Movieline Online

THE HAIRDRESSER’S HUSBAND: Certain films require you to use an entirely different portion of your brain. So it’s understandable that director Patrice Leconte’s story of one man’s sensual obsession with female hairstylists can often feel like driving on the left side of the road or writing with the wrong hand. Quirky enough to induce a few giggles, artsy enough to make you think , The Hairdresser’s Husband dodges easy categorization, unfolding like a Gaussian daydream; part memory, part fantasy. Antoine’s (Jean Rochefort) erotic fetish pops up early in his youth and is rekindled when he meets Mathilde (Anna Galiena), who agrees on a whim to marry him. Reserving himself a seat to observe every customer, Antoine blissfully spends his days basking in the glow of his wife’s chosen profession. But is their all-consuming need for another enough to keep the relationship alive forever? Leconte’s film is “erotic” in the best sense of the word; one inch to the left or right and Antoine’s obsessio...

JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN: Although the two films couldn’t be more different in approach, Dalton Trumbo’s literary-minded attack on the architects of war shares the same agenda as Robert Altman’s M.A.S.H. which came out just the year before. And the presence of Donald Sutherland, playing Jesus as part of a hallucinogenic vision, only strengthens the counterculture comparison. Written in 1939 just before the US entered WW2, Dalton finally got a chance to adapt the material himself (his first and only film as a director despite having a celebrated screenwriting career) with Timothy Bottoms in the lead role of Joe Bonham, a young GI whose battlefield injuries leave him with no arms, no legs, and no face. Essentially a “piece of meat,” he’s kept alive for years in the backroom of a nondescript hospital where the medical personnel assume he has no brain function. However, Joe has in fact a very active mind which drifts through his past memories and meanders through an abstract landscape of fantasy...

CRAVING DESIRE: As the worldwide leader in film production for almost 100 years running, Hollywood’s ideas get copied a lot. And there is no better cinematic pickpocket than the Italian film industry. From Westerns to gangsters to cheesy sci-fi, there isn’t successful movie genre out there they won’t try to capitalize on. So even though Craving Desire was produced 6 year after the Michael Douglas / Glenn Close thriller Fatal Attraction, you can bet your sweet cannolli that somebody brought it up for inspiration. Directed by Sergio Martino, responsible for more than a few classic Italian gialli and poliziotteschi during the ‘70s, was well past his prime here, but manages to milk the most from a familiar set-up. Luigi (Ron Nummi) has a good job and a rich fiancé, but he risks it all when his first-cousin, Cinzia (Simona Borioni), shows up on his doorstep with a sob story. Soon, Cinzia runs him through a series of sexual games, sabotaging his career and personal relationships. Is she a nu...

THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS: It’s not often you watch a movie anymore and say, “Why the hell haven’t I seen this?” Thanks to cable, the internet and Wal-mart bargain bins, very few films of quality fly under the radar. But Dark Sky has unearthed just such a rarity with The Centerfold Girls, starring Andrew Prine as a disturbed stalker who tracks down each “girl of the month” to punish her for sins of the flesh. The slasher idea is really nothing new, but how director John Peyser tells the story is. The Centerfold Girls is broken down into three distinct parts like an old school anthology with each victim (a nurse, a model and a stewardess) inhabiting their own Tales from the Crypt segment. From a Manson family home invasion to an Agatha Christie-style who-dun-it, each third of the film has its own exploitation edge with Prine’s charmingly demented serial killer popping up in all three. The fact that each girl is being overtly punished for her sexuality gets the jump on conventional ‘80s slash...

SIN CITY: Many films have attempted to faithfully bring their comic book characters to life. Richard Donner’s Superman was always my personal reigning champ...until Sin City came along. More “translation” than “adaptation,” director Robert Rodriguez collaborated extensively with creator Frank Miller to recreate his nightmarish noir visions into a terrifying reality created almost entirely on a green-screen set. Working from three hardboiled stories featuring some of the ugliest mugs in the business (Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen and Bruce Willis), Sin City revels in its violent misogyny while it dazzles with a black-and-white tableau splashed with blood. Rourke’s segment, The Hard Goodbye, is the most effective. With his already disfigured face even more brutalized, the actor pummels his way through a variety of thugs (and a creepy Elijah Wood) to avenge the death of his angelic one-night-stand. And there’s no shortage of skin on display either, with Jessica Alba gyrating...

