The year is 1997 and Troy Duffy is on top of the world. The Boston-bred Troy is a bartender and bouncer who has just sold his first script to Harvey Weinstein and Miramax. Weinstein is not only going to give him fifteen million dollars to make The Boondock Saints but he is also going to help Troy buy his own bar. Troy’s band, The Brood, is on the verge of signing a contract with Maverick Records. Stars like Mark Wahlberg and Ewan McGregor are eager to meet with him, though Duffy offends McGregor with his outspoken support of the death penalty. Miramax suggests that Duffy should cast Sylvester Stallone, Keanu Reeves and Ethan Hawke in his movie. Duffy calls Keanu a “fucking punk.”
The year is 1998 and Troy Duffy is no longer on the top of the world. He’s in his apartment, chain-smoking, drinking, and cursing Harvey Weinstein. Duffy has managed to offend everyone at Miramax and The Boondock Saints has been put into turn around. When Duffy finally does find someone willing to produce his film, he has to settle for a budget this is half of what Weinstein was originally willing to provide. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the legendary Doobie Brother himself, is producing The Brood’s first album but he thinks that Troy’s brother, Taylor, is the band’s breakout star. The other members of the Brood are growing tired of Troy’s ego.
The year is 2000. The Boondock Saints goes unsold at Cannes. When it finally does get a release, it only plays in five theaters and is pulled after a week. Though the film finds success on video, the contract that Troy signed prevents him from making any money off of it. The Brood’s debut CD sells less than 700 copies. Consumed by paranoia, Troy drives away all of his family and friends. When he’s invited to speak at a film class at Boston University, he ends up verbally assaulting even those who compliment him. Convinced that he’s being targeted, Troy goes into semi-hiding.
It’s a familiar story, one that has happened to many aspiring filmmakers. What made Troy Duffy unique was that he invited two of his friends, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith, to film him while it happened. Duffy was hoping the end result would be a portrait of a genius at the start of his career but, instead, the documentary became a portrait of a talented man destroyed by a combination of ego and paranoia.
Overnight is usually described as being a cautionary tale but, as opposed to the filmmakers at the center of documentaries like American Movie and Hearts of Darkness, Troy Duffy comes across like he was probably an asshole even before he was discovered by Harvey Weinstein. As a result, Troy Duffy is never a sympathetic figure but it’s still interesting to see how crazy things got. If you’re a fan of either Boondock Saints or its sequel, Overnight is required viewing.
In 1970s New York City, Danny Ciello (Treat Williams) is a self-described “prince of the city.” A narcotics detective, Ciello is the youngest member of the Special Investigations Unit. Because of their constant success, the SIU is given wide latitude by their superiors at the police department. The SIU puts mobsters and drug dealers behind bars. They get results. If they sometimes cut corners or skim a little money for themselves, who cares?
Who was the boss of bosses? According to this movie, he was Paul Castellano. A cousin-by-marriage to the notorious crime boss Carlo Gambino, Castellano grew up in New York City and first became a made man in the 1930s. After four decades of loyal service, Castellano succeeded Carlo as the boss of the Gambino Crime Family. As portrayed in this movie, Castellano attempted to keep the Gambinos out of the drug trade and tried to steer both his biological and his crime family into legitimate businesses. However, not everyone appreciated Castellano’s vision of the future and, in 1985, he was assassinated on the orders of his eventual successor, John Gotti.
London. 1961. Doctor Stephen Ward (played by John Hurt) is an artist and an osteopath. He counts among his patients some of the most distinguished men and women in British society, including the Minister of War, John Profumo (Ian McKellen). After meeting two young dancers, Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley) and Mandy Rice-Davies (Bridget Fonda), Stephen becomes their mentor, the Henry Higgins to their Eliza Doolittle.
Truman Gates (Patrick Swayze) may have been raised in Appalachia but, now that he lives in Chicago, he’s left the old ways behind. He has a job working as a cop and his wife (Helen Hunt) is pregnant with their first child. When Truman’s younger brother, Gerald (Bill Paxton), shows up in town and asks for Truman’s help, Truman gets him a job as a truck driver. But, on his first night on the job, Gerald’s truck is hijacked by a Sicilian mobster named Joey Rosellini (Adam Baldwin) and Gerald is killed. Truman’s older brother, Briar (Liam Neeson), soon comes to Chicago and declares a blood feud on the mob.
Rebel opens the same way as First Blood, with Sylvester Stallone hitchhiking on a country road. Other than that, the two films have nothing in common. For one thing, in Rebel, Sly is wearing a big floppy hat and stops to feed some horses with a big, goofy grin on his face. He also doesn’t get hassled by the man. Instead, he gets picked up by a bunch of hippies in VW microbus.
This was Stallone’s second film, after A Party At Kitty and Stud’s. He was twenty-four years old. The film was originally released under the title No Place To Hide and it vanished until 
In rural Colorado, the three wives and all the children of Orville Beecham (Charlie Dierkop) have been murdered. Veteran journalist Garret Smith (Charles Bronson) discovers that Orville is the son of an excommunicated Mormon fundamentalist named Willis Beecham (Jeff Corey). Willis, who lives on a heavily armed compound, practices polygamy and wants nothing to do with the outside world. However, Willis’s brother, Zenas (John Ireland), long ago split with Willis and set up a compound of his own. At first, Garret suspects that Orville’s family was killed by Zenas. As Zenas and Willis go to war, Garret discovers that there’s actually a bigger conspiracy at work, one dealing with corporate greed and water rights. (Forget it, Bronson, it’s Chinatown.)
Through the Shattered Lens 