We just saw this movie for the first time a few months ago and it falls squarely into the category: could-not-be-made-today. That doesn’t automatically make it good, but it just so happens this is a pretty good flick. You’ve got a young, intense Al Pacino, noirish direction from William Friedkin of Exorcist fame, and a story focused on sex, drugs, and violence. Basically, Pacino plays a cop who goes undercover in New York City’s gay BDSM subculture. He’s looking for a killer, which requires him to play the role of an available, leather-clad party boy. But there’s deep cover, and then there’s deep cover. When you cross the line trouble always results. The art above comes from a promotional pamphlet, and it conveys the mood of the film quite nicely. We recommend it, with a reservation—if you’re progressive-minded, you’ll probably hate it. But you know that going in. Whenever Hollywood portrays a so-called subculture for a genre flick, it’s an affront to those being portrayed, whether gay, Chinese, black, female, religious, Texan, environmentalist, Iraqi, or what have you. Could Hollywood make films that portrayed all these segments of society in only positive terms? Sure, but who’d go see them? So bring on the action, and we’ll deal with the caricatures by agreeing that they’re just living cartoons, designed to offer some thrills and chills. Cruising premiered in the U.S. today in 1980. 

It was called Scarface, but it had nothing to do with Howard Hawks’ 1932 classic. No, this version was a big, beautiful, transgressive mess cooked up by Oliver Stone, directed by Brian de Palma, and brought to life by Al Pacino, with an icy assist from Michelle Pfieffer. You couldn’t take your eyes off it, even during the gut-wrenching chainsaw scene. When this post-gangster epic ended in a storm of cordite, coke dust, sparks, and blood spray, you realized you’d barely breathed during the final ten minutes. Many critics panned it, yet it established its own cinematic cult and, we think it’s fair to say, will remain relevant for a very long time. Even its promo art is among the most iconic in film history. We've posted one above, and two lesser-known versions below. Scarface premiered today in 1983.