- American Badass: Michael Madsen (1957-2025) (July 4, 2025)
It is always a dangerous thing to overtly compare a contemporary movie star to a past screen icon. That said, to call the late Michael Madsen, who passed on July 3 from cardiac arrest at the age of 67, the contemporary equivalent of the likes of Robert Mitchum is a comparison that I suspect neither would have minded too much. (Their careers even crossed paths once when both appeared in the 1988 mega-miniseries “War and Remembrance,” though they did not share the same scene at any point.) Both were actors who were celebrated for their tough guy personas, but who were also more than capable of convincingly demonstrating softer and more vulnerable sides when necessary. Both took a workman-like approach to their respective careers that saw them appearing in lot of projects over the years, some of them classics, and many of them not so much. Perhaps most significantly, they both had a palpable presence that grabbed the attention of viewers and let them know that there was now a distinct possibility that something genuinely interesting might be happening, no matter how dire the rest of the film might be.
Just a few weeks ago, I happened to be hosting a screening of the 1983 hit “WarGames,” which also happened to be the first notable film role that Madsen landed after growing up in Chicago and working with the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company. He appears right at the beginning as one of the two missile launch controllers whose failure to act properly during a surprise attack drill is part of the impetus to put them all under computer control instead. In many cases, seeing a soon-to-be-famous face in an early and unheralded role is often a cause for amusement, but, in his few moments on screen here, he takes a character that presumably had little shading in the screenplay and makes something out of him. He’s the first indication that this is going to be more than an empty-headed high-concept teen film.
Over the next few years, he would appear in a number of supporting roles on both the big and small screens, including episodes of “Miami Vice,” “Crime Story” and “Tour of Duty” and the films “The Natural” (1984), “Racing with the Moon” (1984), “Iguana” (1988), “Kill Me Again” (1989) and “The Doors” (1991), often in roles that demonstrated his tough guy bona fides, and while these parts may not have done much for him in terms of name recognition (his ferocious turn in the neo-noir “Kill Me Again” might have if it had received a proper release), he was beginning to attract some degree of notice and his next two movies would prove to be his big breakthrough. In “Thelma & Louise” (1991), he turns up for a few scenes as Susan Sarandon’s on-again/off-again musician boyfriend who unexpectedly reappears after she and Geena Davis have gone on the lam. While most of the male characters in that film are some degree of awful, his character is presented as something a bit different—although undeniably flawed in many ways, you get the sense of someone who is at least trying to be a better person and why Sarandon’s character would have a connection with him. Madsen is able to suggest all of this quickly, efficiently and deftly, playing against his bad ass aura and indeed, the motel encounter between him and Sarandon continues to be one of the film’s most fascinating sequences.
When that film became an unexpected hit, Madsen finally began to be noticed by moviegoers but it would be in the next year that he would land himself a place in the annals of cinema history with his appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s galvanizing debut feature, “Reservoir Dogs.” When we first see his character, Mr. Blonde, during the film’s opening diner scene, he seems affable enough but as the story of a heist that goes sideways in a hail of bullets and betrayal progresses, we hear (but wisely don’t see) about how he apparently went rogue and shot a number of bystanders during the robbery. And yet, when he finally shows up at the rendezvous point, he seems so cool and collected that it is hard to reconcile him with the gun-happy guy we have heard about, even though he has shown up with a cop that he has kidnapped in order to get information about who betrayed them. By the time the other characters take off to hide to various getaway cars and leave him in charge of the cop, we have been distracted enough by his cool guy aura to let our guard down, and it is at that point, with the flick of a straight razor and a Stealers Wheel needle drop, that he shuffles his way into immortality with a torture scene that is still shocking to watch more than three decades later. What makes the scene so chilling, even more so than the actual brutality, is the effortless way in which Madsen flips the switch in his character to move from the kind of cool cat that someone like Mitchum or Steve McQueen might have once embodied into something altogether more terrifying.
Although “Reservoir Dogs” was not a big hit at the box office, at least in its initial run, it was certainly one of the most talked-about films of 1992, and since he was the focus of the most discussed and debated part of the film, Madsen saw his career take off as well. He portrayed Dolly Parton’s ex-boyfriend in the lukewarm rom-com “Straight Talk” (1992), the foster dad of the kid trying to save an ailing killer whale in “Free Willy” (1993) and “Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home” (1995) and Virgil Earp in “Wyatt Earp” (1994), a role that he reportedly accepted over that of Vincent Vega in Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” (1994). He turned up as one of a group recruited to try to track down a sexy alien-human hybrid before she can mate in the bizarre sexploitation/horror hybrid “Species” (1995) and when that proved to be a hit, he later appeared in the inevitable, if perfunctory, “Species II” (1998). There were a number of smaller movies as well that he turned up in as well, mostly going direct-to-video where his presence would help draw in viewers.
