Movieline Online

Movies have always walked a fine line between art and corporate investment.     No matter how personal the story or culturally significant the subtext, films are designed to make money…plain and simple.     The “art” often lies in the ability to disguise that fact.     In the case of writer / director / producer Bill Rebane, whose Wisconsin-based low-budget genre pictures thrive on rubber-suited monsters and wardrobe malfunctions, there’s not much pretense involved.     These are movies designed to turn a profit; any resemblance to art is completely accidental. Starting with 1965’s  Monster a Go-Go  (with supplementary footage and editing by the legendary H.G. Lewis), Rebane’s inspirations seemed to be whatever trendy and cheap.  A space capsule returns to Earth with a radioactive creature – played by 7 foot 6 inch actor Henry Hite – leaving a trail of scalded victims.  Just as flat and lifeless as the contemporary mo...

While 1950s America was an era of capitalistic furor and 9-to-5 excess, Yasuzo Masumura’s  Giants and Toys  (1958) paints an equally desperate picture of Japanese workers’ devotion to their corporations…and the lengths they would go to stay one step ahead of the competition. World, Apollo and Giant Confectionary make up the three-headed monster of candy company rivals, all planning a new campaign to go head-to-head at the upcoming exposition.  To go along with an outer space theme, the executives at World cultivate an unlikely teen model: Kyoko, a rotten-toothed but exuberant cab driver who becomes an overnight sensation. Her cooperation revolves around her infatuation with a young executive, Nishi, who seems immune to her charms; and, in fact, is beginning to resent his company’s winner-take-all business practices.   Essentially kicking off the “business genre” in Japanese cinema,  Giants and Toys  is alternately charming, depressing, joyful and ...

The opening scene of   A Serbian Film   (2010) features a young boy staring in open-mouthed awe at a pornographic movie he stumbled upon by accident.     The suggestion by director Srdjan Spasojevic seems to be that some things, once seen, simply cannot be unseen.     And it’s an apt metaphor, considering that his film will leave just as many scars on its audience.   Banned in several countries and censored in almost every other,  A Serbian Film  is the latest word-of-mouth record holder for the most “extreme” piece of cinematic exploitation, a notorious distinction of dishonor previously held by films like Last House on the Left, Pink Flamingos  or  Martyrs .  Spasojevic’s film is without a doubt the most competently made…and also the most morally repugnant.   Milos is a retired porn actor struggling to stay on the straight and narrow and provide an income for his family.  So when an offer comes in to shoot...

Movies don’t get much more scattershot than writer / director Nico Mastorakis’  Death Has Blue Eyes  (1976), a title which suggests a giallo-tinged thriller, but actually delivers soft-core sex, cornball comedy and a telekinetic heroine who can make people spontaneously combust or prematurely ejaculate with equal skill.  It’s a quite a gift. Dashing Vietnam vet Robert Kowalski and his best friend – gigolo, karate-master Ches Gilford – become embroiled in a international sting to capture a mother-daughter duo, Christine and Geraldine Steinwetz, who were witness to a political assassination.  Taking on the job to protect them, our heroes can’t help but notice Christine’s ability to read minds and control people at will, an ability that makes her both the hunter  and  the hunted in this game populated by covert agents and intrigue.   A series of car chases, shootouts and uncomfortable threesomes lead toward climax that’s surprising in ...

A Ghost Waits   (2020) is one of those concepts that should have made director / co-writer Adam Stovall a hot property in Hollywood.     A meet-cute rom-com between a lonely handyman who refuses to be scared away by the female ghost haunting one of his properties is just the sort of high-concept idea that used to start a good old fashioned bidding war.     But rather than tweak the script to fit producers’ expectations, Stovall went ahead and made the movie himself.     And it’s an admirable effort, full of cleverness and warmth.     But one that could have benefitted with a bit more time and resources. Temporarily homeless and sleeping on the floor in a vacant house he’s been assigned to assess, Jack is a people pleasing property manager who doesn’t scare easy.  In fact, when Muriel, the ghost who’s been assigned to  haunt  said property, fails to send him running, she faces disciplinary action from her supernatural super...

For all its Tarantino tongue-in-cheek violence and movie poster posturing,  Switchblade Sisters  (1975) could easily be a case study for a women’s issues in the workplace.  A new recruit, Maggie, rises to the top of the organization, outsmarting and outmuscling her male competitors, only to be sabotaged by her best friend, Lace, the woman she trusted the most.  Director Jack Hill stole from the best, lifting much of the gangland politics from Shakespeare’s  Othello , but making sure to disguise it will plenty of chains, bullets and the aforementioned switchblades.    The “dagger debs” – later rechristened “the Jezebels” after Maggie’s corporate takeover – are proud of their juvenile delinquent status.  But adult problems are looming on the horizon and the next arrest could land them all into the prison system.  The addition of Maggie causes an emotional rift when Dominic, head of the Silver Daggers, takes more than a passi...