Movieline Online

Director Dario Argento’s body of work is not unlike that of horror-rockabilly icons The Cramps, who’d been performing minor variations of the same song since 1982. If you own one Cramps album, you essentially own them all. Ditto for Argento’s films, which, more often that not, revolve around the witness to some horrific crime who spends the entire movie trying to recall one crucial piece of evidence before falling victim to a black-gloved killer. After 1970’s The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, it would be easy to write Argento off as a one-shot auteur (which defies the very definition of the word), but like The Cramps, there is a certain genius in the minute variations; as if the creators are perfecting their craft, chipping away at a masterpiece that is as yet unfinished. The Stendhal Syndrome is not that masterpiece. But it is the director’s most mature and professional work in the modern era (I’m talking anything post-Opera), anchored by a challenging performance from his own daught...

Japanese culture is complicated enough on its own. So when a movie starts lifting elements of Hollywood genres and pop culture iconography, it can be flat-out frustrating to try and make sense out of who's stealing what from whom! Luckily, a film like Doberman Cop (1977) doesn't require a whole lot of critical analysis. Sonny Chiba stars as Kano, a backwards island cop on loan to the Tokyo police force to help identify a dead body. Initially dismissed as a country bumpkin, Kano soon steals the show in pursuit of a serial killer whose next target looks to be the rising star of a national singing competition. While his Battles Without Honor and Humanity series was a huge hit, director Kinji Fukasaku was sweating out the demise of the yakuza genre along with several other studios whose endless series of sequels seemed to have finally played out. Doberman Cop is an obvious franchise attempt - based on a popular manga - that never got off the ground. But even as a one-off...

The expression "find a need then fill it" is a reliable business model for anyone looking to begin a career. And the most successful ideas actually create a need that wasn't there in the first place. Case in point, movie producers were desperate to fill the financial and creative void left after the death of Bruce Lee, parading a dozen or so candidates under ridiculously convenient pseudonyms (Bruce Lei? Really?!) in an attempt to keep the money flowing. One of those suitors to the kung fu crown was Jackie Chan, who actually worked with Lee on small roles in The Chinese Connection and Enter the Dragon . Despite his physical skills, Chan wound up as just another also-ran, a square peg in the round hole left by Lee's irreplaceable charisma. But 1978's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master showcased Chan's abilities not just as a fighter, but as a gifted physical comedian whose goal was to get a laugh...not just crush a larynx. Kung f...

There's no shortage of larger than life figures involved in the production of Hell and High Water (1954), a submarine movie that ticks off all the boxes one might expect in a Cold War thriller and adds a few new items not usually on the menu. Producer Daryl F. Zanuck recruited director Samuel Fuller, who brought along regular collaborator Richard Widmark, to make a Cinemascope spectacle out of a script that took place almost entirely in the cramped quarters of a refitted Japanese sub. And if that wasn't challenge enough, Zanuck insisted that his mistress, Bella Darvi, be cast as the female lead. The film opens with a mushroom cloud and ominous narration describing a mysterious nuclear explosion near the Arctic Circle. The circumstances surrounding that blast - and the foreign plot to frame the United States for starting WW3 - revolve around Captain Adam Jones (Widmark) who's been hired by a clandestine group of private citizens to chaperone two scientists to a sus...

The giallo didn’t begin with Dario Argento, but his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, is a signpost most critics and fans recognize as the defining moment which inspired the Italian film industry to flood the market with copycat productions featuring black-gloved killers, vapid victims and ridiculously obtuse titles. Argento himself participated in the process, considerably upping the gore and downsizing the plot with each new entry. But in 1970, Bird served as his calling card to the international film industry, and as such the director crafted a film much more reserved and “professional” than his later work, which suffered glorious highs (Deep Red, Suspiria) and embarrassing lows (Trauma, Phantom of the Opera). Bird is a roadmap to the genre before it became muddied with the footprints of countless producers looking for a quick buck. And while it may lack the visceral punch it once had, it retains the cinematic integrity lacking in most of the films it inspired. S...

THE FLICK: The giallo didn’t begin with Dario Argento, but his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, is a signpost most critics and fans recognize as the defining moment which inspired the Italian film industry to flood the market with copycat productions featuring black-gloved killers, vapid victims and ridiculously obtuse titles. Argento himself participated in the process, considerably upping the gore and downsizing the plot with each new entry. But in 1970, Bird served as his calling card to the international film industry, and as such the director crafted a film much more reserved and “professional” than his later work, which suffered glorious highs (Deep Red, Suspiria) and embarrassing lows (Trauma, Phantom of the Opera). Bird is a roadmap to the genre before it became muddied with the footprints of countless producers looking for a quick buck. And while it may lack the visceral punch it once had, it retains the cinematic integrity lacking in most of the films it ...

British comedians always seem to have a leg up on their international counterparts. Perhaps because there's always a hint of their dramatic heritage lurking right underneath the surface, masking something a bit more serious and sad underneath. That's certainly the case with Peter Sellers who was able to stretch his legs in more demanding roles like Clare Quilty in Lolita and Chance the gardener in Being There . But the actor found his greatest success emulating physical comedians like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin as Inspector Clouseau in director Blake Edwards' series of increasingly outlandish Pink Panther films, now gathered in on complete set for the first time on Blu-ray. The original Panther (1963) was actually built around star David Niven as Sir Charles Lytton, a devil-may-care playboy moonlighting as the "Phantom," an international jewel thief whose latest acquisition (the titular diamond) is being pursued by Clouseau, a bumbling French insp...