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL: Keanu Reeves is the unofficial ambassador for big budget genre films. His role as Neo in the Matrix trilogy all put his face on the dollar bill, and he seems to understand (much as Will Smith does) that sci-fi / fantasy films connect with audiences the way few other films can. And like Smith, his acting abilities have slowly evolved to a semi-professional level. Street Kings was the best performance of Reeve’s career, but it was a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of film. The remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still had the full power of Fox’s marketing machine behind it, grossed $230 million worldwide and a seemed to put the actor back in his element as an ambassador of an entirely different sort. Arriving on Earth inside a luminescent sphere with a 100 foot tall robot to back him up, Klaatu (Reeves) is mankind’s judge, jury and executioner, finding us guilty for ruining a perfectly good planet...something that is apparently pretty scarce in the universe. Reeve...

THE BROKEN: A thinly veiled adaptation of Jack Finney’s Body Snatchers, this one might be more successful than the inept big-budget remake of two summers ago. Lena Heady (The Sarah Connor Chronicles) spots her exact double driving down the street, but after they confront one another a car crash causes complete amnesia. Upon recovery, she realizes others are being replaced as well, including members of her own family. Writer / director Sean Ellis makes nice use of an old horror film standby – the evil twin in the mirror gag – and sucks the color out of his images to nice dramatic effect. Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins adds some authenticity to what is unquestionably the classiest film in this years collection. PERKINS 14: Proud to call itself the first “crowd-sourced” horror movie ever produced (which essentially means internet voters chose the cast and guided the story), Perkins 14 feels like exactly that. The first half-hour is an intimate battle of wills between the local cop whose ch...

QUANTUM OF SOLACE: The reinvention of Bond continues in this the first direct sequel in the franchise, picking up right where Casino Royale left off with 007 tracking down the mysterious organization responsible for his beloved Vesper’s death in the previous film. The plot is more convoluted, the villain – played by Mathieu Amalric – less memorable, but Daniel Craig sweats testosterone and rage with an intensity that rivals even the great Sean Connery. Director Marc Forster stages fight scenes with such authentic brutality you feel battered and bruised within the first 10-minutes. And the introduction of QUANTUM – evil acronym yet to be translated – suggests another long-running enemy for her majesty’s secret service to ferret out and destroy. But now that Bond’s unrelenting quest for vengeance has dragged on through two films, the franchise is in desperate need of rediscovering its sense of humor. Solace offers some closure to Bond’s formative years; here’s hoping the next chapter let...

A POLICEWOMAN IN NEW YORK: Although she doesn’t have the resume of a traditional “movie star,” there’s no denying that Edwige Fenech has carried her fair share of films. In fact, dozens of Italian thrillers and sex comedies were constructed around her shapely figure and impossible good looks. This release from MYA Communication is the third chapter in a series of slapstick adventures pairing Fenech with comedian Alvaro Vitali as a couple of clumsy cops on assignment in New York who just happen to be look-alikes of a mob girlfriend and his chief enforcer. Charged with bringing down the operation, Fenech relies on her ample charms and mean right hook to get the job done. Outside of Fenech’s circle of fans, the film doesn’t have much to offer besides ridiculously over-the-top sexual innuendo, bodily humor and non-stop racial stereotypes...all in good fun, of course. But only a stray line or two will actually inspire a chuckle. Most of the appeal lies in anticipating Fenech’s next costume ...

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: What makes a Bond film a Bond film? Is it the gadgets? The girls? The familiar 007 theme song? Or is it the man behind the gun? Producers of this 1983 flick were counting on the latter, having lured the original Bond, Sean Connery, back into the role after a 12 year hiatus. While Octopussy starring Roger Moore hit theaters the same year (and ended up grossing a bit more money), Never Say Never Again is a fine return to form despite lacking several staples of the franchise, including key cast members, the opening “gun-barrel” logo treatment and John Barry’s signature score. Connery’s presence alone ensures a more rough ‘n tumble approach to the onscreen action. A loose remake of Thunderball, the film one-ups the original in many respects including the health spa fight sequence that plays like a professional wrestling match. Kim Basinger pushes the PG-rating with an array of see-through outfits and Rowan “Mr. Bean” Atkinson provides comic-relief. An Atari-inspired ...

