The Italian creators of the worldwide ’60s smash Mondo Cane, initiators of the popular “shockumentary” genre, set their sights on the troubled Dark Continent with predictably lurid results. WARNING: contains images of human and animal violence which many may find offensive.

C.S. Forester’s novel was originally bought by Columbia for Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, then sold to Warners for Errol Flynn and Bette Davis. John Huston found it years later at Fox. He encouraged Katherine Hepburn, who suffered from dysentery through most of the shoot, to play her role like Eleanor Roosevelt. Screenwriter James Agee,…

A hapless Griffin Dunne tries to make his way home from New York’s Soho district in this quirky, unexpected black comedy that was nearly directed by Tim Burton, who stepped aside for Martin Scorsese when funding for The Last Temptation of Christ fell through. In some ways, this is Scorsese’s own version of Kafka’s The…

Alejandro Amenábar‘s Agora, set during The Roman Empire circa 391 AD, was Spain’s highest grossing film of 2009, but barely got a release in the US and is almost criminally unknown here. Its (literally) astronomical storyline features Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, 4th century mathematician and astronomer whose study of the geocentric Ptolemaic system foments religious turmoil and leads…

The offbeat art house film merges with the old-fashioned Hollywood epic in Werner Herzog’s astonishing Aguirre, the Wrath of God (accent on “wrath”). Filmed under punishing conditions in the Peruvian jungle, Herzog upped the pain quotient by casting the unruly Klaus Kinski as the mad conquistador Lope de Aguirre—the legendary battles between director and actor were…

“Republic. I like the sound of the word.” No, it’s not John Wayne talking about his former studio employers, but his directorial debut, the 70mm roadshow epic portrayal of the battle for Texas independence. Wayne lost a fortune on the picture, which was hacked into several shorter, less coherent general release versions, but it’s been belatedly…

Riding high after the tremendous success of his 1969 hit Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Paul Mazursky kicked off the ’70s with this self-indulgent ode to his own creative block. Not coincidentally, Alex concerns the travails of a director trying to top his last hit. Fellini-esque in the worst way (even though the…

Director Alfred Sole courted controversy on a couple of fronts with this 1976 shocker – the Catholic Church took umbrage over its subject matter (the original title was Communion) and a 1977 re-release threw more gasoline on the fire by exploiting the then 13 year-old Brooke Shields’ semi-scandalous performance in 1977’s Pretty Baby. Though there…

Alfred Sole’s nervy mix of slasher films and organized religion pushed a lot of buttons when it was released in 1976. Brooke Shields made her film debut as a child brutally murdered in church by a figure in a mask and yellow raincoat (an homage to Don’t Look Now‘s bloodthirsty homunculus). Garish but effective, Sole’s…

The monster in Ridley Scott’s influential sci fi classic was played by a 7’2″ Nigerian design student and set some kind of record for coating with K-Y Jelly, not to mention the shredded condoms standing in for its yucky jaw tendons. A huge success, it spawned three direct sequels, two spinoffs, and two prequels (thus…

Although not a hit when released in 1974, the 1977 reissue with the tagline “There is only one thing wrong with the Davis baby.” It’s Alive! hit the box office jackpot, leading to two sequels. Larry Cohen’s killer baby movie gives us very limited footage of Rick Baker’s infant monster, and the trailer affords no…

Another lacerating depiction of the values of post-war middle-class Americans from Douglas Sirk, who Universal seemed to regard merely as their house soap-opera specialist. Once again a long-suffering spouse is put through the ringer; here it’s widow Jane Wyman taking flak from the country club set as well as her selfish kids for her affair…

John Sayles wrote the witty script, mostly on airplanes, at the same time he was writing The Howling, and Joe Dante remains convinced that the dream sequence in the latter was really meant for the former, and vice versa. A cast of great character actors classes up Lewis Teague’s manful efforts to get the most out…

A drugged amnesiac Beverly Garland confides in two psychiatrists about her terrible repressed experiences among the Alligator People and they decide in the end not to tell her about it! Swampy fifties fun with a good supporting cast.

Despite generally rapturous reviews, Cameron Crowe’s engaging semi-autographical chronicle of a teenage writer touring with rock bands for Rolling Stone struggled at the box office, but has since emerged as a cult classic with a devoted following. An alternate dvd version, Almost Famous: Untitled, consists of the theatrical release combined with 40 minutes of deleted scenes.

William Hurt, in his screen debut, experiments with that nostalgic 80s pastime, sensory deprivation, which culminates in biological devolution. Writer Paddy Chayefsky, credited onscreen as Sidney Aaron despite writing the novel his screenplay was based on, disowned Ken Russell’s wacko hallucinatory approach, which plays more like a remake of Return of the Ape Man. Original…

Directed by Miloš Forman and adapted by Peter Shaffer from his own stage play, Amadeus is one of the most unlikely box office hits in Hollywood history. The story of the fraught relationship between Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri features two powerhouse performances from Tom Hulce as Mozart and F. Murray Abraham as Salieri who…

Federico Fellini‚ remembers his Fascist-era hometown‚ Rimini (renamed Borgo) in a‚ loosely structured, sometimes dreamlike evocation of a year in the life of a small Italian coastal town in the nineteen-thirties — not literally but as recalled by a director whose international success allowed him to make films as personal and intimately he cared to….

George Lucas was originally slated to direct Apocalypse Now for Warner Bros. but the deal fell though. Despite its shoestring budget and little support from Universal, his next project was a mythic ode to his high school years in Modesto, California that became a sleeper hit, grossing over $55 million and jump-starting numerous careers both…

Practically begging to be a cult film, this 1972 Israeli comedy featuring murderous mimes, bloodthirsty sharks and a Vietnam vet shipwrecked with a band of hippies has been described as “a serious candidate for the worst movie of all time”. Written, produced and directed by one-shot wonder Amos Sefer, the film was also a perfect…

What should be a comedy of errors about a hapless filmmaker’s efforts to complete a low, low budget horror film becomes instead a poignant tale about dodging life’s slings and arrows in order to follow your dreams. The film’s main dreamer is the Quixote-like Mark Borchardt, a lanky Milwaukeean determined to produce his movie come…

Paddy Chayefsky’s thoughtful, witty adaptation of William Bradford Huie’s anti-war novel is one of the more unusual WW II movies, tackling themes of courage and morality in a sardonic manner that seems daring even today. James Garner is said to consider this his favorite performance.

State of the art monsters and cheeky humor made John Landis’s comic horror film a must-see in the summer of 1981. David Naughton plays the star-crossed grad student attacked by a werewolf but it’s Griffin Dunne’s star-making turn as a wise-cracking zombie that gives the movie a hot foot. Rick Baker’s Oscar-winning makeup effects are…

Otto Preminger learned a lot from Hitchcock, publicity-wise. The autocratic Viennese director basically stars in this trailer for one of his biggest hits, based on a real murder case and shot on the actual locations in Michigan. Once again Preminger baited the censors with provocative material and got away with it, opening the doors to…

Al Pacino showboats his way to an Oscar nomination and a place in the book of great movie quotes: “You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order!!” He plays Arthur Kirkland, a crusading lawyer facing down any number of institutional dragons including a profoundly corrupt judge played by John Forsythe. Norman Jewison…

A small town in New Mexico is decimated by an alien organism in Robert Wise’s The Andromeda Strain, based on the first book by Michael Crichton (Westworld, Jurassic Park) to be brought to the screen. Though Wise’s film was advertised as a wall-to-wall nail-biter (“The suspense will last a lifetime!”) the movie is largely inert with a…