Actor · 1940

Lance Henriksen

5: briefs
13:00: average
65 min: in total

On film.briefs5

Dead Man

Jim Jarmusch · 1995

Dead Man (1995) is Jim Jarmusch’s monochrome acid western starring Johnny Depp as a fatally wounded accountant guided west by Gary Farmer’s enigmatic Native American spirit-guide Nobody. Shot by Robby Müller and scored by Neil Young, it rejects narrative convention in favour of ritual, silence, and poetic logic — foregrounding Indigenous epistemology, untranslated Cree and Blackfoot dialogue, and a vision of landscape as sentient participant. Though critically divisive on release, it has since been reassessed as a singular, austere meditation on mortality, colonialism, and perception.

13:00

The Right Stuff

Philip Kaufman · 1983

Philip Kaufman’s 1983 film adapts Tom Wolfe’s book into a sprawling, visually precise account of American test pilots and Mercury astronauts. Shot across California locations including Edwards Air Force Base and Hamilton AFB, it contrasts Chuck Yeager’s solitary mastery with the seven astronauts’ managed ascent into orbit. Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography, Bill Conti’s score, and Glenn Farr’s editing sustain its 184-minute runtime through texture and rhythm rather than plot velocity. Though criticised for historical compressions — particularly around Gus Grissom — it endures as a meditation on visibility, endurance, and the cost of turning courage into spectacle.

13:00

Near Dark

Kathryn Bigelow · 1987

Near Dark (1987) is Kathryn Bigelow’s solo directorial debut: a neo-Western horror film about a young Oklahoma man drawn into a nomadic family of vampires. Shot by Adam Greenberg and scored by Tangerine Dream, it fuses frontier iconography with bodily horror, treating vampirism as irreversible social adoption rather than supernatural affliction. Though it underperformed commercially, its atmospheric precision, committed performances — particularly from Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton — and genre-blending ambition have secured its status as a cult landmark.

13:00

Aliens

James Cameron · 1986

James Cameron's 1986 sequel to Alien sends Sigourney Weaver's Ripley back to the colonised moon where the first creature was found, this time with a unit of Colonial Marines whose confidence collapses fast once the aliens appear. Greenlit only after Brandywine settled a profit-sharing lawsuit with Fox, and made after two separate standoffs over Weaver's return, the film swept effects and sound awards, earned Weaver a rare Best Actress nomination for a science-fiction role, and returned more than seven times its 18.5 million dollar budget.

13:00

Dog Day Afternoon

Sidney Lumet · 1975

In August 1972, an amateur robbery of a Brooklyn bank branch turns into a fourteen-hour hostage standoff broadcast live to a crowd outside. Sidney Lumet's film, built from Frank Pierson's Oscar-winning script and Al Pacino's live-wire performance as Sonny Wortzik, treats the robbery as already lost from its first minute, following what happens to a small, desperate plan once it becomes public spectacle.