Movieline Online

THE FLICKS: John Ford’s career as a director started during the silent era and flourished until the end of the studio system. He picked up four Oscars along the way and literally defined how our culture viewed the American West. Along with Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Welles, his name pops up as one of the most respected directors of all time. So it’s about damn time someone gave him his own box set. Warner Bros. did even better than that, they gave him two. Consisting of five of Ford’s lesser known entries, The John Ford Collection works as a sort of supplement to the more established classics collected in the John Ford/John Wayne Set, which includes landmarks like Stagecoach and The Searchers. Here we see Ford experimenting with his style (The Informer), stretching his oeuvre (Mary of Scotland) and righting old wrongs (Cheyenne Autumn). And while none of the films are as cohesive or brilliant as the director’s best, they are recommended stops for fans of Ford and cinema history in general...

THE FLICKS: In the eyes of history Amicus films is only a polite footnote next to Hammer’s big red exclamation mark. The company, founded by two Americans but based primarily in London, put out a series of omnibus-style horror films (Tales from the Crypt and The House that Dripped Blood being the best known) that went head-to-head with rival Hammer Studio’s brand of assembly line gothic fear films, which themselves were on the wan. And Amicus got a few good licks in before both companies went belly up against the emergence of the big Hollywood blockbuster. Now Dark Sky Films has scored a trio of Amicus titles that give this underdog studio its due. Asylum, the last of Amicus’ episodic horror films, may not contain the best individual stories but its framing mechanism is a real stroke of genius. A psychiatrist arriving for a job interview at the Dunmoor Asylum for the Incurably Insane finds himself put to the test as the asylum’s director challenges him to uncover which of the facility’...

THE FLICK: Very rarely do I call out a fellow film critic. It’s bad enough that the general public despises us and has been known to toss rotten fruit, dirty underwear or worse on occasion. In our profession journalistic solidarity is of the essence. But when Nightwatch finally made its way to the U.S. after shattering all box office records in its home country of Russia (more specifically laying the smack down on The Lord of the Rings) its debut was met with a big ugly “F” from Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman. I haven’t run across too many films deserving of a rating that low in my reviewing career. They essentially have to be so inept, so incomprehensible or so offensive to my senses that their mere existence is the equivalent of a charley horse in the brain. Nightwatch is not one of those movies. And if Gleiberman watched it again I’m sure he’s say the same thing. Trouble is his “F” already did its damage to an imported foreign language film that probably didn’t have muc...

DUMBO (BIG TOP EDITION): The simplicity of the early Disney films is almost shocking in today’s era of cross-promoted, over-produced, largely empty-headed animation. At a scant 64 minutes, Dumbo manages to elicit more invention and emotion than the last three Dreamworks films combined (at least Pixar gets it right most of the time). The story about an elephant with oversized ears has ingrained itself into American culture so well you almost take it for granted. But rewatching the 1941 production reminds you of the great musical interludes (“Look Out For Mr. Stork,” and the catchy jazz number “When I See An Elephant Fly”) and tear-jerking moments like Mrs. Jumbo’s trunk-to-trunk reunion with her baby from behind bars. Disney manages to make it all work with a lead character that never says a word and a script that never panders, but simply speaks from the heart. Most of the extras are ported over from the 2001 special edition, but there’s a new music video for “Baby Mine” and a set of f...

THE FLICK: Bigger, louder and dumber is the de facto formula for most movie sequels. The exceptions are almost too few to mention. But director Len Wiseman goes for bigger, louder and more complicated with Underworld: Evolution (part two in a planned trilogy, if you’re counting, although now that Wiseman has been signed for Die Hard 4.0 those odds are pretty low). Rather than add more vampire vs. werewolf action, this plot-heavy sequel slows things down with a genealogical history so complex it would take a few years of research to sort out who “begot” who. It’s a risky idea that doesn’t quite pay off. Wiseman still proves himself quite adept at staging interesting action scenes, maneuvering his star/wife Kate Beckinsale through a variety of leather-clad shoot-outs between rabid “lychens” and a new winged vampire king beautifully brought to life by the effects team. But, while the dense backstory is suitably epic, the gaps between the violence can be deathly dull. Part of the problem l...