Movieline Online

ELVIRA:  MISTRESS OF THE DARK The rise of streaming has been an unexpected boon for collectors of physical media.  With the major studios licensing out niche and cult movie to smaller companies, no title is off-limits for some sort of special edition.  Exhibit A is  Elvira: Mistress of the Dark  (1988), the "you-had-to-there" big screen debut of Cassandra Peterson's horror host known for her double Ds and double entendres. After inheriting a spooky house, complete with a shape shifting poodle and book of spells, Elvira would like nothing better than to sell it all off and make her Vegas debut.  But a rich warlock relative wants the book of spells for his own evil purposes and the townsfolk (led by  Ferris Bueller's  Edie McClurg) want her burned at the stake.  Meanwhile, every horny teenager in town competes to get a look at what's (barely) hiding under that skin-tight dress. A pay-cable staple that provided a PG-rated cinematic blow-up doll for pub

SIXTEEN CANDLES John Hughes was the Shakespeare of teenage angst.  That doesn't mean he turned high-school drama into high art.  In fact, Shakespeare's (and Hughes')  real  gift was the ability to play to the masses, to turn the medium into a mouthpiece that entertained the underserved.    Fast Times at Ridgemont High  might have gotten there first, but  Sixteen Candles  dulled the blade with sweetness and sentimentality, revealing a hormonally charged jungle of dorks, dweebs, queens and jocks.   Bouncing between them all is Samantha (Molly Ringwald), a flat-chested, self-conscious sophomore with eyes for the most popular guy in school, but also a sexual magnet for one particularly ambitious nerd.  Ringwald's  #MeToo  inspired article in the New Yorker from 2018 was a slap in the face to many fans who found retroactively criticizing the late filmmaker for social faux pas was taking things too far.  But watching  Sixteen Candles with fresh eyes, Hughes' mi

THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON In many cases, a foreign director can communicate a unique perspective on American culture, illuminating the dark corners and interesting details homegrown filmmakers tend to take for granted or overlook.   But in Philip Ridley's  The Passion of Darkly Noon  (1995), that idea is taken to an illogical - and often unintentionally comic - extreme.   Ostensibly set somewhere in the "American South", the film has been described as a surrealistic fairy tale unconcerned with narrative plausibility or geography.  But, except for a go-for-broke performance by Brendan Fraser, the film is nothing more than embarrassing collection of confederate clichés and career worst’s for all involved.   Stumbling out of the wilderness, Darkly Noon (Fraser) is the sole survivor of a government assault on his family's religious compound.  He's taken in by Callie (Ashley Judd), a scantily dressed free spirit who lives with her mute husband (Viggo Morten