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1954's The Mad Magician does a lot of things well. Unfortunately, almost all of them are lifted directly from the previous year's surprise hit House of Wax , both starring Vincent Price as a talented technician out for revenge. In fact, producer Bryan Foy reunited most of the major players in an attempt to replicate the latter film's success, carrying over the 3D gimmick but keeping things in black-and-white. The lack of color isn't so much of a problem; the lack of originality is another story. Don Gallico (Price) is an inventor of magic tricks; not just slight of hand, but elaborate and cumbersome machinery like "The Buzzsaw' and "The Crematorium" designed to wow the audience with high tech illusions. After years of watching other magicians take the credit, Gallico decides to put himself up on stage. But contracts and legalities prevent him from doing so, ending his theatrical career before it even had a chance to begin. Enraged by his...

Stanley Donen's Two for the Road (1967) is the story of a fractured marriage told in an invigoratingly fractured fashion. The director, a big part of the old Hollywood studio system, winds up incorporating the innovative editing style of French New Wave directors like Godard and Truffaut to cut between the highs and lows of a relationship that seemed almost doomed from the start. Mark (Albert Finney) and Joanna (Audrey Hepburn) begin the movie at each other's throat, yet, ironically, enjoying the financial fruits of their success. A respected architect, Mark's life is pulled in too many directions to give his wife the sort of attention and affection she deserves. Joanna longs for the adrenaline rush of their early romance, spent over the course of a weeks vacation in France. Jumping from one clever transition to the next, Two for the Road shows us Mark and Joanna's life from every perspective at once, cutting between road trips and hotel rooms separated by te...

Like most foreign film industries, Japan has struggled to find its place in the world against the Hollywood juggernaut. But inevitably, independent filmmakers fill the nooks and crannies bigger studios leave behind. Instead of competing against Hollywood head-to-head, they embrace what makes their culture unique. And, in director Takashi Miike's case, throwing in some shock appeal only adds to the international attention. Kicking off his career in the seedy, over-the-top "V-Cinema" arena (direct-to-video features that peaked in Japan in the mid-80s), Miike's work took a big leap forward with what's come to be known as The Black Society Trilogy . Set amongst the grim, gritty but sometimes-ridiculous world of the yakuza (Japanese gangsters), the three films balance intense moments of sex and violence with introspective lead characters and social-political commentary. That might sound like a typical indie cinema roadmap, but Miike, who's garnered just a...

In retrospect, it may seem like the only person still making westerns in the late '70s was Clint Eastwood. But director Alan J. Pakula made a major contribution to the genre with 1978's Comes a Horseman , a quiet but simmering story about dueling ranchers and ambitious oil barons fighting over land rights at the tail end of WW2. Starring Jane Fonda, James Caan and Jason Robards, all at the height of the careers, the film is both an elegiac tribute to the cattle drives, cowpunchers and the rough 'n tumble traditions of big sky country mixed with a more modern, subtle and poetic storytelling technique. Fonda plays Ella Conners, a strong-willed but bitter woman determined to work her late-husband's land despite threatening offers to sell-out to J.W. Ewing (Robards), a soft-spoken dictator determined to piece back together his family legacy. Frank (Caan) has already seen what Ewing is willing to do, barely surviving an ambush that killed his partner (Mark Harmon). ...

First, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room: Spielberg's original Poltergeist, which lay smack dab in the middle of an incredible run of success, both behind the camera and behind the scenes. Although director Tobe Hooper's actual contributions have been whitewashed from the get-go, their collaboration resulted in a best-of-both worlds mix of family drama and edgy exploitation effects. It's a near-perfect rollercoaster ride that filmmakers are still insidiously stealing from. Poltergeist 2 and 3....not so much. But after the franchise slipped off Spielberg's radar, the supernatural adventures of the Freeling family and their daughter, Carol Anne, became a playground for other directors eager to make their mark. First up was Brian Gibson with Poltergeist 2: The Other Side (1986), who had the benefit of a completely reunited cast (including JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson and Zelda Rubinstein as the pint-sized psychic, Tangina) and the support of Richa...

Poltergeist 3 (1988) was likely rushed into production before star Heather O'Rourke became too big to fit her footie pajamas. As it is, the actress (who died tragically from complications of an impacted bowel at the age of 12 just after production wrapped) is uncomfortably forced to look years younger in this director Gary Sherman led third installment. Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen star as relatives who host a visiting Carol Anne in their posh penthouse apartment high atop a fancy Chicago high-rise. But Kane (played by a look-alike in make-up) returns to take Carol Anne, now attending a school for the psychically gifted, back with him to the other side. If the plot is still a tired re-tread, at least the setting opens up new possibilities. And director Gary Sherman, who worked wonders with low-rent thrillers like Raw Meat and Dead & Buried, takes an "Alice Through The Looking Glass" approach, filling the film with elaborate mirror effects performed completely on ...

Cult movie fans have become pretty adept at validating their cinematic tastes. After all, are there really any more moral values on display in the latest Fast and Furious installment than in a Lucio Fulci flick? I think not. But when it comes to the Nazi Exploitation sub-genre there are no excuses; you're either down for some rape, torture and kinky sex mixed with Third Reich iconography...or you're not. Unlike most retro-erotica, which gets a free-pass by virtue of its inherent campiness, Love Camp 7 (1969) is infused with a distasteful blend of sadism and cruelty that makes it awful hard to call "fun." Sent undercover as Jewish prisoners in a Nazi "pleasure camp," Lt. Linda Harman (Maria Lease) and Grace Freeman (Kathy Williams) are charged with contacting a Nazi scientist, also forced into prostitution, who has vital information that could change the course of the war. But earning her trust - and proving their value to the officers and enlisted ...

