Movieline Online

"Road Warrior  on the water" is a perfectly accurate pitch for  Waterworld , a B-movie concept that became the most expensive production in movie history after the casting of Kevin Costner.  The film aspired to nothing more than building off that clever concept, with monstrous practical sets, a tricked-out trimaran and some not-so-subtle environmental posturing buoyed by incredible stunts and an outrageous performance by Dennis Hopper.   There are no pretensions, just pulp sci-fi extravagance.   But Costner backlash doomed the project from the start, as journalists eagerly reported the rising budget so they could watch the film sink upon release.  The fact that  Waterworld  was actually profitable didn't stop them from labeling it a failure, however.  And what should have been a celebration of the last pre-CGI action spectacle of the '90s became a pile-on of unwarranted animosity and exaggerated criticism.  ...

Scorsese is a brand.  His name implies a certain sort of filmmaking, despite the fact that his career is made up of eclectic choices and creative cul-de-sacs.  And  Hugo  (2011) is probably the least likely of his projects to have come to fruition.  A 3D children’s film built around French silent cinema, even the author of the book it’s based on realized the audience was a select group of imaginative cinephiles.  But surprisingly, for all its Zemeckis-style CGI visuals and big-budget gloss ,  Hugo  winds up fitting quite well into Scorsese’s  offscreen obsession with film preservation and the magic of our collective cinematic origins. After the death of his father, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) escapes the orphanage by hiding in a post-WW1 Paris train station, winding the clocks to avoid detection.  His mechanical skills soon come to the attention of a lonely toy vendor, Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), whose past ...

Superhero fatigue is real.     Can kaiju fatigue be far behind?     The latest series of Godzilla and Kong reboots have done just well enough to earn equally underwhelming sequels.     Meanwhile Japan, home base of the kaiju craze, has been quietly eking out their own series of nostalgic do-overs, the latest of which,   Shin Ultraman , manage to do exactly what the U.S. films have not: reinvent the oversize monster genre without selling out to empty CGI spectacle.     A member of the SSSP, a government entity dedicated to handling kaiju emergencies, Kaminga sacrifices himself to save a child during the latest attack.  But an interdimensional life form bonds with him at the moment of death turning him into a supersized superhero named Ultraman, coming to the defense of humanity against a slew of alien foes intent on claiming the earth for themselves.   Mystifyingly episodic for a feature film,  Shin Ultraman  goes thro...

Hollywood never quite knew what to do with Christopher Walken.  Too low-key to be a traditional leading man, too intense to be a character actor, his career succeeded almost in spite of itself, playing everything from power-hungry Bond villains to sentimental frontiersmen. By the mid- ‘90s his personality was so recognizable in the popular culture that he could get by playing variations on his  own  quirks and mannerisms.  But in  McBain  (1991) he took on a role that was unusual even by  his  standards:  action hero.  20 years after his rescue from a POW camp, McBain (Walken) gets dragged onto the battlefield one more time to fulfill a promise to a war buddy.  With the help of his well-connected friends, McBain wages a small-scale war against the president of Columbia, supporting the rebel soldiers (led by Maria Conchita Alonso) in their battle for freedom.   Actually, thanks to director James Glickenhaus, ...

Although nearly ten years removed from the original  Death Wish  (1974), producer Dino De Laurentiis went back to the well again for  Fighting Back  (1982), the story of a Philadelphia neighborhood that fights fire with fire, led by a charismatic Italian grocer pushed too far.  And why not?  The crime rate was still a trending topic of concern.  And, perhaps more importantly, Bronson was due to pick up his gun again for  Death Wish 2 , this time without Dino’s involvement.  So, the famed producer put together his own tale of vigilante justice with director Lewis Teague behind the camera to try to recapture the ripped-from-the-headlines magic.   After crime hits his family from all sides, John D’Angelo (Tom Skerritt) starts a neighborhood patrol aimed at intimidating the very thugs who have taken over his block.  Newspapers and politicians take notice, alternately hailing him as a hero, a racist or a threat t...

While Italy produced its fair share of  Godfather  rip-offs and gangster thrillers in the ‘70s, there was a homegrown story just waiting to be told in the form of  The Iron Prefect  (1977) which follows the exploits of Cesare Mori, sent on a special mission to Sicily in 1919 to break up the growing influence of the Mafia.  A sort of  High Noon  meets  Tombstone  tale of one-man against insurmountable odds (starring Spaghetti Western veteran Giuliano Gemma), the film is a classy period-piece dripping in style and accompanied by a haunting score from Ennio Morricone.   With a reputation for stern tactics, Mori arrives in Sicily ready to go to war against an enemy deeply entrenched in the local community.  A chance meeting with an outspoken villager (played by the gorgeous Claudia Cardinale) shows him just how much work he’ll have to do to gain the citizens’ trust.  Momentum shifts in Mori’s favor after a series of ...

Hitmen make great antiheroes.  Most of the cinematic variety live by an honor code that spares women, children and innocent bystanders (probably pets too, at least in John Wick’s case).  Typically, they only kill people who  deserve  it, which makes for sweaty sympathetic action protagonists heading up the likes of  The Mechanic ,  The Professional  and  Sicario .  Now you can add a few more to the list with the release of  The Game Trilogy  from Arrow Video, a late ‘70s trio of hired killer thrillers now available for the first time outside of Japan. Passing himself off as an unkempt, addle-brained loser, Shohei Narumi (played with cool contempt by Yusaku Matsuda) is actually Tokyo’s number one hit man with a 100% success rate.  Introduced in  The Most Dangerous Game  (1978), Narumi is hired to rescue the latest victim in a wave of corporate kidnappings.  Juggling loyalties to his employ...

Where most “message” movies fail is their insistence on underestimating their audience.  Nothing is more insulting that sitting through life lessons aimed at the lowest common denominator.  Then there are films like Marleen Gorris’  A Question of Silence  (1982) which tackles rampant misogyny, criminal bias and radical feminism with such awe-inspiring skill you wonder why it’s not even  ranked  in Sight and Sound’s 100 Best Films of All Time…let alone not in the top ten! Three women are arrested and charged with the murder of a male boutique owner, leaving his body and genitals brutally mutilated.  The crime baffles investigators all the more since the female perpetrators seem to be complete strangers – a housewife, secretary and waitress – with no prior history of violence.  The psychiatrist assigned to the case (Edda Barends) finds herself curiously intrigued by their fatalistic attitudes and sympathetic to their plight....