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Clint Eastwood’s squint in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy established him as superstar. But Lee Van Cleef, a prolific character actor who spent most of the ‘50s and ‘60s appearing on one TV show after another (seriously, his IMDB resume looks like a substitute teacher’s schedule), enjoyed a career resurgence just by association. After playing opposite the Man With No Name in For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly , Van Cleef became a hot commodity among European producers who wanted a bit of that Leone mojo…but on a budget they could afford. The Grand Duel (1972) doesn’t offer the actor much of a stretch performance-wise – his character’s clothes, dialogue and demeanor are much the same as Angel Eyes from Good, Bad & Ugly – but a nifty role reversal casts him as sage gunslinger helping an outlaw framed for murder to clear his family name. The script (by mystery specialist Ernesto Gastaldi) lifts more than a few elements from Once Upon a Time in the West ...

The cardinal rule of horror and sci-fi filmmaking is easy to remember: Never Be Boring . While art films and Oscar winners can lure you in with emotional pathos and pregnant pauses, genre movies need to keep their foot on the gas more often than not. A filmmaking philosophy which works in favor of Terra Formars (2016), a live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga phenomenon that gave director Takashi Miike ( Ichi the Killer ) a chance to one-up his favorite Hollywood action pic, Starship Troopers . Centuries in the future, on an Earth that ironically still models itself after Blade Runner , overpopulation has inspired a terraforming project on Mars that's close to supporting human life. Trouble is, the cockroaches sent along as part of the initial seeding project have rapidly evolved into humanoid pro-wrestlers who have claimed the planet for their own. In response, the government sends an expeditionary force of unwanted criminals to take down the bug army, mixing their DN...

For today's generation, the name Charles Bronson is probably nothing more than an IMDB trivia search to find out who starred in Death Wish before Bruce Willis....if that. But in the early '70s, the actor was the embodiment of gritty a new wave of action stars transitioning from the saddle to a more urban frontier. With Once Upon a Time in the West proving he could eclipse an ensemble cast, Europe came calling with a quick burst of starring roles, proving that in the right hands, Bronson could be much more than a not-so-pretty face. In fact, Rider on the Rain (1970), a Hitchcockian thriller directed by Rene Clement, may very well be the best film in the actor's overstuffed career. After being raped by a stranger who breaks into her home, Melancolie (Marlene Jobert) kills the man and hides his body out shame and embarrassment. But her clumsy cover is blown almost immediately by Harry Dobbs (Bronson), a mysterious investigator who's been tracking the man for hi...

Edward G. Robinson gets a chance to prove his tough-guy persona is all make-believe in The Whole Town's Talking (1935), breezy little mistaken-identity comedy that casts the actor in two roles: Arthur Ferguson Jones, an unassuming law clerk with a secret crush on his co-worker (Jean Arthur), and "Killer" Manion, a notorious criminal whose face is plastered on every newspaper. But it turns out both men share the same face. And after the police arrest Arthur, he becomes an overnight celebrity, attracting the attention of Manion himself who sees an opportunity to use his doppelganger to get revenge. Although his films always featured plenty of comedic elements, director John Ford was never known for cracking-wise (cracking skulls? Maybe.) But he handles the body-swapping humor of The Whole Town's Talking with an exceptionally light touch, bolstering Robinson's showy dual role with a supporting cast that's more than up to the challenge (although more Jean...

It took nearly two decades, but the Quentin Tarantino stamp of approval is now pretty much worthless. Not only is QT himself less relevant on the pop culture scene - throwing hissy fits about leaked scripts and threatening retirement - but his liberal championing of dozens of films, while an admirable mission to educate the masses, has oversaturated the market. The Street Fighter series was on his agenda early, even popping up in his screenplay for True Romance . And while the Sonny Chiba trilogy is more than worth kung fu fans attention, it never broke big like Jackie Chan's back catalog. Perhaps because Jackie never pulled off a man's testicles with his bare hands! Built around a character who's more sociopath than anti-hero, The Street Fighter, Return of the Street Fighter and The Street Fighter's Last Revenge (all shot in 1974) have been essentially MIA on home video despite being released domestically by New Line Cinema as one of their earliest acquisiti...