Most of these films were not particularly good but you can’t really fault Madsen for selecting them—after years of struggling to make it as an actor, it makes sense that he would take a lot of what was being offered, even if many of them were just for the money. That said, even in the shoddiest of them, that presence of his was still magnetic enough to hold one’s interest during the flimsiest of projects (and few things on Earth are flimsier than “Species II”) and when he happened upon one that he really connected with, the results could be extraordinary. In 1994, he appeared in “The Getaway,” an adaptation of the Jim Thompson noir-classic that had previously been filmed in 1972 by Sam Peckinpah with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw and which was now starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger under the guidance of Roger Donaldson. The one aspect of it that does work is Madsen’s performance as Rudy, the one-time cohort of the central couple who goes off in bloody pursuit of them after his attempt to betray them following a robbery goes wrong. Although the role is essentially a revamp of his “Dogs” character, he not only proves to be a much more compelling presence than Al Lettieri had been in the original but ends up blowing away the nominal stars as well—the bizarre relationship that he establishes with Jennifer Tilly, playing a woman who develops an attraction to him after he takes her and her husband hostage, is so darkly amusing and entertaining despite its troubling nature that you’ll wish that the film had focused entirely on them.
Although many of the reviews of Mike Newell’s mob drama “Donnie Brasco” (1997) would focus on the performances by Johnny Depp, playing an FBI agent who infiltrated the feared Bonanno crime family in the 1970s, and Al Pacino as the aging gangster who unknowingly takes the new guy under his wing, Madsen proved to be strong and effective in the key supporting role as a rival member of the crew who competes with Pacino’s character for the loyalty of the newcomer, not realizing who he really is. He turned up as an NSA operative in the James Bond epic “Die Another Day” (2002) and also appeared in oddities ranging from the strange French Western “Blueberry” (2004) to “Scary Movie 4” (2006), in which he enacted a riff on “War of the Worlds” (2005) to Uwe Boll’s “Bloodrayne” (2005), which might be the silliest thing that he ever appeared in—at least which actually played in theaters—but even in that, he was still up there plugging along even though he must have been at least somewhat embarrassed by the material he was working with there.
While he was constantly working over the years, many of these projects would not actually play on screens, instead premiering on cable or going direct to video. Over the last half of his career, the most notable roles that he would have would be in projects that would reunite him with Tarantino. In the “Kill Bill” films, he played Budd, one of the former compatriots of the super-deadly assassin known as The Bride (Uma Thurman) whom she has marked for death after they betrayed her on the orders of their leader (David Carradine). In “The Hateful Eight” (2015), he had perhaps his last really meaty role as one of the characters who holes up at a remote haberdashery during a blizzard in a film that starts as a Western and eventually becomes a locked-room mystery of sorts. He also had a brief bit in “Once Upon a Time. . .in Hollywood” (2009) as one of the stars of the TV Western “Bounty Law” that may not have amounted to too much screen time, but which was entertaining, nevertheless.
Perhaps the most intriguing of the non-Tarantino films that he did during this time was “Boarding Gate,” a head-spinning 2007 thriller from France written and directed by Olivier Assayas. In it, he plays an underworld kingpin whose plans to retire from the business of crime once and for all wind up falling apart when he winds up crossing paths with a woman (Asia Argento), with whom he shares a particularly tangled and emotionally fraught personal and professional past. Although the combination of their respective personas—his being laid-back, coiled and ready to strike and hers as a borderline feral wild child—would seem to be a mismatch, it proves to be strangely fascinating and during the film’s big centerpiece scene, in which each tries to push the other’s buttons using everything from past betrayals to hints of sexual perversion, they give viewers an emotional high-wire act that is genuinely amazing to behold.
As noted, Michael Madsen worked a lot—according to IMDb, he appeared in no less than 328 different projects over the years with another 18 listed as upcoming. He was a guy who clearly loved what he did and relished the opportunity to be able to do it, regardless of the circumstances. Yes, there is not a single tribute or testimonial to him that will not lead off by mentioning his work in “Reservoir Dogs” and that is understandable but, as I hope this piece has suggested, he did fine and often memorable work in a number of other projects as well.
