A heat wave sparks racial tensions in Spike Lee’s exhilarating and provocative Do the Right Thing. Spike himself takes the lead as a conflicted delivery man who works for Danny Aiello, an Italian-American in a predominately African-American community. The fuse is lit during the movie’s combustible title sequence with Rosie Perez rocking out to Public…
Reminiscent of Franju’s Judex, director Jan Kounen pits the brutal anti-hero Dobermann (Vincent Cassel) against the equally brutal detective Christini (Tchéky Karyo). Packed with enough eccentric characters for two Alejandro de la Iglesia films, Kounen’s movie did well enough that a sequel was announced but it has yet to materialize.
The tentpole that wasn’t. A late-career stumble for producer George Pal, this hopelessly square and underfunded adaptation of Kenneth Robeson’s pulp novel series was intended to inaugurate a Bond-like series, but it sank without a trace. Spielberg and Lucas re-energized the pulp movie six years later with Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Michael Curtiz’ perversely entertaining pre-code thriller would have been a perfect fit for Weird Tales Magazine. Lee Tracy plays a pushy reporter tracking down the so-called “Moon Killer”, Fay Wray is the soon-to-be damsel in distress and Lionel Atwill plays her father, the titular Doctor Xavier. The eleventh hour unveiling of the killer, bathed in eerie two-strip Technicolor, is…
Pacino Unleashed! Sidney Lumet’s riveting true-life recreation of an amateur bank heist gone tragically yet comically wrong balances character study with powerful drama and suspense. The kind of intelligent, engrossing major studio movie they just don’t make anymore. The trailer, like the movie, has no musical score. “Attica! Attica!”
Director Lars Von Trier’s 2004 film about a woman on the run from mobsters boasts a remarkable cast including Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Udo Kier, Ben Gazzara and James Caan. Von Trier mounts the film in a rigidly formalist style (the movie is presented in nine chapters) and the minimalist staging recalls the tradition of self-reflexive plays from Our Town to The Threepenny…
Embarrassingly entertaining, Dolemite is like a comic book version of a blaxploitation film. Written, produced by and starring the incomparable expletivist “adults only” comedian Rudy Ray Moore, Dolemite hits all the lurid cliches of the blaxploitation genre and keeps beating them to a pulp till the audience is too dizzy to do anything but laugh….
Lew Ayres, who achieved stardom as the benevolent Dr. Kildare, plays yet another kindly doctor who nurtures a living brain (kept alive in an electrified fish tank) only to have its sinister personality consume him. Curt Siodmak’s oft-adapted science fiction novel receives a no-frills treatment at the hands of director Felix Feist (The Devil Thumbs…
The great D.A. Pennebaker documents Bob Dylan’s controversial transition from acoustic to electric on his 1965 English tour in a seminal documentary about one of the 20th century’s leading artists. A classic.
For his third outing as a director, cinematographer Nicolas Roeg came up with this sublimely creepy adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier story shot on location in Venice. The simultaneous release of The Exorcist took some of the wind out of its sails in the US, but it’s now considered a horror classic.
Best known as gag writer Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Morey Amsterdam wrote, produced and starred in this low budget black and white comedy made as the Van Dyke show was nearing its end. A blend of Catskill one-liners and outdated topical humor, it stars two other Van Dyke veterans, Rose Marie,…
Oliver Stone’s bio-pic about 60’s prog-rock band The Doors spent over ten years in development, running through several studios and potential leading men before settling on Val Kilmer as the band’s self-aggrandizing/self-destructive lead singer, Jim Morrison. Critical reaction was mixed and the box-office weak, but all of Oliver Stone’s films are passion projects and The…
A puzzle box masquerading as a film noir, The Double Hour is the feature film debut of former music video director Giuseppe Capotondi. The film centers on a couple (played by Ksenia Rappoport and Fliippo Timi) who meet at a speed-dating club. A violent encounter with some art thieves leaves Timi dead and Rappoport in a coma….
James M. Cain’s 1935 Liberty Magazine novella was based on the celebrated 1927 Ruth Snyder murder case that Sam Fuller had always wanted to film. Billy Wilder’s 1944 hit is the quintessential LA noir, and many of its locations can still be visited today. Nominated for seven Academy Awards but won none. At 16 min,…
The first entry in the greatest tentpole series of all time, seven of which starred Sean Connery in the role that made him an international star. Amazingly, author Ian Fleming wanted composer-actor Hoagy Carmichael to play his licensed-to-kill Agent 007. The then-groundbreaking amorality of the concept led Patrick McGoohan to turn down the role, as…
Director William Crain followed his popular Blacula with another switched-race horror film, not quite as successfully. Ghetto doctor Bernie Casey turns his new dual personality to activities Robert Louis Stevenson probably never conceived of, like ridding the world of prostitutes.
Crazy near-blind jungle scientist Albert Dekker shrinks unwanted visitors with his miniaturization ray. This Paramount B-picture, in dazzling Technicolor from the makers of King Kong, has “A” production values and Oscar nominated special effects.
The title suggests a feminist take on the Robert Louis Stevenson story but director Roy Ward Baker’s 1971 thriller turns out to be a Victorian version of Roger Corman’s The Wasp Woman. Poker-faced Ralph Bates stars as Dr. Jekyll who feeds on the blood of young women in order to transform into “Mrs.” Hyde, embodied by the intensely alluring Martine Beswicke….
Like many sequels, Robert Fuest’s campy followup to one of Vincent Price’s biggest hits is oft maligned but in fact only lacks the surprise factor of the original. Cleverly staged murders are again the order of the day, clearing the way for later decades of Final Destination/Saw decapitation parades.
Mad doctor George Zucco is at it again, this time turning an ape into a (very unhappy) J. Carrol Naish. This forgotten Fox B-picture is as good-looking as any of their A’s and at a brisk 58 minutes it’s a lot of lurid fun. The final film of intermittently stylish director Harry Lachman.
Insanity reigns in Stanley Kubrick’s absurdist adaptation of Peter George’s no-nonsense cold war thriller, Red Alert, as the earth spirals toward destruction thanks to the twisted scheme of a deranged Air Force General. Fortunately it’s a very funny spiral with a (literally) lunatic cast that boasts George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers (essaying three roles including the title…
Hammer competitor Amicus Films found their mojo with this 1965 multi-story horror omnibus, which led to countless iterations of the same formula, including their biggest hit Tales from the Crypt. The genius of the portmanteau system was that the actors were often needed for only a few days, which allowed for casts that were almost…
Already enormously popular on radio and television, Jack Webb’s seminal cop show got the big screen treatment in 1954 with a solid cast and WarnerColor to sweeten the deal. Webb directed but his famously stone-faced delivery remained anything but sweet. His co-stars, including Richard Boone and Dennis Weaver, followed their director’s lead with their own…
Director Matthew Robbins’ gothic fairytale is the missing link between the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen and the super-real imagery of contemporary CGI. Thanks to special effects master Phil Tippett’s “go motion” techniques, Dragonslayer‘s dragon, a lithesome bat-like creature that terrorizes the medieval kingdom of Urland, is uncannily natural. The movie’s overall design is the cinematic…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, we draw a bead on drinks to be paired with movies about humans used for target practice. Put that in your 2nd Amendment argument and shoot it. The Sniper is a…
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn received the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Director award for his 2011 film about a stuntman who picks up extra cash as a getaway driver. An art-house action movie in the tradition of The Wages of Fear and The Road Warrior, the film stars Ryan Gosling as the existential stunt man…