Movieline Online

Although it's grandfather of modern outbreak movies, 1971's The Andromeda Strain feels more like a reaction to the technological tsunami of 2001: A Space Odyssey than a trendsetter in its own right. Based on Michael Crichton's novel, this is a film that has an endless amount of enthusiasm for the scientific method and emergency quarantine procedures; it's the cinematic equivalent of a TV disclaimer announcement, listing possible side effects and health warnings. Suffice to say, the thrills are few and far between. But director Robert Wise brings some signature style to this story of an alien organism that wipes out a small New Mexico town...and threatens to destroy the world. Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) and his team of academic all-stars are rushed to an underground government facility called Wildfire, specifically designed to handle extraterrestrial threats of the microbiological sort. After working their way through several levels of decontamination proc...

The term film noir gets stretched awfully thin at times, including movies produced at the height of the then unnamed and unrecognized genre's popularity and those that took their inspiration long after. The Big Clock (1948) was released right in the thick of post-war pessimism and certainly shares a good amount of cinematic DNA, yet never really looks the part. Director John Farrow's thriller is a bit bland visually, but compensates with a crackerjack concept that was good enough to inspire a Kevin Costner remake ( No Way Out ) in 1987. George Stroud (Ray Milland) is a workaholic magazine editor who specializes in locating missing people. Pushed to the breaking point by Mr. Janoth, his merciless boss (Charles Laughton), Stroud misses his family vacation and winds up spending the evening with a beautiful woman...who just so happens to be Janoth's mistress. Furious at her indiscretion, Janoth murders her and relies on a business associate to cover up the crime, blamin...