John Huston’s career rebounded after a series of box office duds when this downbeat neo-noir boxing movie became a surprise critical and commercial success. “When you say you want to go to Fat City, it means you want the good life”, explains Leonard Gardner, author of the book and the screenplay. Strikingly shot by Conrad…
The battle of the sexes goes gonzo in Adrian Lyne’s megahit psycho killer (in the view of one sex) revenge fantasy (in the view of the other). It’s kind of a more manipulative remake of Play Misty for Me. The original ironic ending was jettisoned seven months after it was shot when bloodthirsty preview audiences rejected it. This turned the commercial…
Director John Gulager’s monsteriffic splatter film had a most unusual genesis as the winner of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Project Greenlight. Thanks to Damon/Affleck Gulager was able to flesh out his first theatrical film with a distinctive cast including Balthazar Getty, Henry Rollins and Gulager’s dad, Clu.
Fedora, Billy Wilder’s 1978 film about a middle-aged actress living in seclusion, certainly has echoes of Sunset Boulevard and it even stars William Holden as the dowager’s one-time lover. But the movie plays out more like a horror film with overtones of Eyes Without A Face. The film had a tortured history both in pre…
The maestro’s thumb-through of Petronius finds ancient Rome to be as joyless and overheated as modern Rome. Fellini described it as “science fiction of the past”. Much revelry, debauchery and grotesquery ensues in a world that bears less resemblance to history than to Fellini’s subconscious. A gorgeous but deeply pessimistic film. Fellini’s name was later…
In 2002, after a series of high profile, big budget studio thrillers, Brian De Palma returned to his more intimate and provocative roots with this through-the-looking-glass sex caper starring the ravishing Rebecca Romijn and good-natured ladykiller Antonio Banderas. There are more twists and turns to the plot than a game of Mousetrap but, as with many other…
Director Bob Smeaton’s rock ‘n road-trip movie, featuring some of 1970’s preeminent musicians on a five day train tour through Canada, is an essential time capsule of what happened when the swinging sixties made its awkward leap into the unforgiving after-party of the ’70s. There are eye-opening run-ins with hostile fans along the way but…
Renowned for the flying brains and sputtering gore of its final reel, this British sci-fi set in Canada has maintained semi-classic status over the decades despite the fact that it’s actually pretty uneventful.
Kino reaches into the Universal Vault for vintage Paramount and Universal thrillers. This ‘noir’ collection surprises us — it contains one terrific example of the style, newly-hatched and looking very different for its year. The other two titles are in B&W (check), and revolve around murders (check). But if there were a TV quiz show…
Hapless ’50s astronauts land on what we’re told is the 13th moon of Jupiter (which wasn’t discovered until 1974!) and find it’s another planet full of zoftig women who like to dance to Borodin’s Polovtian Dances at the drop of a needle. The popular planet-of-pulchritude formula seems to have originated with Abbott & Costello Go…
As battle-scarred John Rambo, star and screenwriter Sylvester Stallone uses the post war traumas of real-life war veterans as fuel for a jingoistic revenge fantasy in the mode of Death Wish and Walking Tall. Efficiently directed by Ted Kotcheff (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, North Dallas Forty), 1982’s First Blood is the quintessential Reagan era…
Victorian astronauts find Ray Harryhausen-animated life on the moon in this charming semi-spoof adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel, which adds a key ingredient Wells left out: love interest Martha Hyer. Set visitor Peter Finch appears in a cameo that came about when a minor player didn’t show up.
A comic crime caper stuffed with eccentric supporting characters, A FISH CALLED WANDA is in the best tradition of British comedies like THE LAVENDER HILL MOB. That should be no surprise because the director, Charles Crichton, is responsible for both. Crichton’s amazing career began in the thirties as an editor on THINGS TO COME and…
Survivors of an atomic blast fight for survival in a bleak, irradiated world. Radio pioneer Arch Oboler was the first filmmaker to seriously approach the concept of a post apocalyptic society. It’s an earnest, arty low budget indie that occasionally skirts pretentiousness, but it’s passionately sincere and progressive for the period.
Third of Nigel Kneale’s visionary Quatermass features adapted from his groundbreaking BBC serials, this one dispenses with Hammer’s ’50s reliance on transplanted US stars and took a decade to make it into production. Although somewhat cribbed from ideas in Arthur C Clarke’s “Childhood’s End”, it’s still one of the most challenging and intelligent sci-fi movies…
Only the anything-goes era of the 1970s could have produced this porno spoof of the ’30s Buster Crabbe serials. Obviously made on a shoestring, but the special fx are surprisingly clever–the people who made this clearly love the originals. It’s odd to see legit actor John Hoyt among the veteran porn cast.
The second in a trilogy about the terrors of growing up, writer/director John Duigan’s Flirting is a finely tuned and complex piece of work about teen angst circa 1965. With a stellar cast led by Noah Taylor, it features Naomi Watts in a small part and Nicole Kidman just on the cusp of her reign…
“Once it was human, even as you and I!” Initiated by Fox’s Lippert B-unit but bumped up to A-status, this 1958 baby-boomer classic spawned two sequels and David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake, which he recently turned into an opera. Vet director Kurt Neumann never lived to see his last film become one of the studio’s most…
Cronenberg’s tragicomic gross-out remake of the 1958 Vincent Price original goes to extremes unusual for a major studio release. Jeff Goldblum plays the charmingly off-kilter scientist Seth Brundle whose experiment backfires, turning him into a six foot, four inch insect; “Brundlefly”. Goldblum’s low key humor and close-to-the-vest performance, along with the empathetic screenplay (echoing the…
Another pre-code musical from director Lloyd Bacon and more unforgettably wack-a-doo dance sequences from Busby Berkeley. This one features a powerhouse cast including Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and the incendiary James Cagney (whose galvanic tap dancing leaves the adorably klutzy Ruby Keeler in the dust). Fun-starved depression audiences made this another big hit for Warners,…
Sergio Leone’s more elaborate followup to A Fistful of Dollars became one of the seminal Euro westerns, turning the Man with No Name series into a Bond-like tentpole for distributor United Artists and cementing Clint Eastwood’s international stardom. That unforgettable Ennio Morricone score ain’t bad either!
Dr. Morbius. His daughter Altaira. Robby the Robot. The Monster from the Id. Did we mention Altaira? (!) All are cultural icons introduced in the best-loved space opera of the nifty fifties, based on The Bard and bolstered by memorable special effects by Disney’s Josh Meador as well as a famous free ticket promo gimmick…
Starring a psychotronic cast including Hervé Villechaize, Viva, and Joe Spinell, director Richard Elfman fashioned this musical comedy around The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, an absurdist theater troupe. Originally shot in black and white, the cartoonish chaos revolves around the “Hercules Family” whose basement acts as a portal to the Sixth Dimension. Danny…
A super-charged throwback to the glory days of 60’s racetrack movies like LeMans and Grand Prix, James Mangold directs Matt Damon and Christian Bale who carry the mantle for speed demon thespians like Steve McQueen and James Garner. The film itself is a period piece, set in 1963 with Damon and Bale portraying the real-life auto team of…
Hitchcock’s second American movie is an up-to-the-minute, brilliantly designed (Wm Cameron Menzies) international espionage thriller, a prototype for his subsequent Hollywood career. Full of memorable setpieces and sporting a snappy script by Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison, James Hilton and Robert Benchley! Released days before the blitz of Britain, the final scene is stirring even today. Here’s…
When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school It’s a wonder I can think at all And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none I can read the writing on the wall -Paul Simon, “Kodachrome” Although that song plays us out ahead of and during the credits for…