Movieline Online

THE MAD FOX: When it comes to foreign films, it's intimidating to learn just how much undiscovered cinema is really out there.  And the work of Japanese directors like Tomu Uchida can often be a culture shock, as the majority were intended for domestic audiences and make few concessions to international appeal.  Such is the case with  The Mad Fox  (1962), a flamboyant, theatrical kabuki-like fable that takes full advantage of the widescreen process to recreate a living scroll on celluloid.  While the script and performances pull from a specific collection of Japanese traditions and mythology, the visual execution itself needs no translation.   Caught in a political conspiracy, Lord Yasuna and his beloved, Sakaki, are framed for the theft of a sacred scroll.  After Sakaki is murdered to conceal the truth, Yasuna goes mad with grief, eventually mistaking Sakaki's twin sister for his lost love.  Things get even more muddled w...

DREAM DEMON: There's an old screenwriting adage that says, "You can break all the rules you want as long as you don't  bore  the audience."   Dream Demon  (1988) is a competently made piece of horror filmmaking with above average filmmaking credits across the board.  It's often beautiful, sometimes surreal and intermittently intriguing.  But it's also boring as hell.   Diana (Jemma Redgrave) is engaged to marry a stuffy war hero, which makes her a target for tabloid fodder.  While fighting off a pair of overeager journalists, she befriends a mysterious American, Jenny (Kathleen Wilhoite), who claims her deceased parents used to live in Diana's redecorated flat.  Oddly enough, Diana has been plagued by a series of nightmares involving the previous residents, nightmares that seem to be having an effect on the  real  world.   The obvious thematic influence here is the  Elm Str...

BLOODTIDE: Horror fans know all about managing expectations.  It's what makes for pleasant surprises like  Bloodtide  (1982), an above-average foreign-produced creature feature that began its life saddled with the inauspicious moniker of  Man-Shark .  But writer-director Richard Jefferies did more than class up the title, he took the B-movie concept handed to him by producer Nico Mastorakis and added a name cast (James Earl Jones, Jose Ferrer, Martin Kove and Deborah Shelton), stunning location photography and a script that avoids the most common exploitation pitfalls. Honeymooner's Neil and Sherry arrive on an isolated Greek isle in search of Neil's sister, Madeline, who has become obsessed with the local legend about an aquatic monster that demands a virgin sacrifice.  So when a Shakespearean-spouting treasure hunter (Jones) releases said creature from its underwater lair, legend becomes reality as swimmers fall victim to an ancien...

AMERICA AS SEEN BY A FRENCHMAN: As much as we hate to admit it, America could use some perspective now and then.  French filmmaker Francois Reichenbach (a lesser-known part of the French New Wave headed up by Godard and Truffaut) seems poised to deliver just that with his 1960 documentary  America as Seen by a Frenchman .  A narrated travelogue that captures his journey from San Francisco to New York, Reichenbach seems most fascinated by cultural gatherings - parades, festivals, re-enactments - that, unfortunately, provide very little vicarious entertainment for American audiences.  The film haphazardly shifts from town to town, with only a tenuous structure to hold things together.  In general, Reichenbach goes easy on his subject matter; only our obsession with advertising and gaudy cultural displays draws his critical eye.  In fact, the film finds a sort of poetry in the wrinkled faces, neon signs and towering skyscrapers....

WHY DON'T YOU JUST DIE: It doesn't really matter what your film was  inspired  by as long as it's inspiring on it's own terms.  And Russian director Kirill Sokolov's  Why Don't You Just Die  (2018) manages to do just that, lifting the manic energy of a Sam Raimi / Coen Brothers joint with the non-linear gratuitous violence of a Tarantino epic.  That it can't quite maintain the momentum of its first 30-minutes is a minor quibble when a film has this big a head of steam to work with. Talked into murdering his girlfriend's father, Matvey (Aleksandr Kuznetov) instead  finds himself chained to a bathroom pipe while the domestic situation goes from bad to worse.  His arrival kicks off a chain of events involving a double-cross between dirty cops and a briefcase full of cash.  As the players try to figure out each other's motivations, Matvey winds up just trying to survive the day. A cinematic show-off in every res...