Scout Tafoya

3 weeks ago | rogerebert.com | Scout Tafoya

When he died on Tuesday at age 65 of pneumonia, everyone had their image of Val Kilmer at hand to personally mourn. There was the wonderfully showy Juilliard valedictorian, youngest actor ever accepted into the prestigious school, the young Brando who made his method bonafides known with theatrical, physical turns in "Tombstone," " The Doors," and " Wonderland ".

3 weeks ago | rogerebert.com | Scout Tafoya

The untempered version of world events right now: Things are not getting better. There's no opposition coming, there's no reckoning on the way, there is no stopping the free fall. And art is not going to save us. I don't have much use for the untempered version, even if, on my worst days, I believe it. So, I continue to make my art about art, and I continue to seek out the opinions of people who have not given up. And hope for the best and do what I can for people who need help.

1 month ago | rogerebert.com | Scout Tafoya

By Last month, I released my third book, "The Black Book: An Anthony Mann Reader." (You can order your copy here.)To celebrate a month of Mann madness, here's a very special unloved on "A Dandy in Aspic," the great director's final film, the last of the Anthony Mann B movies, and a beautiful haunting object it is. Enjoy this look at a true final film, a spy caper in which the central identity crisis comes to reflect the death of its maker.

1 month ago | rogerebert.com | Scout Tafoya

Don't go to the masterpieces, the classics, the five-star pictures you have memorized from a hundred montages and telecasts. Pick one at random, one you don't know. There are about 80 that meet this description. Pick ... Andrew Davis' " The Package" from 1989. It's no one's favorite film who doesn't have a favorite armchair where he watched it whenever it came on TV at 3 PM on a lazy Saturday. It's just an action movie.

2 months ago | rogerebert.com | Scout Tafoya

We're happy to present an excerpt from Scout Tafoya's new book on the work of Anthony Mann. The synopsis from Amazon is below, followed by the excerpt. Get your copy here. He brought sadism and shocking violence to the western, he staged the French revolution on a backlot for a pauper's pittance, he remade the Hollywood epic, he died in the middle of his last film before he could be properly appreciated, and he's still relatively unheralded.