Don’t miss this wonderful piece from Roger Ebert in 2012: “Virginia, Michael & Elaine Madsen: From Chicago to Their Dreams”
- I Am a Writer: “Wonder Boys” Turns 25 (July 4, 2025)
“Wonder Boys,” which turns 25 this year, has been accused of bone-deep pessimism, but I’ve never remembered it in this way. Even though the story is about disillusionment and regret, and the fear of uncertainty looms like a shadow over its characters, my memory holds it as a funny and uplifting tale about dysfunctional people, some of whom just happen to be writers. Curtis Hanson’s drama has a way of distracting its audience by hiding its darker nature in plain sight. It achieves this partly through what Roger Ebert described as “an unsprung screwball comedy” but also by making itself more about the uplifting destination than the journey itself—a gentler yarn about writers, or people, rather than something grittier.
Based on Michael Chabon’s 1995 novel of the same name, it has been years since the publication of Arsonist’s Daughter, the book that put both Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) and his editor Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.) on the map. Grady is writing his second novel, but the ending keeps getting further away. Now, his wife, Emily, has left him, and Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand), the university’s Chancellor, with whom he has been having an affair, tells him she’s pregnant. Meanwhile, Grady has a junior literature major named James Leer (Tobey Maguire) as a house guest and is driving around with a dead dog in the trunk of his car. And Crabtree has flown in from New York for the University’s annual WordFest literary festival. He also wants to read Grady’s new novel, hoping it will salvage his floundering career.
The film begins with Bob Dylan’s aged and raspy voice singing “Things Have Changed,” a song he wrote specifically for the film. It’s a song about an inescapable self-awareness of one’s fate and feelings of disillusionment. Dylan returns time and again to the line, “I used to care, but things have changed.” It’s a pessimistic punctuation mark on the song’s thematic mood.
Then Grady’s gravelly voice reads James’ beautiful but somber short story, about a young girl sitting in a confessional. Grady is an occasional narrator, and here, in his opening narration, you can hear how weary and distracted he is—someone who is going through the motions of writing and teaching and living. During the advanced writer’s workshop, he describes James as the “sole inhabitant of his own gloomy gulag,” whose “stories were about as sunny as his disposition.”
From Dylan’s bleak poetry, including an image of the song’s narrator standing on the gallows with his head in a noose, to Grady’s pithy description wrenched from deep in his disillusioned and weary soul, the negativity only escalates. Grady sarcastically prompts the savage instincts of James’ envious classmates, who pounce like predators, ripping into him with razor-sharp words as a substitute for the teeth or claws of a wild animal. One targets the Catholic guilt and repression in his story. “I mean, Jesus! What is it with you Catholics?” Another says, “I hated it. His stories make me want to kill myself.”
In the end, it’s a matter of perspective, and while the opening scene in the classroom has a humorous slant, it doesn’t negate the vicious criticism directed at James. The scene’s dark humor depicts how vulnerability can be preyed upon, but then, the “insightful and kind” Hannah Green (Katie Holmes) suggests the class is missing the point. “He [the author] respects us enough to forget us, and that takes courage.” The scene quickly ends, and we hear the first notes of Christopher Young’s score, a chirpy melody that reintroduces “Wonder Boys” as a light, uplifting, and humorous story. This is an early example of how “Wonder Boys” not only distracts us from its darker nature but also playfully orchestrates a tension between optimism and pessimism.
This tension is apparent in “Things Have Changed” before it comes to fruition in the characters’ interpersonal relationships. The protagonist in Dylan’s song is a pessimistic soul with a long list of gripes. Besides having his head in a noose, he talks about being in the wrong town and “walking forty miles of bad road.” He talks about how he’s holding a losing hand; the mind can only take so much, and how he’s in love with a woman he’s not even attracted to. And yet, the energetic and upbeat melody, which sounds and feels optimistic, lends itself to irony, given the despondent, poetic lyrics. “Things Have Changed” is simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic, making it the perfect choice for the titles and credits, which lead to the film’s pessimistic opening and ultimately put a full stop to its happy conclusion.
Meanwhile, Neil Young’s 1972 song “Old Man” is the perfect complement to Grady and James’ relationship. The lyric “Old man look at my life, I’m a lot like you were” is a subtle way that “Wonder Boys” acknowledges that James is a younger version of Grady, who once stood with the world at his feet. A few broken marriages later, and now a stoner who can’t escape dysfunction, he, like Crabtree, has become mired in struggle and stranded without any idea what his second book is about. These opposing stations in life frame the trio as either symbols of optimism or pessimism. But this is an oversimplification, because neither Grady nor Crabtree has given up on hope—continuing to write is a hopeful act, as is planning to publish your friend’s new manuscript. And James’ tales are deeply pessimistic, as seen in the one he tells Grady about his mother, who worked as a fry cook in the cafeteria of a mannequin factory. Before that, she’d been a dancer—”Whatever kind they wanted her to be.” Nearly tripped up by Grady, who remembers she was Catholic, James trusts in his pessimism and says, “When we fall, we fall hard.” He’s not much kinder towards his father, who smokes cannabis, not for glaucoma as Grady assumes, but instead for his colon cancer.