The story of Father Francis Chisholm, a Scottish missionary sent to China to spread the word of Christianity despite rampant poverty, disinterest, distrust, and civil war, certainly calls for a Gregory Peck "type." Trouble was, they had to find him first! The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) was only Peck's second film, but his stoically earnest performance earned him his first Oscar nomination in this adaptation of A.J. Cronin's novel, a spiritual journey that proves kindness and sacrifice brings its own reward at journeys end. Francis (Peck), who slipped into the priesthood after a failed romance, fits in poorly with the rigors of Catholic bureaucracy. But Father McNabb (Edmund Gwenn) recognizes his potential and sends him off to China, still an exotic mystery in 1847, to spread the word of God far removed from the stuffed shirts in the home office. But the Far East proves to be an even greater challenge that Francis suspected. Arriving to find a ruined church and ...

The flaw inherent in most monster movies is that of underdeveloped characters stalked by a much more interesting central menace. We rarely need (or want ) to know more about the hapless victims, who, depending on the type of creature they're up against, serve no greater purpose than keeping up a body count. But in The Monster (2016), the roles are reversed: a pair of strongly written heroines fight for survival against a rather anonymous "thing" that, despite all its sound and fury, is most memorable in its irrelevance. Lizzy (Ella Ballentine) is a self-sufficient pre-teen who grew up too fast thanks to her irresponsible, alcoholic mother, Kathy (Zoe Kazan). But there's light at the end of the tunnel for their antagonistic and abusive relationship when Kathy agrees to drive her daughter to her father's house for an "extended" visit. On the way, a car accident leaves them stranded on the side of the road during a late-night rainstorm...and leaves...

1954's The Barefoot Contessa treads on some pretty dangerous ground. Not only does writer / director Joseph L. Mankiewicz needle, jab and poke the very people responsible for his career, but the story involves a fiery Spanish dancer-turned-movie star-turned international royal whose sexual tastes never rose out of the gutter. Humphrey Bogart stars in one of his final roles as a washed up film director whose career reboots when he stumbles upon a camera-ready beauty (Ava Gardner) with no taste for fame...only fairy-tale happiness. Harry Dawes (Bogart) is slumming as a hired hack for neophyte millionaire producer Warren Stevens (Kirk Edwards) on a trip to find a "fresh face" in the seedier clubs of Spain when they run across Maria Vargas (Gardner), whose aloof attitude and stunning looks drive every man wild. After a successful screen test, Maria becomes too big even for her producer to control, setting the stage for a battle of wills against a rival silver spoon milli...

Despite his fame (and more recent infamy) I'd guess that most modern multiplex moviegoers have probably never seen a Woody Allen film in its entirety. So they would probably be equally clueless about the self-reflexive celebrity satire on display in Stardust Memories (1980), a rather brutal attack on the director's fanbase and his own foibles. But, as writer Julie Kirgo points out in the Blu-ray liner notes, time has not only improved the film's reputation, it's put enough distance between Allen and the character he plays in the film - neurotic filmmaker Sandy Bates - to make this 8 1/2 - inspired artistic meditation one of the director's most satisfying films. Riding high on the buzz from Manhattan (1979), Allen is still in fine creative rhythm but turning curiously introspective. Things begin as a film within a film as Sandy Bates latest picture, a black-and-white Bergman-esque downer, is eviscerated by studio executives who try to convince the director ...

Harryhausen films usually offer a predictable ratio of tedious talking points interrupted by glorious stop-motion setpieces. Loyal viewers know that their patience will eventually be rewarded with various dinosaurs, mutants and mythological creatures brought to life by the master's hand. But The 3 Worlds of Gulliver is an outlier in Harryhausen's oeuvre, adapting Jonathan Swift's classic story in such a way that his skills for effects work is limited mostly to optical trickery, creating giant and toy-sized versions of his lead actors as they travel to the worlds of Lilliput and Borbdingnag. Simplifying the tale for easy digestion (one could only imagine what someone like Terry Gilliam would do with the right budget and resources), director Jack Sher keeps things decidedly kid-friendly, relying on the effects to hold one's attention. But it's a difficult task, especially for modern audience's who, though they still might marvel at Harryhausen's model wor...

Train to Busan has been building up a surprising head of steam in horror circles. Surprising not because it was made in Korea (horror fans are seek out foreign fare more often than Academy voters) or that it's carrying a cargo full of positive reviews from publications as prestigious as the New York Times, but because it's a zombie movie ! The zombie craze was supposed to have peaked several years back, but like the undead themselves, it's still staggering along. And every now and then, a movie comes along and shows you why. Writer / director Sang-ho Yeon, whose previous work up to this point was in animation, doesn't re-invent the wheel here cinematically. In fact, most of the story, which involves a workaholic dad begrudgingly escorting his daughter to visit his estranged wife, could have been designed by autonomous screenwriting software so predictable are the character arcs and action beats. But in execution , the film comes to life in a way jaded America...