The Banker - 1989

 I guessed in the 90s.

IMDb trivia says this is the movie that turned Tarantino into Robert Forster? Interesting. I wonder if that is true. He stars in this muder at mystery thriller movie. 

The Banker is an odd name for a fairly by the numbers movie.  Someone is killing prostitutes and leaving marks on their bodies.  Forster is the cop who is investigating the killings.  The symbol is about the domination of women, and that spirals into the seedy underworld of strippers and sex.

I mean, there's not a lot to say about this crap.  Its barely worth mentioning except that the killer uses a crossbow and is painted in all red and black when we eventually see him  It made me think, how is it that we got to HERE from the horrors of the true life serial killers...  You know its funny because it almost feels like mockery.  Like, we have Dahmer or whoever out there committing real crimes and the banality of their menace is so different from the outrageousness of this stupid movie where some dude has a crossbow.

The Banker is a movie that few people have seen or think about, and it deserves that, but somehow...it also deserves Tarantino to love it?  Movies are weird.

Hardcore - 1978

 There's some notorious movies I've long seen and been on my radar for whatever reason and this is one of them. 

If only for the poster,  which screams "oh god that's my daughter" or something,  this stands out. George C Scott never says the line but it's implied,  and the rest is, well...

A snowy, down to earth Grand Rapids family sends a daughter off to LA and she never returns. Scott flies out to investigate and hires Peter Boyle as a private investigator. He digs into the seedy underworld of hardcore pornography and uncovers more than he ever wanted to know while he searches for his daughter. 

This movie is a lot more controversial and is less of a talky than I would've assumed. It's late 70s but feels that 90s aesthetic, a lot more like its brother from another mother 8mm. 

There's some interesting developments and we do kinda know how it's going to go but not in a awful way. In fact, this is pretty dang interesting and very well made film. This is one to seek out. 4 stars

Sisters - 1972

 I'm still curious to see a lot of De Palma but I won't say all mostly cuz of his more recent work. 

Sisters is a nice classic Hitchcock homage and made me wonder what people now draw from Hitch. I'm watching a lot of Hitch recently and I'll have to say...I mean it's all true. He's a true master. 

Sisters stars Margot Kidder before Black Christmas and Superman, and she's a classic untrustworthy narrator type. She meets a man on a dating show,  takes him home for sex,  and the man is killed by her the next morning. But she may have a twin and it may have been her twin...

This is not a far way away from De Palma's later murder films like Dressed to Kill and Body Double. The edgy raciness, the bizarre off kilter sense. It's definitely in the realm. 

A neighbor who's also a reporter saw the murder see and is onto it,  and she's going to uncover a truly bizarre and confusing scene. 

Just like his other stuff,  this movie takes some wonky turns and goes a lot of places,  just in general. But I enjoyed it and i give it 4 stars.