“Wonder Boys” chooses to be a lighter, funny, and uplifting story, where problems are resolved, a wonder boy takes his first big step out into the world, an editor salvages his career, and Grady loses almost everything but ends up richer for it. Despite the transformative power at its heart, there are remnants of an unexplored but tantalizing narrative. But to see this, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by the laughter. Instead, we must pay attention to another side of its humanity, and we should ask, what will James’ fate be? After all, he goes to New York with Crabtree to rework his novel, “The Love Parade.” But he’s being steered by someone who is described by the transvestite they picked up on a flight from New York, as someone who is “into collecting weird tricks.” So, is James a weird trick, someone for Crabtree to play with until he loses interest? Is James destined to be a promising but tragic artist, whose personal life is as dramatic, if not more, than his writing?
The roots of this inherent tension between optimism and pessimism may lie in the adaptation of Chabon’s novel. “Wonder Boys” sanitizes and romanticizes its oppressive source material, sinking you into the grime of its characters’ dysfunctional lives. Chabon’s take on Grady is far rougher around the edges. One notable example is how the book’s sexual content is more graphic, with Grady describing how he touches his girlfriend’s pussy and even expresses sympathy for James, who has a small penis. The film has sexual content, but it’s gentler and often inferred rather than shown or spoken about in detail.
This comparison offers an invaluable insight because Chabon’s novel is comfortable with the characters’ dysfunctional lives in a way that the film never is. Director Curtis Hanson and screenwriter Steve Kloves adapt the novel through a sanitized and romanticized filter. It frames “Wonder Boys” (the film) as naïve and dreamlike, seeking to comfort itself in an uncertain world where dysfunction is an inherent part of the human condition. However, the grittier reality that is repressed still finds a way to creep through and emphasizes the tension between optimism and pessimism that runs throughout the film. And just as Hannah reminds Grady that writers make choices, so Hanson and Kloves make theirs.
- The 10 Best Oasis Needle Drops (July 4, 2025)
By the time you read this, Noel and Liam Gallagher will have finally put the finishing touches on a truce to their 16-year cold war that began when Oasis broke up on August 28, 2009, before their scheduled Rock en Seine appearance. The breakup, which was precipitated by a backstage fight involving a smashed guitar and a thrown plum, wasn’t their first bust-up. But it’s the one that caused their longest split. Since then, the brothers behind “Wonderwall” have sparred on social media and through the press, abstaining from speaking in person for the entirety of their separation. It wasn’t until August of last year that Noel and Liam decided to bury the hatchet, igniting one of the hottest ticket-buying frenzies for a globetrotting tour in history (the tour begins in Cardiff, Wales, on July 3).
While it remains to be seen how their reunion will fare, their renewed partnership has sparked nostalgia for these Britpop kings, whose music changed the face of the UK and even penetrated popular culture, including memes, tabloids, commercials, and more. It’s worth looking back at their influence on film and television, which sometimes caused their music to appear in the most unlikely of places.
For this listicle, I allowed for certain songs to have a max of two mentions (you could honestly make an entire list of just “Wonderwall” needle drops) and tried to pull works from across the decades. Although these needle drops aren’t necessarily from the best movies or television shows, they capture the mixture of hope and sadness that has always driven the band’s best music. So, stand up beside the fireplace and be mad for it. Here are the 10 best Oasis needle drops.
“The Brothers Grimsby“
In a film that might as well have cast Noel and Liam as estranged siblings Nobby (Sacha Baron Coen) and Sebastian (Mark Strong)—brothers with heavy Manc accents and mod cuts who went down separate paths, one as an alcoholic football hooligan and the other as an MI6 agent—there needed to be an Oasis song. In this case, it’s the hell-raising, T-Rex indebted, working-class anthem “Cigarettes & Alcohol.” It plays when Nobby prepares for a secret mission, zipping up pants that don’t fit, and donning a garish gold chain and contact lenses that double as a secret camera. When Nobby steps out from a shack, he struts with an open swaggering strut common to Liam. The party atmosphere is further ratcheted up when he rides a zebra and taunts a leopard. It’s the kind of raucousness you’d expect from the rock stars themselves.
