The events surrounding the murder of Playboy model Dorothy Stratten make for one of the most unpleasant films to ever come out of Hollywood—it’s made even more unbearable by the heartbreakingly sweet presence of Mariel Hemingway as the doomed Playmate. Eric Roberts plays Dorothy’s deranged husband to a T and Bob Fosse directs in a…
Cary Grant was originally entreated by co-star Judy Garland to play fading star Norman Maine in this remake of the 1937 original, but when he stepped out James Mason took over to provide one of his most iconic performances. Director George Cukor (who had filmed the first version of the story, What Price Hollywood?) was outraged…
Barbra Streisand steps into the Judy Garland role in this big-scale musical remake that works pretty well on its own terms, but would have benefitted from the original casting choice for leading man, the superstar….well, we’ll let Adam Rifkin tell you about it.
Star Trek left the airwaves in 1969 but an army of avid fans not only kept the candle burning, they were part of an unending crusade that led to an epic big budget film version of the modestly produced television incarnation. Directed by Robert Wise, Star Trek: The Motion Picture features the same familiar crew; the hot-shot…
Italian fan-turned-director Luigi Cozzi (as “Lewis Coates”) specialized in energetic mini-budget spectacles inspired by his favorite movies, from Harryhausen to Hercules to Star Wars. This comic-book space opera is loaded with ambitious home-made special effects, but somehow the spectacle of ray gun-toting Caroline Munro strutting around in her leather bikini outdoes them all.
At the height of his critical enshrinement after hitting the jackpot with Annie Hall and Manhattan, Woody Allen attempted his own version of Fellini’s 8 1/2, about a filmmaker who re-examines his life and loves at a fan-filled retrospective of his works. It was roundly rejected by critics and audiences as a misjudged, cynical muddle of pretension and narcissism. Overlooked was the…
Seth Holt, the director of some of Hammer’s most distinctive films, steers this desert-bound potboiler about an overheated vamp whose jealous husband crashes their car into an isolated oil station. Carroll Baker plays the blonde seductress and Peter van Eyck is the sadistic boss determined to keep Baker to himself and his hot and bothered…
Although nominated for two Golden Globes, this British rock comedy about an apocryphal ’70s rock band called Strange Fruit acrimoniously reuniting in middle age for a 20th-year reunion concert is virtually unknown in millennial America. Think Spinal Tap with Bill Nighy, Stephen Rea, Billy Connolly and Timothy Spall.
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. You’ve probably never heard of these films, but the upside is that watching them alone at home won’t require a mask. According to the one-sheet, in 1965’s Nightmare in the Sun, Ursula Andress…
Jonathan Demme’s 1984 film documenting Talking Heads’ three night stand at the Hollywood Pantages is one of the great concert films of all time. Thanks to Heads frontman David Byrne’s ingenious staging, the film works in a narrative vein as well, beginning with Byrne alone on the stage fidgeting through the schizo rhythms of Psycho Killer and ending…
Quartet, Dustin Hoffman’s well-received 2012 directing debut, wasn’t his first time behind the camera. In 1978 he began helming this gritty street drama but handed over the reins to Ulu Grosbard after a few days because, lacking video assist, he felt he couldn’t fairly judge his performance as an incorrigible ex-con on parole. An uncredited…
“WARNING! This picture vividly depicts AXE MURDERS!” Well, not all that vividly. Not as crappy as 13 Frightened Girls, but certainly one more step in director William Castle’s mid-sixties decline. Star Joan Crawford had Anne Helm fired as her daughter and replaced by Diane Baker, whose performance she undercut in the editing room. Our favorite…
This ironic, Douglas Sirkian romantic time capsule about an extra marital affair was originally offered to Glenn Ford, who refused to work with star Kim Novak. Coproducer Kirk Douglas took the role only to turn on her when she gave him acting lessons in front of the crew. Nevertheless, the critical and boxoffice flop has…
Memorable set pieces and brilliant visuals abound in Hitchcock’s return to major studio filmmaking after several uneven independent ventures. Robert Walker’s finest hour.
One of the most critically reviled of Hammer Films’ period horrors is set during India’s Sepoy Mutiny and shocked audiences with depictions of Thugee torture and sadism that look…well, pretty tame to modern audiences weaned on the explicitness of modern horror. Strikingly shot by Hammer stalwart Arthur Grant… in StrangloScope!
Sam Peckinpah, banished from Warner Bros. after the commercial failures of The Wild Bunch and The Ballad of Cable Hogue, headed for England and outraged his critics anew with this violent, highly controversial study in homicidal rage. Bookish mathematician Dustin Hoffman finds his inner Rambo when Cornish toughs assault his sexy wife, leading to a Shakespeareanly…
Sam Peckinpah, banished from Warner Bros. after the commercial failures of The Wild Bunch and Ballad of Cable Hogue, headed for England and outraged his critics anew with this violent, highly controversial study in homicidal rage. Bookish mathematician Dustin Hoffman finds his inner Rambo when Cornish toughs assault his sexy wife, leading to a Shakespeareanly…
It’s time to crunch the numbers once again for the third piece in our Streaming Wars series! Today, we’ll take a look at streaming market shares for the third quarter of the year, the sequel to our prior pieces analyzing the first and second quarters of 2021. We’d like to offer a hat-tip to our…
Director Walter Hill reimagines The Wild One as a rock and roll musical set in a fantasyland version of the 1950s. Featuring a superb cast of rockers and bikers including Michael Paré, Diane Lane, and Rick Moranis, the film was scored with chart toppers Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks. Despite the star power the film…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. Pull up your mask – up over your nose – and we’ll hit the streets of Hollywood for this week’s diversion. Fairy tales can come true, they can happen to you, if you…
Sexy nurses having proved popular with the ’70s exploitation crowd, New World branched out into a new three-girl-formula featuring oversexed “students” trying to make it with their provocatively-clad (or more often unclad) teachers. It yielded one official followup (Summer School Teachers) and a number of lower-rent imitations. NSFW.
A gooey new‚ wrinkle in monsters: Yogurt that eats you! Larry Cohen utilizes‚ techniques from movies as varied as The Blob and Royal Wedding in this clever horror satire on consumerism, addiction, the ad biz and junk food. The‚ final film of actor/voiceover‚ star Alexander Scourby.
Here’s what you need to know about STUNT ROCK: Grant Page (Australian wild man) does stunts, while the rock group SORCERY plays truly-era-appropriate music. And, also, they do magic. Yes, MAGIC! Stunts + rock and roll + magic = you’re sold; trust us.
Julie Messinger—accent on the “mess”—discovers her husband is a serial cheater whose conquests happen to be most of Julie’s best friends. Joan Didion and Joan Micklin Silver took their turns writing the script till Elaine May stepped in to finish the screenplay under a pseudonym. Dyan Cannon stars as Julie and Laurence Luckinbill plays her…
Though notable as the only “Dirty Harry” movie to be directed by Clint Eastwood himself, SUDDEN IMPACT earned its place in American culture as the movie that inspired Ronald Reagan to co-opt Harry’s deadpan dare to a gun-wielding punk, “Go ahead, make my day.” Bruce Surtees, Eastwood’s longtime cinematographer, once again brings his distinctly hardboiled…
Katharine Hepburn wants niece Elizabeth Taylor to get a lobotomy to protect the reputation of her dead son. A troubled production denounced by screenwriter Gore Vidal and author of the original one-act play Tennessee Williams, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s baroque Southern Gothic was a surprisingly potent boxoffice attraction due to the stars and a somewhat salacious ad campaign. Given…