Actor Clayne Crawford impressed me with his performance in the excellent and underrated 2012 thriller, “The Baytown Outlaws.” In a film full of over-the-top violence and macho posturing, Crawford found a realistic tone to his performance which kept the film centered.

His film choices have been uninteresting and haven’t challenged him as an actor since this.

Crawford is back on my radar

“Impasse” | Yimou Zhang has made some absolutely wonderful films over the years, including “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.” His films typically delve into China’s past and complement historical stories with larger-than-life acrobatics and martial arts action. Zhang once again trains his lens on the past with “Impasse,” but this time it’s to the era of WWII. “Impasse” follows a group of Chinese special agents who are working in Manchukuo

There’s a decent idea for an action and revenge movie lurking somewhere in the mess that is the new Guy Ritchie movie “Wrath of Man.” For one, Jason Statham is present, so it’s foregone before the opening credits—done to the tune of a bizarro world, baroque James Bond style—have finished. In short: bad guys are going to die hard at Statham’s hands. They probably deserve it. What else do you need to know? Well, for one, Statham keeps his typical

In the opening moment of “Outlaws” (scored to the Doom-tinged sound of the song “Lunacy” from the Ambient-Rock group Swans), a leather-clad motorcycle gang cuts through the night streets like riders of an oncoming Apocalypse. It is a moment that immediately grabs and foreshadows the aura of the film.

Director Stephen McCallum immediately assures us that his first feature

In Tom Clancy’s excellent 1993 novel “Without Remorse,” a former Navy Seal Vietnam Veteran named John Kelly loses his pregnant wife in a car accident, befriends a former prostitute, helps her kick drugs, and finds her murdered by her ex-pimp who almost kills Kelly as well.

Seeking revenge by murdering pimps and drug dealers, Kelly decimates a drug ring, goes on a mission to rescue POWs and fights against political corruption and KGB moles.

Ken Burns knows he only has so much time left to make a certain number of movies. It’s getting harder to pick and choose which of the many ideas for his trademark multipart documentaries will get his full attention—but choose he must.

“As I get older, I get greedier. Because you realize there are so many subjects that you want to touch, and there’s not gonna be enough time to do them all,” Burns, 67, said this week from his home and offices

After being canned for three years (allegedly due to pressure from the Los Angeles police department) Brad Furman’s “City of Lies” was rolled out last month.

Although it would have benefited from a longer running time and deeper examination into the facts (this story would shine as a three-hour street crime epic), Brad Furman’s procedural gets to the meat of the inquiry into