Movieline Online

THE FLICK: The signature image of Billy Bob Thornton in a Santa suit puking his drunken guts out in a dirty back alley says more than any film critic’s review ever will. If you find the description amusing or even curiously sacrilegious (even though Santa never appears in the Bible people can get pretty defensive about the jolly old elf’s reputation), then “Bad Santa” is for you. And if you’re feeling really naughty, pick up “Badder Santa,” which adds seven more minutes of curse words, simulated sex and holiday cynicism. Thornton is an alcoholic safecracker who runs a yearly department store scam dressed as Santa, reeking of liquor and cigarettes as the children pee, puke and cry on his lap. The plan’s mastermind is his partner, ? (), a dwarf who uses his size to thwart whatever security measures the mall employs. The scam is on course until Thorton becomes unintentionally attached to a needy fat kid and finds himself part of a distorted family unit along with his sometime bartender gi...

THE FLICKS: Robocop is a film that shouldn’t have succeeded on any level, starting with a title that even its own writers found embarrassing. But somehow Dutch director Paul Verhoeven turned the script’s trite sci-fi escapism into a hilariously brutal satire of American capitalism – and still managed to keep the action fast and furious. Peter Weller is Murphy; an honest cop who is brutally murdered then resurrected as the future of law enforcement, Robocop. Fighting his scattered human memories, along with the corrupt executives within OCP, the Reagan-era mega-corporation that now own old-Detroit, Murphy finds himself torn between his programming and his cop instincts. Partner, ? (Nancy Allen) helps him bring down the bad guys and restore his humanity. Not only does Robocop work as a gruesome sci-fi adventure (especially in the longer unrated cut included here), but its barbed-wire wit cuts right to the core of 80’s excess, particularly the laughably over-the-top TV commercials and new...

THE FLICK: The allure of the gangster lifestyle has inspired filmmakers from Howard Hawks to Martin Scorsese – feeding off the intrinsically dramatic rise to power and equally satisfying fall from grace. Fernando Meirelles’ City of God blends this familiar story within a more socially conscious framework. The working-class slums of Rio de Janeiro are the setting for his manically brilliant coming-of-age gangster film, more alive with true cinematic joie de vive than anything in recent memory. Based on a true story of Brazilian gang violence in the 60’s and 70’s, the film follows Rocket, a quiet bystander to the world of violence around him, but jumps from character to character as the crime saga unfolds. Lil’ Ze, who commits his first mass murder by the age of 10, kills his way to the top of the slums. And his taste for blood affects everyone’s life - from Benny, his second-in-command looking to escape to the simple life, to the “runts,” pre-teen gangs who steal candy, cash or whatever...

THE FLICK: For those with an appreciation for Victorian-style horror (Hammer did it best, but there’s quite a few others who took a crack at the big bosomed, starched-collar period-piece genre), the top billing of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in The Creeping Flesh is enough to garner considerable attention. For despite their frequent parings, the two rarely played a scene in the same room, let alone with any significant dialogue. This Freddie Francis directed thriller doesn’t offer much other than that, casting Cushing as an obsessive research-type and Lee as his priggish psychiatrist half-brother. The aforementioned “creeping flesh” comes from an ancient skeleton in Cushing’s lab which when exposed to water reconstitutes into a gooey slime monster with telekinetic powers. But before all the scares start, we have to watch Cushing inject his daughter with some “pure evil” solution, which sends her on a psychotic rampage. She winds up in Lee’s asylum, where he jealously blackmails h...