‘The Butterfly Effect’
You could pick out a couple of cinematic instances for “Stop Crying Your Heart Out.” The track, for example, also makes an appearance in “Made of Honor.” But for the purposes of this list, I’m picking “The Butterfly Effect.” In that film, Ashton Kutcher, already trying to step out from the shadows of “That ’70s Show,” plays a college student who, upon discovering he can travel back in time, attempts to change the past only to ascertain the unforeseen consequences such alterations can cause. Toward the end, having learned his lesson, Kutcher seeks to burn his journals and videos so he doesn’t attempt to revise the past again. Eight years later, he passes his lost love on a New York Street. But he barely recognizes her.
“Stop Crying Your Heart” is a schmaltzy ballad, released back when Oasis were trying to replicate the success of “Wonderwall.” Nevertheless, with a gentle guitar and a heavy piano, along with Beatles-influenced backing vocals and lush strings, the song is a heart-wrenching ode to accepting the love that can’t be regained. Its use in “The Butterfly Effect” could certainly be accused of being overwrought, but it also displays the kind of earnestness that made the film into a hit with younger teenage audiences.
“Cold Case”
I don’t know who was choosing the music for “Cold Case,” but they absolutely loved Oasis. Four separate songs from the band: “Don’t Go Away,” “Little By Little,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” and “Let There Be Love”—appeared on the supernatural series about a homicide detective named Lily Rush (Kathryn Morris) working to solve hopeless mysteries. Oftentimes, the show’s episodes would jump way back into the past, providing flashbacks featuring the victims, before ending with a needle drop that would show the ghost of the deceased finally at peace.
Of Oasis’ four appearances, the most fitting occurred during the season two episode, “Revenge,” a case about a boy who was found drowned after being kidnapped from an outlet mall. A sweeping ballad from the band’s third album, Be Here Now, the aching track “Don’t Go Away,” which features what might be one of Noel’s best guitar solos, is rendered as an emotionally bruising gut punch when the boy’s ghost is seen wandering the pier where he died.
“CSI: Miami“
As you can tell by now, often when Oasis is used in a TV series, it’s usually pretty on the nose. Well, you can’t get more on brand than a procedural like “CSI: Miami” ending on the band’s moody orchestral masterpiece “The Masterplan.” That happened in episode two of the show’s second season (for some reason, many of their TV needle drops occurred in this series’ sophomore season) to top off a mystery about an undersea treasure hunter murdered by a spear gun.
While not a single, “The Masterplan” is among the band’s most accomplished songs, so much so that it serves as the title of their beautiful B-side collection. Released as the second side to “Wonderwall,” the song features a soaring Noel vocal matched by his most ethereal lyrics: “’Cause everything that’s been has passed/The answer’s in the looking glass/There’s four and twenty million doors/On life’s endless corridor/Say it loud and sing it proud today.” Though its use might be as unsubtle as David Caruso’s sunglasses, it’s still a literal showstopper.
“East of Eden“
While the UK and South America are well-known hotspots for finding Oasis fans, Asia might actually have their most rabid supporters. It makes sense then that a Japanese anime series like “East of Eden,” which follows an amnesiac man who awakens with cash and a gun in Washington, D.C., while a missile strike terrorizes Japan, would take a shine to the Gallaghers. Running for 11 episodes in 2009, the series utilized the band’s final single “Falling Down” for its opening credits. A psychedelic track sung by Noel, the song’s propulsive percussion, otherworldly atmosphere, and woozy mellotron stand as the band’s most sonically advanced work, the kind that finally offered the type of experimentation the Gallaghers often promised but never totally delivered on.
‘The Faculty“
Robert Rodriguez’s ‘The Faculty” is a who’s who of ’90s teendom. Taking place at an Ohio high school, the sci-fi horror flick features Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, and more as students grappling with murderous aliens taking over the bodies of their teachers. “Stay Young,” the band’s b-side to their Be Here Now lead single “D’You Know What I Mean?,” serves as the outro to the movie before the end credits. With everything having returned to normal at school, the camera cranes upward, surveying the students who are buzzing around the campus’s quad. The needle drop communicates that despite the bloodshed and horror these kids have witnessed, they’ll ultimately be alright. These horrors haven’t snatched away their youth. It’s made them treasure their teenage years even more.
