work and I have started to put those plans into motion. What I didn’t expect was to feel the itch to continue […]
Obsessive Movie Nerd 