1 Best Releases Starring Nicolas Winding Refn

Upon his recent passing, we remember the feisty & controversial director & his wildly diverse filmography.  The funny thing about William Friedkin is that if you ask six people what their favorite Friedkin film is, you’ll get six different answers. One (me) will invariably say The Exorcist. Another will say The French Connection and gladly get into fisticuffs over how its iconic car chase beats Bullitt's. A third will say it’s To Live and Die in L.A. (which has its own iconic car chase), and someone else will say Jade, but they’re just messing with you.  Point being, Friedkin stubbornly refused to be pigeonholed into either a specific theme or style. Though he dipped into the well of cop thrillers more than once, the gritty sleaze of Cruising doesn’t resemble the slick MTV stylishness of To Live and Die in L.A., which in turn doesn’t resemble the campy nonsense of Jade. Whether directing his own screenplays or the work of others, Friedkin never seemed to have any real rhyme or reason in what he chose as a project, seemingly going with whatever mood just happened to strike him at a given time.  Continue Reading →