“Fear Street Part Three: 1666“
The song Noel claimed changed the band’s entire trajectory, “Live Forever,” the existential mega-hit from their debut album, Definitely Maybe, finds a cozy place in the supernatural period drama “Fear Street Part Three: 1666.” The song, with its deep toms and light falsettos, is kicked off in the movie by a car crash. We then learn that with the arrest of the evil Sheriff Goode (Ashley Zuckerman), the curse that once hung over the small suburb of Shadyside is lifted. With the track coming at the end of the film, its plaintive desire for immortality is juxtaposed with the teenage characters’ memories of those they lost along the way. It’s a poignant moment for a tear-jerking, fist-in-the-air song that puts a lovely bow on the horror flick.
“Girls“
With what might be the most modest use of “Wonderwall,” “It’s a Shame About Ray,” the season two episode of “Girls,” features Hannah (Lena Dunham) singing the song to herself while taking a bath. Her a cappella rendition is interrupted when Jessa (Jemima Kirk) appears in tears, crying over a disastrous dinner with her husband’s parents. It’s a low-key scene, one devoid of any melodrama. Instead, it’s merely about Hannah being there for Jessa, even if the pair never talk about what’s ailing her. The scene, for good measure, even ends with the first few strums of the song.
“Lost“
Similar to “Girls,” the instance in “Lost” is more of a cover than a needle drop, except “Lost” has the literal added bonus of featuring “Wonderwall” twice. The first occurs in the third season’s episode “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” where a flashback sequence shows perpetual failure Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick) coming across Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) busking on a London street with the song. In the second occurrence, Charlie’s performance of the hit is interrupted by rain.
In a series about those who surprisingly survive the near-certain death of a plane crash only to spend every waking hour going down rabbit holes to explain their newfound sandy home, the lyric “And all the roads we have to walk are winding,” might be a bit on the nose. But Charlie deserves props for playing “Wonderwall.” He did it before it became a meme made to chastise every desperate wannabe guitarist. Instead, he exemplifies the reality that any busker worth their salt needed that song in their repertoire if they ever hoped to make a dime.
“Snatch”
Less a song and more of call to arms, “Fuckin’ in the Bushes,” the opening track to the group’s fourth studio album Standing on the Shoulder of Giant is a dizzying mix of guitars backed by samples of interviews from the documentary “Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live At The Isle Of Wight.” Guy Ritchie utilized the song for Brad Pitt’s boxing match in “Snatch.” Of the needle drops on this list, it’s by far the most unique and cinematic. Ritchie drafts off the track’s grooving energy to punctuate the bloody blows, the sweaty testosterone, and slow-motion violence of a tatted Pitt enduring some serious punishment. It’s a scene that perfectly understands the inherent danger the band became mythical for during the noughties, when trashing hotel rooms and instigating brawls was all part of the rock n’ roll lifestyle.
- What to Watch on Netflix: July 2025 (July 4, 2025)
The temperatures are rising, which means it’s time to stay indoors and watch a movie! (Or the last season of “Squid Game,” I guess.) When you’ve worked your way through this list of the best TV shows so far this year, or if you just want to watch a movie, come back to this list of the best movies on Netflix this month, highlights first, everything else after, complete with links to our original reviews of these films, many of them by Roger Ebert.
THE BEST
JULY 1st
“Blow”
Johnny Depp gave one of his best performances in Ted Demme’s sprawling drama about a cocaine crime lord, loosely based on the true story of George Yung. An ambitious flick, this movie earned a cult following on DVD after its theatrical release. Check it out to see why.
“Born on the Fourth of July”
Tom Cruise earned his first Oscar nomination (and truly should have won) for playing Ron Kovic in this true story that landed Oliver Stone his second Academy Award for Best Director. Searing and emotionally powerful, this one has stood up over time and would make an inspired viewing this holiday weekend.
“Captain Phillips”
One of the biggest Oscar snubs of all time came when the Academy missed one of Tom Hanks’ best performances, arguably his last truly masterful turn. The two-time winner plays Richard Phillips, an American mariner who was taken hostage by Somali pirates. If just for his breakdown after his rescue, he probably should have won.
“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2”
This movie isn’t as good as the original, but it’s also easily one of the best family flicks you could watch on Netflix. You want some fun trivia? This was my first starred review at RogerEbert.com, 12 years ago.
“The Deer Hunter”
One of the most essential Vietnam War films ever made, people forget how fresh in the international memory that war was when this landed in theaters, on its way to Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor. It’s still a tough watch, almost a half-century later.
“Mission: Impossible”
As “The Final Reckoning” drifts out of theaters, go back to the beginning of the Ethan Hunt saga with the first five films in this series, all on Netflix.
“The Notebook”
One of the most tear-jerking films of all time, this Ryan Gosling & Rachel McAdams drama launched an industry of Nicholas Sparks adaptations and his imitators.
