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…
The depressed streets of postwar Tokyo are the hunting ground for detective Toshiro Mifune, who lost his service automatic on a streetcar and is desperate to retrieve it. Soulful old cop Takashi Shimura gives him guidance and encouragement; an unhappy showgirl knows how to find the gun, but won’t talk. Akira Kurosawa’s prime goal is…
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…
You couldn’t tell from this trailer, which completely obscures the plot, or the obfuscating ad campaign (“Veronica Lake is on the take”(!)), but Preston Sturges’ brilliant Hollywood satire, which inspired the Coen Bros.’ Oh Brother Where Art Thou and has been the target of decades of aborted remake attempts, is one of the finest movies…
Olivier Assayas channels New Wave master Éric Rohmer in this drama about a family whose reunion stirs some awkward conversations about the ties that bind. Juliette Binoche stars along with the legendary Édith Scob as the family matriarch. Cinematographer Eric Gautier conjures up a sun-drenched tribute to Nestor Almendros.
Canada’s isolated countrysides are fertile territory for thrillers like John Trent’s Sunday in the Country where Ernest Borgnine fends off a trio of violent thugs before revealing his own bloodthirsty tendencies. Michael J. Pollard plays the lead psychopath and Hollis McLaren is Borgnine’s granddaughter. Trent wrote the screenplay with Robert Maxwell (TV’s Adventures of Superman!).
Three champions of Italian cinema, Vittorio De Sica, Sophia Loren, and Marcello Mastroianni, join forces to make a movie in… Russia. Not as incongruous as it sounds, Loren and Mastroianni play lovers separated by World War II only to reunite in the Soviet Union. The film extends its continental approach to the crew: the great…
Billy Wilder royally p.o.’d most of the Hollywood establishment with this devastatingly dark yet moving take on the tragic decline of silent movie queen Norma Desmond (an unforgettable Gloria Swanson), pushed aside by an unfeeling industry. One of the all-time greats. “I AM big! It’s the PICTURES that got small!”
Although not widely distributed theatrically, Sergio Corbucci’s little-known Italian-Spanish superhero comedy has a tremendous fan base of kids who saw it on HBO in the early 80s. Terence Hill (Mario Girotti), who usually made comic westerns with partner Bud Spencer (Carlo Pedersoli), is Dave Speed, telekinetic flying supercop, who makes life tough for his bewildered…
Maverick meets Yojimbo in Burt Kennedy’s raucous horse opera about a confidence man working both sides of a small town feud. James Garner plays the conniving charmer and Suzanne Pleshette is the fiery belle determined to corral his worst instincts. Hollywood’s golden age is represented by a formidable duo, Marie Windsor and Joan Blondell.
Burt Kennedy’s comic western couldn’t decide if it was slapstick or satire but the inherent appeal of James Garner grinning his way through his role as a reluctant gunslinger made this 1969 release an eventual hit (it stalled at the box office till Garner arranged an extra week in theaters). The movie gallops by with…
Edgar has his own thoughts on the very different American trailer that accompanied the US release of Argento’s classic.
Taking up the lurid mantle of Mario Bava, former film critic Dario Argento rocketed to international prominence with this highly influential giallo which spawned countless imitations. This is the international trailer made for export.
Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman’s corrosive look at Power in America as typified by an unscrupulous and possibly insane Broadway columnist modeled on Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell. Brilliantly directed by the underrated Alexander Mackendrick. A must-see. Sweet Smell of Success: The Fantastic Falco | The Current | The Criterion Collection
“The searing sting of the whip burned the brand of hate into her heart!” Narrator Paul Frees (at his sleaziest) hawks the dubious charms of this sub-New World imitation chicks-in-chains nudity-fest from Dimension, the Avis of drive-in suppliers. It’s hard to believe anything could look cheaper than the Doll House movies that inspired this, but…
“Rated X by an all-white jury” was the tagline for Melvin Van Peebles’ incendiary, groundbreaking 1971 indie. It grossed $15 million on a 150k budget and spurred a blaxploitation craze that lasted throughout the 70s. Dedicated to “all the Brothers and Sisters who are tired of being held down by the Man,” it spoke indelibly…