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY: How Sally Hawkins didn’t win an Oscar - let alone get nominated - for her performance as the perpetually perky Poppy in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky is almost inexplicable. Like Juno the year before, here we have a character so unique, distinct and overwhelmingly alive that she escapes the two-dimensional screen and lives on in our memories. Skipping through life with an unfailingly rosy disposition, Poppy’s day-to-day experiences bring her nothing but joy in even the most uncomfortable situations. But her weekly appointment with a driving instructor begins to cloud over her streak of sunny days, forcing Poppy to question if she’s truly happy with her life. While the British pepper nearly every conversation with the word “brilliant,” here the adjective truly applies. Mike Leigh’s film is a minor miracle of fast-paced conversations and unforgettable characters wrapped up in a script that never feels scripted. And even if Sally Hawkins never makes a film again, she’ll be f...

THE ROBE: Other than the box-office anomaly of The Passion of the Christ, biblical epics fell out of style with the death of old-Hollywood. But director Henry Koster’s film plays a larger role in cinematic history thanks to premiering as the first production shot in Cinemascope, the widescreen format that quickly became an industry standard. As for the film itself, it’s a rather plodding affair drowning in well-meaning but overacted sentiment. Richard Burton holds his own as Marcellus Gallio, part of the spoiled Roman elite, whose participation in Christ’s crucifixion “curses” him with a conscience. His rebirth as a true Christian makes up the second (less interesting) half of the film, leading towards a confrontation with the corrupt Roman ruler Caligula. Koster’s compositions certainly don’t take full advantage of the widescreen frame – a flat version was shot concurrently just in case the new format was a bust – but there’s still some grandeur to the proceedings despite all its flaw...

TWO EVIL EYES: The stories of Edgar Allen Poe seem to lend themselves to modernization and adaptation more so than other classic authors of the supernatural. Likely because Poe’s work largely describes internalized horrors; grief, paranoia and psychosis that stem from demons within rather than demons without. Director George Romero had already proven the anthology format was still viable with the success of Creepshow (1982) so his collaboration with Dario Argento (a reunion of sorts after co-producing Dawn of the Dead) made sense, turning loose two genre filmmakers in a playground of the macabre. It’s obvious Argento was the more enthusiastic of the two. His take on The Black Cat includes several references to other Poe stories and is executed with the sort of visual verve the director hadn’t shown in years. Despite fan disdain, Romero’s adaptation of The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar is a worthwhile attempt, turning the screws on a gold digging wife (Adrienne Barbeau) as she consp...

THE SINFUL DWARF: Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off sin I go! Actually, poor Olaf (Torben Bille) is just the muscle behind his dope-smuggling mother’s master plan to pimp out unsuspecting tenants in her boarding house and turn them into junkie sex slaves. Between clients, Olaf steals a moment or two to torture his mother’s pets with his collection of wind up poodles, monkeys and choo-choo trains. It’s all morally despicable - much like a John Waters movie played straight – shot through an inch-thick layer of drive-in sleaze. Torben’s crooked smile and threatening limp are actually less disturbing than the parade of simulated (?) sex scenes that manage to make every naked body unflattering besides lead actress Anne Sparrow. The Sinful Dwarf could make for a crude, campy party flick if not for its mile-long mean streak...but that, of course, is exactly what makes it so infamous in the first place. Severin Films DVD presentation is a flecked, grainy affair that looks like it was found in a pedophile...

MARLEY & ME: If we really need a tie-breaker to decide which household pet deserves the honor of “Man’s Best Friend,” Marley & Me should fit the bill. I mean, you don’t see any tearful goodbye to loyal cats. The only thing preventing them from killing us all in our sleep are opposable thumbs. But Marley & Me digs a bit deeper than your usual Beethoven flick, with Owen Wilson in the lead role as a newspaper columnist who finds his voice by chronicling family life through their household pet. After the first half-hour of pratfalls and puppy jokes, the film settles down to tell a mature story of family life and the sometimes manic juggling act necessary to keep wife, kids and career in perspective. It’s not what you’d expect from a movie that was marketed as cute escapist entertainment. In fact, Marley & Me might make you reflect on you own life more than most Oscar winners, just by virtue of the mirror it holds up to our own plans, dreams and ambitions for our families an...