“The Other Guys”
Everyone talks about films like “Anchorman” and even “Step Brothers,” but this is the underrated Ferrell-McKay collaboration, a consistently funny spoof of action buddy comedies.
“Pacific Rim”
How did so many people dismiss a Guillermo del Toro movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters? What is wrong with us?
“Red Eye”
The most underrated film of Wes Craven’s career turns 20 this year. If you’re recent to the Cillian Murphy bandwagon, don’t miss his memorably villainous turn here.
“Tangerine”
Long before he won multiple Oscars for “Anora,” Sean Baker broke through this iPhone shot story of transvestite sex workers in the city of angels.
“V For Vendetta”
The time feels right for a movie about revolutionary ideas. You know what I mean.
JULY 8th
“A Star is Born”
Bradley Cooper starred with Lady Gaga in this beloved retelling of a timeless tale about a troubled musician and the talented singer he falls for on stage and off.
JULY 9th
“Mad Max: Fury Road”
One of the best films of its era has a habit of driving off and on the streaming services. Take the chance to watch this masterpiece again before it speeds away.
JULY 15th
“Jaws”
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Steven Spielberg masterpiece, Netflix is hosting the entire quadrilogy for the first time in its history.
THE REST
“17 Again” (7/1)
“Annie” (7/1)
“Antz” (7/1)
“Blades of Glory” (7/1)
“Friday Night Lights” (7/1)
“Grown Ups 2” (7/1)
“Here Comes the Boom” (7/1)
“The Hitman’s Bodyguard” & “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” (7/1)
“Horrible Bosses” (7/1)
“The Karate Kid” (7/1)
“Penguins of Madagascar: The Movie” (7/1)
“The Polar Express” (7/1)
“The Sweetest Thing” (7/1)
“White Chicks” (7/1)
“White House Down” (7/1)
“Zathura” (7/1)
“Krampus” (7/16)
“Mamma Mia!” (7/16)
“Ride Along 2” (7/16)
“Wanted” (7/16)
“Cora Bora” (7/17)
“Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” (7/24)
- It’s One Louder: “This is Spinal Tap” Turns 41 (July 3, 2025)
When we think of Rob Reiner’s groundbreaking and beloved mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap,” we remember the customized Marshall amp where the numbers all go to 11, and the timeless observation that “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever,” and the priceless visual gags involving the disastrously tiny Stonehenge prop and the band getting hopelessly lost in a maze of backstage corridors in Cleveland. All of those Greatest Hits moments, and many more, once again killed when I watched the meticulously remastered and remixed “Golden Anniversary” edition of “Tap,” playing in theaters July 5-7—but I was also struck by the precise and finely calibrated nature of the editing, which upon further review should have been considered for an Academy Award nomination.
No joke.
We know that director Reiner and primary cast members Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer created a detailed outline for the film with virtually zero dialogue, leaving the ensemble cast to come up with some of the most ingenious improvised dialogue in motion picture comedy history—but it was left to Reiner and editor Kent Beyda to sift through more than 100 hours of raw footage and pare it down to a lean, perfectly paced, 82-minute gem. (This was an age of relatively brisk comedies, with “Airplane!”, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “The Jerk,” “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” and “Police Academy” all clocking in at under 100 minutes.)
One of the delights in revisiting “Spinal Tap” is appreciating how so many scenes are just the right length, often building to a classic punch line just before we cut to the following sequence, e.g., the low-key moment when Guest’s Nigel Tufnel is playing a lovely and understated passage on the piano and talking about how D minor is the saddest of keys. He tells Reiner’s Marty DiBergi, “I’m really influenced by Beethoven and Bach, it’s sort of in between those, really, it’s like a ‘Mach’ piece…”
Marty asks, “What do you call this?”
[The briefest pause.] “Well, this piece is called ‘Lick My Love Pump.’ ”
It’s just masterful absurdity.
“This Is Spinal Tap” was not the first mockumentary of the modern era. James McBride’s 1967 feature-length film “David Holzman’s Diary,” starring L.M. Kit Carson as the titular character, is a fascinating, fictional, and disturbing work posing as an autobiographical documentary. (The entire film is available on YouTube.) In 1979, Albert Brooks lampooned the PBS documentary series “An American Family” with “Real Life.” Still, “Tap” is the undeniable GOAT of the genre—a multi-layered masterpiece that gently lampoons the rock documentary, most obviously Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz,” while perfectly recreating the structure of such films. Reiner, Guest, McKean, and Shearer teamed up to create characters so ridiculous and yet so authentic that they’ve remained a part of the pop culture fabric ever since their careers were resuscitated when “Sex Farm” became a surprise hit in Japan. The band performed in character on “Saturday Night Live” and MTV in the 1990s, among other shows, and they recorded two follow-up albums to the “Spinal Tap” soundtrack. They’ve performed live here and there, perhaps most memorably at Live Earth London in 2007, where they performed their powerful eco-anthem “Warmer Than Hell.”
