Movieline Online

Foreign productions shooting in New York were practically their own genre in the 1970s. European thrillers, kung fu imports, even the odd exploitation cheapie—most couldn’t resist a bit of Times Square grit with a washed-up American actor to boost international appeal. For Japan, though, that was rare. Which makes   Proof of the Man   (1977) stand out: a Haruki Kadokawa produced mystery set in Manhattan and Tokyo, featuring George Kennedy as a weary NYPD detective and Yusaka Matsuda as his Japanese counterpart  Even if it the film itself seems somewhat “manufactured for success,” it dares to wrestle with cultural fault lines most exported Japanese films of the era politely ignored. The hook is a   racial mystery . A young black man is found dead in Tokyo, and the investigation uncovers a web of secrets that trace back to both wartime trauma and Japan’s uneasy relationship with America. Where most cross-cultural crime films treat race as window dressing, this one...

Before the MCU there was the SKU: the Stephen King Universe.  A playfully interconnected series of stories and characters that crossed over as cameos, easter eggs and full-blown sequels to King’s novels and short fiction.  Almost all of King’s work was set in Maine, so it only made sense that these supernatural events bled into one another.  What made it even more fun was that the author  himself  was steering the ship, not some corporate entity out to milk his brand for all it was worth.  Unfortunately, that’s the feeling you get from  Creepshow 2  (1987), a legit follow-up with a script from George Romero based on King’s handpicked stories but lacking budget, fun and creativity of the original. A near perfect highlight reel of Stephen King's storytelling skills and Romero's homegrown horror approach, the original  Creepshow  (1982) was definitely a hard act to follow.  Perhaps that why both men pulled back...

With its Wonka-style production design and colorfully clad alien life forms, Irwin Allen’s TV Show  Lost in Space  was like crack for kindergartners. Meaning there was plenty of material there to kickstart New Line’s  big screen reboot in 1998, featuring a new cast of Robinsons (and one ex- Friend ) sent hurtling through the galaxy in a cosmic game of connect the dots.  Only this time instead of a mission to explore strange new worlds - which is what most fans really wanted – audiences got a family therapy session interrupted by metal-mouthed spiders. John Robinson (William Hurt) and family are on a mission to Alpha Centauri to build a “Hypergate” that will open up migration from a dangerously polluted Earth. But after sabotage by Doctor Smith (Gary Oldman)  everyone  aboard the Jupiter 2 is now lost in a strange star system that, mysteriously, contains one of their own ships. Director Stephen Hopkins ( Predator 2 ,  The Ghost and the Darknes...

A different sort of biker flick,   His Motorbike, Her Island   (1986) is a soft-hearted coming-of-age story from director Nobuhiko Obayashi—better known for the surreal cult classic   House .  And while there’s a similar playfulness of style, this film embraces its innocence with open arms, existing in a sort of foggy nostalgia of broken hearts, first love, and the freedom of the open road. Ko (Riki Takeuchi) is a music student whose love affair with his Kawasaki is all-consuming. But after meeting Miyo (Kiwako Harada), a free-spirited island girl who shares his passion, a touch-and-go relationship develops that plays out like a fleeting dream. As the couple drifts in and out of each other’s lives, Miyo’s sense of adventure surpasses Ko’s own, leaving him clinging to a relationship in which he’ll always come in second place. Mixing aspect ratios, jump cuts, and sudden shifts into black-and-white, Obayashi constantly experiments to keep the eye engaged. Even his “road...

While his claim to fame in the modern martial arts world will always likely be introducing Bruce Lee to American audiences in   The Big Boss , director Lo Wei had been staging   lop-sided   battles for Shaw Brothers a full decade earlier. In the thick of the wuxia craze, swordplay was still king, and fantastic elements combined with stunning fight choreography to create uniquely stylized historical brawls.   Martial Law: Lo Wei’s Wuxia World   is a pretty   self-explanatory   collection of three of the director’s films for the studio before he jumped ship to Golden Harvest and kickstarted   a   streetfighting revolution. Less poetic but more humanistic than his contemporaries, Lo Wei’s   films   rarely   pitted foes against each other   without a good bit of backstory—meaning he took his time to make sure each battle had something worth fighting for.   The Black Butterfly   (1968) is the most lighthearted of the ...

Last week on   Shinobi … No, seriously—fans might need a quick recap to catch up with all the political intrigue on display in Radiance’s latest   Shinobi   box set, which collects the next three films in the   Shinobi No Mono   series:   Siege   (1964),   Return of Mist Saizo (1964), and   The Last Iga Spy   (1965). For those who haven’t taken a college-level class in Japanese history, allow me to summarize ( throat clearing ). Japan’s three great “unifiers” were anything but benevolent rulers; their bid to create a nation out   of   the warring domains was simply a power grab that kept political chaos in check through discipline, taxation, and strict intimidation. The   Shinobi   series weaves its own story within this existing timeline, inserting pajama-clad assassins who always seem to be on the right side of history. The first film up— Siege —really has it all, as SNL’s Stefon might say: throwing stars, smoke bom...

Perhaps more than any other medium, film excels at manipulating reality—either enhancing it or deconstructing it. The latest releases from Radiance illustrate this cinematic trick at both ends of the spectrum. Rosa la rose: fille publique   (1986) is a red-light district fairy tale set in France, where we meet Rose (Marianne Basler), a prostitute whose radiant looks and gentle approach leave little business for her co-workers. But her dreamworld shatters when she falls for a working-class client who wants more than pleasure… he wants love. Director Paul Vecchiali’s film inhabits the space between Hollywood fantasy and gritty urban reality, never straying too far from either. Its pimps and prostitutes form a supportive family where business feels almost incidental. Its innocent approach to sexuality embraces a playful sense of intimacy—no matter how many participants are involved. Jean Sorel lends prestige as the brothel’s ringmaster, but Vecchiali’s camera is captivated by Basler a...

What exactly is the  purpose  of a horror film?  To scare…to disturb…to disgust?  Whatever your poison, Tobe Hooper’s  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre  (1974) probably scratched that itch.  And despite birthing a franchise cluttered with sequels, satires and cash-grabs, there’s still no touching the original.  So it’s surprising to admit that 2003’s remake – simply retitled  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre  – has moments that achieve that same sense of soul-curdling dread despite being shot by a music video veteran and stealing its cast from the CW. On their way back from a weed shopping spree in Mexico, Erin (Jessica Biel) and her friends stop to help a woman on the side of the road. The detour leads them to a ramshackle farm where they wait for Sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey) to arrive.  But Hoyt and his extended family have a way of dealing with strangers who sniff around their property.   Part of the appea...

Irwin Allen’s all-star disaster epics were the  original  event movies.  With a cast made up of one or two A-list names and as many character actors as you could fit on a movie poster, these were three-hour (or even  longer on TV) parades of melodramatic destruction full of sinking ships, towering infernos and really pissed off bees.  2006’s  Poseidon  goes all-in for the glorious upside-down chaos, but can’t quite recapture the overblown kitschy-ness that made those ‘70s sagas so memorable in the first place. Capsized by a rogue wave on New Year’s Eve, the cruise ship Poseidon turns into a maze of flooded corridors and flash fires.   A small group of survivors led by the ex-mayor of New York (Kurt Russell) and an ex-naval officer (Josh Lucas) work their way to the bottom - now  top  - of the luxury liner in hope of rescue.   That’s really all there is to it.  With a running time that barely crosse...