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Cutter's Way

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The catchphrase for ‘70s cinema was ambiguity . Not that David Lynch nonsense that leaves every scene open to interpretation, but the sort of morally murky, post-Watergate cynicism where the answers matter less than the questions they leave behind. Cutter’s Way was actually released in 1981, but it’s soaked in the neo-noir of Chinatown , the bleach-blond decay of Shampoo and the lazy disillusionment of Five Easy Pieces . So much so that when director Ivan Passer wrings it out to dry, the movie leaves its audience just as spiritually empty. Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) is a layabout lothario who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. After witnessing a murder, he casually identifies the suspect as one of the Santa Barbara elite, a man above reproach and, perhaps, above the law. Bone is happy to leave well enough alone, but his friend, Alex Cutter (John Heard), a disfigured and disillusioned Vietnam vet, sees an opportunity to dispense justice and make some money at th...
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Confessions of a Police Captain

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Director Damiano Damiani has built a career on corruption. Not the obvious, everyday swindlers, but the insidious variety that seeps into government institutions and can’t be removed without killing the host. In 1971’s Confessions of a Police Captain, he reunites with Franco Nero and Martin Balsam in a dissection of the Italian justice system, staging a chess match in which the rules were fixed before the game began. Captain Bonavia (Balsam) is the experienced cop who understands there is more than one way to get your man. District Attorney Traini (Nero) is his naïve counterpart, shocked at the suggestion of city officials working with mafiosos to line both their pockets. They approach the same case from different angles as the pressure to take down a dirty land developer ruffles feathers in the underworld and the judicial bench. The chess match metaphor is particularly relevant to Bonavia and Traini’s relationship. In a rare leading role, Balsam excels as the jaded mentor who has...
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Soldier

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Kurt Russell’s name doesn’t pop up when it comes to action heroes, yet his career is littered with iconic performance in the genre: Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, Tango & Cash, Stargate, Breakdown and about a half dozen others on the fringes. But 1998’s Soldier might be his most on-the-nose attempt hang with Stallone and Schwarzenegger, a ‘80s throwback full of weaponry, explosions and enough macho posturing to embarrass a Greek god. Raised on warfare from birth, Sgt. Todd (Russell) and his corps of space soldiers are deemed “outdated” after a new program introduces genetically engineered commandos who can kick ass more cost effectively. Literally thrown out with the trash, Todd lands on a waste disposal planet populated with displaced colonists who find his demeanor at odds with their peaceful existence. But when more space baddies arrive to cause trouble, he’s the only things standing between them and complete destruction. Written by David Webb Peoples (...
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The Dancing Hawk

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We can all agree that, for the most part, spoilers are bad. But when you’re talking about experimental films that intentionally rearrange the narrative and visual DNA of cinema itself, it helps to have a cheat code. And that’s certainly the case with The Dancing Hawk (1977), an avant-garde Polish drama that follows the professional success and personal failings of one Michal Toporny, a rural farmhand seduced by the Soviet bureaucracy into a life of ruthless ambition. Director Grzegorz Krolikiewicz follows the narrative structure of Citizen Kane but takes wild creative swings that cleverly disguise the tribute to Welles’ classic. Born into a proud sort of poverty, Toporny (Franciszek Trzeciak) begrudgingly agrees to pursue an education in the city, leaving behind a wife and son in hope of securing a better future for them all. But as his career takes off, Toporny scrubs himself clean of all traces of his humble beginnings, remarrying into a better family and spurning the political req...
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The Eye (2002)

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Yet another take on the “possessed limb” genre which includes legit classics like Mad Love (1935) and the absurd but underrated Body Parts (1991), the supernatural threat from The Eye (2002) is caused by a corneal transplant that allows the new recipient to see the recently deceased. Pulling more inspiration from The Sixth Sense than any of films previously mentioned, this Hong Kong-Singapore production follows the same playbook as other millennial Asian horror entries, but delivers a few shocks you won’t see coming. Blind since the age of two, Mun (Angelica Lee) has her vision surgically restored and immediately realizes there are unintended side-effects. Shadowy figures can be seen leading off patients in the hospital ward and disturbing strangers pop up that no one else can see. Enlisting the aid of a psychologist, the duo travel to Thailand to hunt down the original donor and unravel the psychic trauma left behind. Disjointed, scattered and swimming in editorial cliches of t...
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Wandering Ginza Butterfly Collection

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While Kurosawa translated the clichés of the American Western quite successfully in a number of his samurai films, director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi lifts his inspiration wholesale from the Italian Westerns of Sergio Leone in a pair of films starring the iconic Meiko Kaji ( Female Prisoner Scorpion ) as a lone wolf cut from the same pancho. In Wandering Ginza Butterfly,  Nami (Meiko Kaji) d rifts into town with all the icy aloofness of Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name,” becoming enmeshed in a local prostitution/gambling ring with rival mobsters fighting for control. A dangerous outsider with a criminal past,  she plays both sides just long enough to decide who deserves what’s coming before delivering it with ruthless efficiency; first with a pool cue…then with a sword. She-Cat Gambler follows a similar formula but adds an element of revenge and the kung-fu stylings of Sonny Chiba ( Street Fighter ) whose bursts of intensity go down like a shot of 5 Hour Energy. Both films unfol...
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Samurai Revolution Trilogy

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Samurai films don’t behind and end with the work of Akira Kurosawa, although for decades one couldn’t be blamed for thinking so. The logistics were simple: not enough work from Japan was considered “export friendly” enough to crack the language barrier. So the view of samurai as infallible warriors whose code of honor could not be broken stuck around for quite a while. But the films of Eiichi Kudo are here to politely ruin that assumption. Working in the same sandbox as Kurosawa, Kudo’s trilogy – 13 Assassins (1963), The Great Killing (1964) and 11 Samurai (1967) – ditches the romanticism is favor of mud, blood and the shattering suspicion that the whole "code of honor" thing might be a bad joke played on the people expected to die for it. Based on the true events during the Edo era in which a masochist domain lord was assassinated to prevent him from taking power, 13 Assassins follows a band of weary warriors on what amounts to a suicide mission: take out Lord Matsud...
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