Movieline Online

Self-reflexivity in cinema is nothing new.  In fact, it’s at work in  every  piece of art whether the audience is consciously aware of it or not.   But the line between reality and our perceived version of ourselves has never been thinner thanks to social media and the digital revolution.  Takeshi Kushida’s  Woman of the Photographs approaches the dichotomy of this illusory state of being with an equally fuzzy lens, making a case for revealing our true selves while existing in a hyper-stylized artistic creation.   Quietly ensconced in his studio, a photographer ekes out a living by retouching glamour shots of women for prospective matchmaking websites.  But his chance meeting with an influencer changes their lives after untouched photographs of her accidental injuries create a big boost in followers.  Their relationship develops into a co-dependency in which both have an opportunity for escape from their self-cre...

Stop-motion animator Phil Tippett earned some belated buzz with the release of his long-gestating epic  Mad God  (2021) which premiered on Shudder last year.  The grotesque post-apocalyptic project might have been a hard sell  commercially , but as a piece of adult-oriented, almost experimental, sci-fi / horror it was unique in its field.  But maybe not as unique as you think… Takehide Hori’s  Junk Head  (2021), set in a very similar dystopian underground of monsters, mutants and the remnants of malformed mankind, is a more accessible take on the same material.  Expanded from a 2017 short, Hori lets his imagination run wild, but grounds the experience with manga-style fight scenes and a (semi) traditional narrative that makes his hero’s journey easier to follow…and easier to root for.   Dispatched into the underworld to uncover the secret of sexual reproduction, which Man has somehow lost, an unnamed heroic android falls into t...

Women seem to be alternately fascinated and horrified by the mysteries of male-bonding.  Perhaps because men themselves can’t be bothered.  We love, hate, embrace, envy, forgive and forget with the same self-centered, unselfconsciousness we were born with.  I can’t speak for all men, but I  can  predict that another one wouldn’t take the time to correct me.  And that’s the sneaky appeal of 1976’s French road movie  Le Plein de Super  ( Fill ‘er Up with Super ), an off-the-cuff comedy that captures the burgeoning friendship between four men who find solace in their temporary camaraderie.   Klouk and Philippe have just begun their cross-country journey to deliver a Chevy station wagon to its wealthy owner on the coast when they’re all-but hijacked by Charles and Daniel, hard-up and romantically-challenged roommates who come along for the ride.  What begins as a tense trip in close quarters evolves into an opportuni...

Martial arts films are far from a one-man (or woman) show.  In fact, it takes a small army of tightly choreographed stunt people to get all those kicks, punches, leaps and flips just right.  And, just like a romantic comedy, some chemistry is better than others.   Knockabout  (1979) pairs two of more famous graduates of the China Drama Academy -  Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao -  who, along with Jackie Chan, graduated from background actors to full-fledged stars under the Golden Harvest banner.    Two con artist brothers – Yipao (Yuen Biao) and Taipao (Bryan Leung) - fall under the tutelage of a mysterious kung fu master, Silver Fox, who agrees to pass on his skills.  Quickly excelling as students, their choice turns out to be a bad one as the master is a wanted criminal who turns on them to cover his tracks.  In a quest for revenge, Yipao takes on an eccentric new teacher, Fat Beggar (Sammo Hung), whose...

If you watch enough movies, you can tell within the first five minutes if you’re in the hands of someone who really knows what they’re doing.  There’s a personality behind the camera, storytelling with visual intention rather than just coverage.  Hitchcock is the most obvious example but he didn’t have a copyright on the technique.  Spanish writer/director Narciso Ibanez Serrador, after the success of his  Twilight Zone -inspired TV series  Tales to Keep you Awake , moved to the big screen for 1969’s  La Residencia , a gothic-giallo combo that pulls out all the stops, echoing the sexually-repressed films of Luis Bunel and predating the Italian wave of sexy thrillers.  As the new student in a tough-as-nails boarding school, Teresa (Cristina Galbo) has her work cut out just trying to survive the everyday cut throat female politics.  But there’s also a killer on the loose, luring away troubled girls and covering up their disappear...

In the 1970s Hollywood truly went global in its storytelling.  The demise of the studio system and its canned reality inspired filmmakers to work on a much larger scale, both narratively and budgetarily.  Hijackings, bombings and bloody coups abroad were finally being reflected on the big screen.  John Frankenheimer followed up his downer sequel to  The French Connection  with another international threat inspired by the tragic events during the Munich Olympics.   Black Sunday  (1977) poses the now all-too-plausible possibility of a terrorist attack at a major American entertainment venue – in this case, Super Bowl X.     In a weak moment, Israeli agent Kabakov (Robert Shaw) lets a female member of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September slip through the cracks during a raid.  He comes to regret that decision when that she recruits an unstable Vietnam vet (Bruce Dern) to pilot the Goodyear blimp on a...

Each and every Dario Argento film has its admirers.  Perhaps because no matter how illogical, flawed or flat-out inept some of his films may be, there's always a bright spot (or two...or three) that could have sprung from the visual imagination of no other director.   Phenomena  (1985), released as  Creepers  in the U.S., is his first cinematic foray into the truly absurd.  But for every head-scratching moment of this  Carrie -gone-giallo thriller there is one (or two...or three) instances of demented genius at work.   A killer is stalking the young girls of Switzerland, claiming his victims in an area known as the "Swiss Transylvania" and rarely leaving a complete body for investigators to gather clues.  Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly), the daughter of an absent movie star, arrives at the local boarding school and becomes an accidental witness to the next murder while sleepwalking.  She's led to safety by a...