Such lofty achievements hardly seemed possible at the outset of “This Is Spinal Tap,” which finds the band amid a rapid downward spiral as they embark on their first tour of the United States in six years. The record company doesn’t want to release their album, “Smell the Glove,” because the proposed cover art is deeply offensive. Whereas they were once playing 15,000-seat arenas, the venues booked for this tour are more in the 1,200- to 1,500-seat range. When Di Bergi asks the blundering but ebullient band manager Ian Faith (the late Tony Hendra, sublimely funny) if this is a sign the band’s popularity is waning, Faith replies, “Oh no…not at all. I just think their appeal is becoming selective.” Poor Ian. We realize he’s drowning before he does.
We’re also treated to a brief history of the band, and how perfect is that faux archival footage! The boys started out as The Originals, had to rename themselves The New Originals, and had come to be known as The Thamesman when they hit the charts in 1965 with “Pop, Look & Listen,” as we see in a gloriously grainy, black-and-white clip, with a pre-dental work group delivering an infectious tune you’ll find yourself humming. Oh, and there’s Ed Begley Jr. as the drummer John “Stumpy” Pepys, who died in a bizarre gardening accident, thus kicking off the astonishing and inexplicable string of tragic demises of stickmen. (RIP to Eric “Stumpy Joe” Childs, who choked on vomit that was not necessarily his own.) Equally spot-on is the clip of the boys singing the flower-pop tune “Jamboreepop,” with director Reiner perfectly capturing the state of pop music and American variety shows of 1967, complete with kaleidoscopic visual effects and the sound of a Coral Sitar. With Guest and McKean leading the way, these performances are funny but also enormously charming because they’re authentic. From the innocent pop days through the spandex-clad metal group roaring through ridiculous power anthems such as “Big Bottom” and “Hell Hole,” the musicianship sells the joke.
There’s such a vibe of gentle affection in the satire of “Tap,” a tone that greatly influenced Guest’s classic mockumentaries such as “Waiting for Guffman” (1996) and “A Mighty Wind” (2003), as well as the brilliant IFC series “Documentary Now!” Even when the band visits Elvis’ grave and claim Elvis was going to do a musical version of “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” or they arrive at the Holiday Inn in Chicago and the marquee reads, “WELCOME NATIONAL COMPANY OF THE WIZ AND SPINAL TAP,” there’s not a mean-spirited element in the film’s DNA.
When the band isn’t onstage, there’s still a musical rhythm to that improvised dialogue, with Guest as Tufnel and McKean as David St. Hubbins taking the reins in most scenes, and Shearer as Derek Smalls knowing just when to chime in with a perfectly delivered, droll tagline. Equally impressive is the work of the day players—some already well-known, some on their way up—who show up for a scene or two and never drop the ball, creating instantly memorable characters. Billy Crystal and Dana Carvey as mime waiters. Bruno Kirby as a limo driver who’s all about Sinatra. Fran Drescher, who essentially created the voice of “The Nanny” with her depiction of the publicist Bobbi Flekman. Howard Hesseman as a condescending manager for another act who says to Ian and the band, “Listen, we’d love to stand around and chat, but we’ve gotta sit in the lobby and wait for the limo.” Anjelica Huston as the artist who creates the mini-Stonehenge stage set. Paul Shaffer as Artie Fufkin, the hapless and unctuous rep for Polymer Records. Fred Willard as Lt. Hookstraten. All of these performances contribute to the creation of a deadpan “Spinal Tap” universe that is utterly farcical yet wholly relatable.
In honor of the film’s golden anniversary (because everyone knows 41 is traditionally the Gold Anniversary), “This Is Spinal Tap” will be in theaters nationwide from July 5-7. In September, we’ll get the long-anticipated sequel, “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” with director Marty Di Bergi chronicling the band’s misadventures as they reunite for one last show. We’ve seen reports of celebrity cameos ranging from Paul McCartney to Elton John to Questlove to Garth Brooks to Lars Ulrich. That’s all fine and good, but one hopes those superstars don’t upset the balance of everything that made the original so good—and they better come to play. When you’re sharing the screen with Spinal Tap, you’re in the presence of mockumentary greatness.
