Movieline Online

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that Moulin Rouge ! (2001) single-handedly saved the Hollywood musical. At the very least, it proved that the genre was still commercially viable, which might be its biggest accomplishment in the long run. But much of the credit for that accomplishment is due to director Baz Luhrmann’s visual and structural re-invention of what a movie musical could be outside the restrictions of its frequent Disney-animated shackles. Curiously enough, director Michael Ritchie ( Fletch, The Bad News Bears ) was pursuing his own path towards the same ends six years earlier in 1995, adapting the long-running off-Broadway play The Fantasticks . Yet, unlike the stage production, which stripped everything down to the essentials (including a bare stage and two-man orchestra), Ritchie’s version is more akin to a revival than a re-invention; embracing the sort of grandiose scenery of classics like Oklahoma and shot with an eye that flatters the work of wide...

Director Yasuharu Hasebe’s Massacre Gun (1967) was a well-photographed but laconic rip-off of American film noir, set in smoky jazz clubs and dingy backrooms. His follow up for Nikkatsu, Retaliation (1968), gives those same ingredients an invigorating kick in the ass! Another in a long line of yakuza crime thrillers, the set-up might be familiar, but almost everything about the film’s visual style is unique. With a street-level POV, peeking through traffic, pedestrians or blades of grass, Hasebe’s camera is nearly always watching the action through some sort of clever obstruction. It’s a directorial conceit that might have been annoying, but instead gives Retaliation an artful authenticity that makes even the most mundane conversation interesting; a style that crime films in the U.S (like Bullitt and The French Connection ) would soon adopt for themselves. The story is yet another twist on Yojimbo with Jiro (Akira Kobayashi) planning to move in on a new territory by pitting to...

Produced just before the gooey practical effects boom went bust, Society (1989) is a bit of an anomaly amongst the ‘80s horror genre. Sure, there were others that had the same “anything goes” explosion of latex monstrosities ( TerrorVision ) and even a few that bothered to criticize Reagan-era economics ( They Live ). But Society is more of a throwback to the enjoyably paranoid plots of the Twilight Zone , preferring to keep things on a low boil of social class conspiracies…until the lid pops off in the final 15-minutes, resulting in a hot mess of bizarre creations dreamt up by Japanese effects artist Screaming Mad George which has kept the film’s cult reputation simmering for over 25 years. Bill (Billy Warlock) feels like an outsider, even though he’s from an elite family and one of the most popular students at Beverly Hill High. His weekly therapy sessions don’t seem to be helping and some strange occurrences keep piling up. When a friend finally confronts him with audio evid...

The common theory that mystery writers come up with the ending of their story first, then write their way backwards may or may not be true. But in the case of Arrow Video’s special edition of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Obsbourne , starting with the supplements before watching the movie itself is most certainly the way to go. Particularly for those who only have a cursory knowledge of Polish director Walerian Borowczyk, who filmed himself into a corner with a trio of scandalous soft-core French exports in the 1970s. DVD co-producer Michael Brooke provides a half-hour overview of Borowczyk’s career, complete with the director’s cinematic beginnings in animation (with a cut-paper style reminiscent of Terry Gilliam) through his far more notorious – and profitable – sexploitation films Immoral Tales and The Beast , which combined an art film aesthetic with copious amounts of sex, nudity and bestiality. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne hits some of the sa...

2001: A Space Odyssey set a new precedent for realistic special effects in science-fiction films. In fact, it set the bar so high few studios or filmmakers were willing to take a chance on competing with its meticulous craftsmanship, fearful that audiences would snicker at the attempt...not to mention the risk of losing money, time, and effort spent trying to duplicate the model-sized masterpiece. But the trippy final act of Kubrick’s film had distinct coattail riding possibilities. No one was really sure what it was about, but the “kids” all seemed to dig those psychedelic visuals and cosmic philosophies. So it’s likely that angle (and the success of Deliverance ) that gave writer/director John Boorman the green light for Zardoz (1974); one of the more willfully bizarre movies ever released outside of the experimental film circuit. Set in the year 2293, mankind has evolved into a race of Eternals, perfectly coifed debutantes who live forever in a bubble-enclosed paradise....

Even cult film aficionados could be excused for asking, “Who the hell is Pete Walker and why does he have his own collection ?” The name doesn’t have the same buzz factor as Romero, Argento or even Ed Wood. But that’s part of what makes the horror genre so damn interesting: there’s always some clique that’s ripe for rediscovery and, potentially, a new addition to one’s collection. In the case of Pete Walker, a British director who worked the seedier side cinema during the ‘70s, this would be his second introduction for North American audiences after Kino / Redemption released their first Pete Walker Collection on Blu-ray last year. And like that previous set, The Pete Walker Collection Volume 2 contains an eclectic mix of genres mixed with a pair of the director’s earliest double-bills. For causing such a row in its native country, Frightmare (1974) is, like many British horror films of its era, rather polite about the sex, violence and cannibalism it presents onscreen. In...

Aussie exploitation began – and pretty much peaked – with the Mad Max (1979), director George Miller’s nasty revenge drama set in a dystopian semi-future where the roads are ruled by delinquent motorheads barely kept in check by an undermanned police force, including their top interceptor: Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). But the worldwide phenomenon of Max’s popularity didn’t kick in until the sequel – The Road Warrior – was released in 1981, starting an avalanche of copycat apocalyptic action movies that inevitably paled in comparison. Having seen what the franchise has become, it’s interesting to look back on how small the first film began, not just from a budgetary perspective but also in the scale of its storytelling. Mad Max is an origin story in the truest sense, introducing its hero with a sort of cinematic curtain raising; somewhere between the birth of a Greek god and Smokey and the Bandit . Certainly, no one had ever captured high-speed vehicular destruction like this b...

As a child, one uses a completely different set of criteria to judge Ray Harryhausen movies: namely the “monster-to-dialogue” ratio. If characters spend too much time pleasantly chatting and not enough time running for their lives from stop-motion animated creatures, it’s considered an epic fail. And by that standard alone, First Men in the Moon (1964) is probably the effects-master’s least satisfying film, with nearly 45-minutes of running time spent before we get a glimpse of our first Selenite, an insect-like moon creature that, although designed by Harryhausen, is portrayed by (gasp!) a child in a costume. However, as adults, with an appreciation for Harryhausen’s particular set of skills, one begins to pick up on exactly what makes First Men in the Moon such an interesting aberration in his career and, in many respects, one of his most well-rounded productions. And Twilight Time’s latest limited edition Blu-ray is instrumental in proving the case. On the run from his credit...

Although it qualifies as an “Ozploitation” picture, Long Weekend (1978) is a film that doesn’t fit comfortably into any category. And it’s that very off-centeredness that makes it so unique; shot with a disorienting sense of unease that seems to suggest something truly horrible is lurking at the fringes of the screen. By simplest description, the film falls into the “ Nature Strikes Back ” sub-genre, which includes insipidly enjoyable trash like Day of the Animals and Food of the Gods . But in actuality it leans closer to Hitchcock’s progenitor, The Birds , with it main characters’ emotional states reflected back at them in a most violent and unexpected way. On the cusp of a divorce, Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) head to a deserted beachside campsite for a three-day holiday. Trading arguments with attempts at reconciliation, the couple begins to notice that nature isn’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat. Animals from land, air and sea begin to act strangel...