Movieline Online

Three years after the massacre at Westworld, the most advanced amusement park in the world is set to re-open with a splashy new attraction. But is history doomed to repeat itself?   Futureworld (1976) stars Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner (Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom) as a pair of Woodward and Bernstein-type reporters invited to the grand re-opening to ensure that the facility is safe and trouble-free – much like Sam Neill and company in the first Jurassic Park . Only instead of rampaging dinosaurs, our heroes uncover a robotic conspiracy to replace all the world’s leaders in a bid for global domination. Or something to that effect. Actually, the motives behind Delos, the company in question, are a little vague. They have the technology to create perfect human replicas this time around, not just robotic gunslingers and sex slaves; an improvement upon the android assembly lines in Michael Crichton’s original Westworld (1973). But the sequel drops much of the satirical edge in favor of a ...

Director Peter Jackson describes The Frighteners as his “transition” film; namely because it falls between his early New Zealand horror imports and the worldwide phenomenon of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And that’s a pretty accurate appraisal of his first studio effort. For despite attracting a big-time star (Michael J. Fox) and major Hollywood involvement (producer Robert Zemeckis), The Frighteners is a movie that heads off in so many different directions it ends up nearly pulling itself apart at the seams. That’s not to say that the individual story strands are uninteresting. The film’s teenage serial killers (Dee Wallace Stone and the uber-creepy Jake Busey) are a continuation of the themes explored in Heavenly Creatures, albeit this time from beyond the grave. And lead character Frank Bannister (Fox), a supernatural con man who teams up with a trio of ghosts, represents the sort of high concept comedic riff Zemeckis is famous for. But layered atop one another, the tone o...

You don’t always need to have the best house on the street. Sometimes just being in the neighborhood is close enough. Which is exactly the case with Graduation Day (1981), a harmless slasher released during the genre’s heyday that can’t quite compete with the big-name franchises, but delivers a highlight reel of the decade’s music, fashion and embarrassing trends. Even if you didn’t live through the ‘80s, now you can watch people die during them! After the accidental death of a star sprinter, the track and field athletes at Midvale High are being picked off one by one in mysterious retribution. Is it the victim’s sister, a bitter but beautiful Navy officer? The principal, a high-strung administrator? Maybe the head coach, a ruthless taskmaster? Or could it be one of the athletes themselves decked out in a pair of black leather gloves doing the deed? There’s a giallo -esque approach to the script, but the actual movie is much more straightforward, staging a handful of entertai...

Every year a new batch of students emerges from the educational system with a choice to make: how do I live my life? It’s not the economics that are in question – although that’s a major priority. It’s the moral and ethical implications that are the tricky part. Mike Nichols’ The Graduate might still be the pinnacle of American post-collegiate angst, but Mauro Bolognini’s Corruption (1963) takes on the same philosophical argument with an even greater spiritual crisis at stake. Jacques Perrin plays Stefano, the sensitive son of a powerful Milanese publisher who has returned from school with an unexpected plan to enter the priesthood. His father Leonardo (Alain Cuny) has other ideas…and a perverse plan to change his son’s mind. A Mediterranean yacht trip with Leonardo’s beautiful mistress Adriana (Rosanna Schiaffino) is designed to loosen Stefano’s moral resolve, but the young man soon discovers that even off the boat the world has little use for spiritual guidance. Bolognini give...

The hypocritical lothario is a common enough character in commedia all’italiana . Egotistical husbands who justified their own sidepiece but resented a wife enjoying the same extra-marital activities have been played for laughs in Italian cinema since the ‘50s. But by 1964, the tide was turning in the battle of the sexes. Director Antonio Pietrangeli’s The Magnificent Cuckold still had a sense of humor, but there was a new threat of creeping modernity quietly insinuating that the alpha male was an endangered species. Like his family hat business that is slowly going out of style, Andrea (Ugo Tognazzi) lives a bourgeois existence built around three-martini lunches, dinner parties and casual affairs. Even the wives of his business associates participate in the gossip-fueled social circle of complicated hotel room rendezvous. But not Maria Grazia (Claudia Cardinale); Andrea’s better half is a virginal ideal of fidelity. Her spotless reputation is his greatest status symbol…right up...

