Movieline Online

THE FLICKS: With the Italian Giallo and Spaghetti Western genres making a big dent in the cult DVD industry, newcomers No Shame films are making a strong case for the inclusion of Italian poliziottesci – crime pics inspired by gritty American imports like French Connection and The Godfather – in fans’ collections. First up is Almost Human (1974) starring Tomas Milian in a Scarface-style story of a bottom-feeding criminal who hatches a kidnapping scheme that will earn him the money and respect his deranged ego so desperately craves. Milian, an Actor’s Studio grad, always invests his roles with a dangerous amount of energy. And as Guilio Sacchi he finds a role that matches his over-the-top talents, with a healthy dash of Pacino envy to play-out onscreen (indeed, Pacino’s own Tony Montana in Brian DePalma’s Scarface could be Guilio’s Italian half-brother). A petty crook who graduates from stealing quarters from phone booths to slaughtering an entire family, Guilio’s kidnapping of a rich i...

THE FLICK: Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira stands like one of Kubrick’s black monoliths over the whole of Japanese animation, a creative achievement most fans deem impossible to top – even though other entries in the genre have scaled its lofty heights more than once over the past two decades. On the flip side of the monument is Hyao Miyazaki, whose “kid-friendly” style (for lack of a better word) seems to represent the polar opposite of Akira’s bloody, apocalyptic vision of the future. Truth be told, the two masters of anime are not that far apart thematically; the recent release of many of Miyazaki’s films (Naussica, Spirited Away, etc.) on DVD made that abundantly clear. And with Steamboy, Otomo’s long-awaited return to the screen, the director incorporates many elements that would feel more at home in Miyazaki’s universe: a pre-pubescent hero, noisy foil/love-interest, and rousing (but mostly bloodless) action sequences. Structured like a serial matinee (or, if you prefer, the more recent ...

THE FLICK: Listing a film’s inspirations seems criminally unfair at this juncture of cinematic history. Post-modernism has evolved into an entirely new movement of creative borrowing, lifting and sometimes outright thievery to become a capitalistic collage of ideas so cluttered no one can really lay claim to much original thought. It’s what you do with those borrowed elements that is the measure of most films’ success. And Constantine, although a failure on the grand scale of things, has moments that break through the surface of mediocrity with stunning clarity. Based on the Hellblazer comic series, Keanu Reeves portrays (rather uncomfortably) the demonic detective John Constantine, cursed to witness the dark forces at work amongst us, but blessed with the ability to do something about it. His character is a cynical, defeated, mess of a man, quoting tough-guy dialogue with an ever-present cigarette dangling from his lower lip. The fact that he’s dying of lung cancer is just another inc...

THE FLICK: A lesser reviewer might not have had the courage to write about the misleadingly titled Deep Throat Special Edition. But I feel compelled to give this release from NY After Midnight (actually a division of cult faves Blue Underground) some face time for a couple of reasons. One, to clear up the misconception that this is actually a version of the Linda Lovelace pornographic landmark. It’s not. And two, because this is actually a fascinating time capsule of public-access history. Part of the Midnight Blue Collection (the cover claims this is volume one), the DVD includes several episodes from the public access program created by Screw magazine founder Al Goldstein, which aired on Manhattan Cable for several decades. Or at least most of it did. The content of each program pushed the vague limits of what the FCC allowed on cable TV, sometimes to the breaking point, forcing the program to delete the visual portions of the show that went too far. After you’ve watched the first 5-...

THE FLICK: They Came Back is a film of staggering emotional power built on the premise of a zombie film. And ironically it’s the “Z”-word that will most likely be both a blessing and a curse for French director Robin Campillo’s debut feature. A certain number of critics dismiss most of the horror genre (however tenuous the connection) outright. While a select group of cinephiles will watch anything that promises an appearance by the undead (preferably with ample amounts of gore). In that case, both camps will be disappointed. The zombies of They Came Back are not rotting corpses; in fact, they are the embodiment of perfect health besides being mentally slow and a few degrees cooler. And the only immediate threat they pose to the general populace is their reintegration into normal society. How are they reunited with loved ones? Who will provide them jobs? Can a zombie be a self-sufficient citizen? Even George Romero at his best (which was Dawn of the Dead) never imagined this sort of so...