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At 80 years old, Walter Hill shows no signs of slowing down. The veteran director of influential action thrillers like “The Warriors,” “48 Hrs.,” and “Streets of Fire” has reinvented himself in recent years as a reliable gun-for-hire on prestige TV Westerns and crime movies like “Bullet to the Head” and “The Assignment” that fall somewhere between VOD schlock and ‘70s grindhouse revivalism.

Continue reading ‘Dead for a Dollar’ Trailer: Walter Hill’s New Western With Christoph Waltz & Willem Dafoe Premieres In Venice at The Playlist.

A new take on the Dracula mythos has swept its way into theaters in Jessica M. Thompson's "The Invitation." Serving as a modern-day "Brides of Dracula" type of origin story, viewers are whisked away to the English countryside to follow Evie's (Nathalie Emmanuel) journey in meeting her incredibly wealthy long-lost relatives after discovering a match via a DNA testing service. Things start off awkwardly, with the host, Walter (an ultra-sus Thomas Doherty), finding ways get under Evie's skin.

Of course, what happens is a worst-case scenario. Spoiler alert, but the relatives are all morally compromised individuals in support of maintaining their wealth and good fortune via courting a vampiric beastie. What's a little sacrifice in exchange for maintaining appearances, am I right? That said, the sacrificial blood and gore viewers might expect, especially in the film's final act, is greatly reduced. 

This is in part due to the film's PG-13 rating,...

Major spoilers for the final episode of "Better Call Saul" follow.

This might be a controversial opinion, but the series finale of "Breaking Bad," appropriately titled "Felina," has one major flaw. While it certainly gave closure to the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), egregious fanservice helped pave that way. The involvement of Badger (Matt Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) in his final act of revenge against the Schwartzs (Adam Godley and Jessica Hecht) always felt a bit contrived, like the point of the scene was to shoehorn in these characters first in order to clumsily tie up loose ends. It's a bit of a tedious scene in an episode that is otherwise wonderfully paced and executed.

"Better Call Saul's" finale, "Saul Gone," did have its fair share of cameos and surprise appearances, but it didn't fall into that same fanservice trap as "Felina" did. The appearances of...