On the short list of badass fantasy weapons, the “flying guillotine” has to be in the top three (for your consideration, I propose the glaive from Krull and tri-blade from The Sword and the Sorcerer to round out the list). Not familiar with this particular Hong Kong accessory? Well, there are several varieties but the one used in 1977’s Fatal Flying Guillotine looks like a dinner bell with rotating blades welded to the bottom. It’s about as aerodynamic as a city bus, but cinematically effective nevertheless, providing plenty of head-lopping action in this Taiwanese take on the short-lived guillotine trend. Carter Wong (Big Trouble in Little China) plays Shen Ping, a righteous fighter who petitions some Shaolin monks for a rare medicinal book that can save his sick mother. Unfortunately, the Valley of No Return’s resident nutjob Shen Mo Chao has his own designs on the thing—and an alarming habit of answering every minor disagreement by launching his twin guillotines. A fake book...

Few of life’s simple pleasures could compete with “two-for-one” video-rental night back in the ‘80s. Instead of choosing a reliable Hollywood blockbuster you could scoop up some tantalizing B-movies with interesting cover art and walk away knowing it only cost 99-cents anyway. How bad could they really be? The answer: pretty damn bad. But somehow masochistically enjoyable. Let’s reenact the scene with a pair of modern B-movies desperate for a blind-buy in the Walmart bargain bin: the Chinese sci-fi action-copycat Mutant Genesis (2026) and horror festival also-ran The Behemoth  (2025). In the former, the last dregs of humanity struggle against a conquering robot army after an AI apocalypse. Director Qilin Li’s video game cutscene epic mixes some not-bad acting with sketchy CGI Terminators. Their only real threat is reluctant warrior, An Xin, who is half machine herself. Loaded with blatant references to The Matrix , Star Wars and even Resident Evil , there’s no originality ...

Let’s face it, women are way more interesting cinematically than men. There’s an internal dialogue and range of emotions that makes for complex, layered storytelling . Meanwhile, guys are firing guns in slow-motion and daydreaming about ancient Rome. I might be exaggerating for effect…but not by much. Which is why when women finally get a chance to lay their cards on the table, as in 1961’s Ten Women in Black , you can count on them to bring up the subjects everyone else is avoiding. Kaze Futaba is a serial philanderer with a wife and at least ten mistresses that he can recall. The women are all well aware of each other’s existence and their pecking order in his casual affairs. So they playfully agree to have him killed so none of them have to share. But when one of their number pulls a fast one, Kaze might wind up facing a fate worse than death. Directed by Kon Ichikawa but written by his wife under her professional name, Natto Wada, Ten Women in Black is far too attuned to the...

The whole neo-noir ‘90s thing is almost as inexplicable as the depression-era film fixation of the ‘70s; there was just something in the water. But it wound up producing some interesting left-of-center titles like Bound, The Last Seduction and After Dark, My Sweet . Ironically, the film with the best pedigree of the bunch, The Hot Spot (1990), didn’t even burn a hole in the upholstery. Directed by Dennis Hopper and starring Don Johnson, this almost Lynchian bit of small-town debauchery deserves more recognition than just being known as “that movie where Jennifer Connelly appears topless.” Rolling into town in his vintage Studebaker, Harry Madox (Johnson) is an opportunist who stumbles onto an easy bank robbery job. But after burying the loot, he’s blackmailed by his boss’s wife, Dolly, (Virginia Madsen) to continue their sexual escapades. Harry stays out of jail, but his real interests lie in starting a new life with the virginal Gloria (Connelly), if he can only manage to get...