Movieline Online

A French silent film written and directed by Jean Epstein,  Finis Terrae  (“At the End of the World”) is part docu-drama, part visual poetry. Produced outside the confines of what would become traditional studio filmmaking, Epstein, a former film critic and theorist, allows his creative instincts to wander with the tides to match his film’s setting: a harsh island landscape whose sole inhabitants are four seaweed harvesters struggling to survive the short three-month season.   Suffering from an infected cut, Ambroise is in no shape to finish his share of the daily labor which sparks resentment among his three fellows. But petty grievances soon give way to a life-or-death crisis as infection sets in and fever takes hold.  Meanwhile back on the mainland, the village pulls together to stage a rescue mission, determined to bring their men home safe. Harsh reality and dreamlike lyricism, the bookends of Epstein’s style, blur the line between physical isolat...

Film literacy has become a dirty word.  And maybe rightfully so.  In a world where a two-sentence review on Letterboxd has become enough for most fans to swipe left or right, does anyone really want to hear about how a director has pilfered scenes from a movie made in ancient times…and by that, of course, I mean before 2000 A.D.?  With this much content released on so many screens, sometimes it’s best to just take your enjoyment where you can and move on. But that would be doing a film like  Crumb Catcher  (2023) a disservice.  Because writer-director Chris Skotchdopole is stealing from the best.  And his darkly comedic home-invasion thriller is far more entertaining than much ballyhooed originals like  Longlegs  that work overtime to deliver the trendy “elevated” horror experience that’s become almost critic-proof.  Newlyweds Shane and Leah are in the midst of a post-coital meltdown after arriving at their boss’...

Besides being the title of a great Brian Jonestown Massacre album,   Thank God for Mental Illness   could also serve as the rallying cry for desperate filmmakers. Really, if it weren’t for the clinically depressed, schizophrenic, or psychotic, we’d be left with nothing but romantic comedies. Things reached an apex in the late ’70s with films like   Taxi Driver   riding the paranoia of the times.   The Beast to Die (1980)  treads on similar psychological turf, with iconic Japanese actor Yusaku Matsuda hiding his PTSD behind a dark pair of shades. An ex-war photographer, Kunihiko Date (Matsuda) manages to pass as merely eccentric. His refined taste in art and classical music is little more than a mask—one that barely conceals the violent urges simmering beneath the surface. In truth, Date is a ticking time bomb, prone to sudden outbursts of murder and armed robbery, all carried out with an eerie calm and emotional detachment that make him as fascinating as he...

Larry Cohen's   The Stuff   (1985) covers a lot of ground, the most obvious target being '80s consumerism and our cultural fixation on excess— cleverly embodied   by the film's phony product tagline:   "Enough is never enough!"   In this particular instance, we're talking about a sentient goo that bubbles up out of the ground and is sold to the American public as a deliciously addictive dessert— The Stuff —accompanied by a series of catchy jingles, TV commercials, and colorfully appealing packaging. It's an ingenious satire of one of our most obvious social weaknesses. But, as critic Kim Newman points out, Cohen's films always sound brilliant on paper; it's a much bumpier road translating his high-concept ideas to the screen. Corporate spy David "Mo" Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) is hired to discover the secret recipe behind   The Stuff   by a consortium of worried ice cream executives. The first red flag? All the FDA officials who gave t...

In the world of 1970s martial arts cinema,   The Tattooed Dragon   (1973) stands out not for reinventing the genre, but for digging its heels in and delivering a gritty, street-level brawler with just enough pathos to land a punch beyond the fists. Written and directed by Lo Wei, best known for launching Bruce Lee’s Hong Kong stardom, the film stars Jimmy Wang Yu in a rare modern-day role. He plays “The Dragon,” a wandering tough guy who gets wounded after stealing back federal aid money from a gang of bandits.  Taken in by a kindly farmer and his fiancée, he learns that the local village has been swallowed up by a corrupt casino syndicate—run by those  same  bandits—and steps in to defend the innocent, dismantling the operation from the inside. Unlike the gravity-defying wuxia entries that dominated the era,   The Tattooed Dragon   is all boots-on-the-ground brutality. Wang Yu trades elegance for efficiency, relying on sheer force and street braw...

Detonation! Violent Riders   (1975) is a full-throttle slice of mid-'70s Japanese biker cinema that adds some subtlety to its spectacle. Directed by Teruo Ishii - best known for his more extreme ventures into ero-guro territory - this is a relatively straight-ahead youth-gone-wild picture with just enough sleaze and speed to keep the wheels spinning. The story centers on a young street racer named Iwaki (Kōichi Iwaki), whose natural talent on two wheels catches the attention of rival biker gangs, a love interest with dangerous connections, and a society that clearly doesn’t have room for his type. As expected, the plot is mostly there to string together high-speed chases, brawls in back alleys, and moments of emotional melodrama. But Ishii injects the film with enough style and grit to keep it from feeling disposable. There’s a raw, on-the-ground quality to the cinematography, and the street-level locations help sell the desperation and energy of Japan’s disaffected youth culture. ...

Dirty Harry   (1971) was chewed up and spit out in almost every country with a commercial film industry. With the death of the Western, cops who played by their own rules became the de facto anti-heroes of the new decade.   Cobra   (1986) brings it all full circle, regurgitating the same plot points—but with a hefty body count to match modern audience expectations. Marion Cobretti (Sylvester Stallone) is a member of L.A.’s “Zombie Squad,” a late-night crew reviled by their superiors for extreme methods but respected for results. So when a fashion model (Brigitte Nielsen) is targeted for death after witnessing a murder, who better to protect her than the Cobra and his endless supply of ammunition? A Cannon Films production, this one is perfectly in line with their taste for excess. It even plays more like a horror movie until it goes full   Mad Max   in the final 15 minutes. Strung together with montage sequences and wall-to-wall ‘80s iconography, Stallone was cl...