Movieline Online

John Wayne only “acted” in two films in his career: Red River and The Searchers . In his hundred-plus other onscreen appearances he was simply playing the “role” of John Wayne as he saw fit. It was only when threatened or challenged that Wayne really brought something new to the table. The Comancheros (1961) finds him at his most comfortable as a Texas Ranger escorting a suave criminal (Stuart Whitman) for extradition. However, the journey tosses both men into the same boat against a massing army of Comanche Indians supported by a gang of opportunistic white men looking to make a buck. Infiltrating the compound, Wayne and Whitman join forces to beat back the drunken, savage red-skinned horde! Yep, it’s that kind of Western. It’s just as unfair to criticize The Comancheros for its depiction of Native Americans as it would be to judge the USSR based on watching Red Dawn . It’s a movie of its time, and a damn entertaining one, bolstered by a rousing score from Elmer Bernstein a...

Since the TV industry has a lock on the phrase “jumping the shark” to describe a show past its prime, perhaps we should consider adopting “launched into orbit” to explain a horror franchise in the same situation. After all, Jason X , which continued serial killer Jason Vorhees’ adventures where no man had gone before, is the epitome of desperate studio executive brainstorming. And yet Hellraiser: Bloodline (part 4 in the series and the last to be released theatrically) finds a clever way to expand the demonic mythology of Pinhead, serving as both a prequel and a sequel, while staging a dramatic change in venue for the opening and closing scenes. As a crude robot manipulates the infamous puzzle box, we’re introduced to the distant relative of the man who invented the darn thing, kicking off three different family histories beginning in Victorian England and ending up on an isolated space station where Doctor Paul Merchant (Bruce Ramsay) plans to destroy the evil once and for all....